President Donald Trump took credit for the United States’ historically low murder rate — however, leading crime specialists argue that the factors contributing to the decline began before Trump’s current second term.
“The answer is, we don’t know,” stated Jeff Asher, a crime statistician associated with the Real-Time Crime Index, during a recent panel discussed in areport from the gun violence magazine The Trace. The Real-Time Crime Index gathers information from hundreds of police reports across the United States to precisely track crime trends. Based on his analysis, Asher found that the decline in crime occurred before Trump’s second term.
We observed a significant decrease in murders in 2023, 2024, and once more in 2025,” Asher explained. “Therefore, the causes likely originated from events that took place between 2021 and 2022.
This does not imply that Trump was completely wrong when he claimed, during his 2026 State of the Union address, that “last year saw the largest single drop in the murder rate in recorded history.” A January report from the nonpartisan research organization the Council on Criminal Justice suggested that the homicide rate in 2025 could have been the lowest since 1900. However, as Trace noted, “the majority of these homicides — approximately 75 percent — were related to guns, which rose sharply in 2020 during Trump’s first term and kept increasing through 2021, before starting a slow and steady decrease throughout the rest of Biden’s presidency.”
Certainly, Asher noted during the previous panel that Trump’s main claim about lowering crime can be clearly understood in the context of the years before his second term.
I sent our National Guard and federal law enforcement to bring back law and order in our most troubled cities, such as Memphis, Tennessee, which was a major success; New Orleans, Louisiana, also a major success; and our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C., where there is now almost no crime,” Trump stated during the State of the Union. “How did that happen?
Asher mentioned during the discussion that “in D.C., there has been a significant decrease in crime from mid-2023 to the summer of 2025, maintaining at the same level. Perhaps there were a few weeks with reduced gun violence,” which he attributed to Trump’s deployment of the National Guard, “but it’s challenging to distinguish this impact given two consecutive years of substantial declines in gun violence.”
Trump has previously recognized that addressing gun violence is essential for reducing crime — however, when he openly expresses this view, he encounters resistance from the pro-gun members within his Republican Party’s base.
For instance, Trump faced strong criticism whenJudge Jeanine Pirro spoke to Fox NewsEarlier this month, he stated, “If you bring a gun into the District, take my word for it, you’re going to jail. I don’t care if you have a permit from another area, and I don’t care if you’re a responsible gun owner elsewhere. If you bring a gun into this District, expect to go to jail, and hope you get the gun back, and that makes all the difference.” A pro-Trump congressman, U.S. Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL), told Pirro, “Come and Take It.” He then added, “I bring a gun into the district every week. I have permits in Florida and DC to carry. And I will keep carrying to protect myself and others.”
Trump himself has occasionally shown support for more stringent gun control measures. After Minnesota intensive care nurseAlex Pretti was killed by border patrol officers.During a demonstration, Trump stated, “you can’t have guns. You can’t enter with guns” while protesting near federal agents. Trump encountered considerable backlash from the MAGA movement regarding these comments, although the National Rifle Association (NRA), America’s primary pro-gun organization, has seen a decline in influence since a fifth of its members left between 2019 and 2022 following allegations that former leader Wayne LaPierre misused NRA funds.
Some believe the pro-gun movement is becoming less influential due to the NRA’s reduced prominence.Yet in January, when Trump-nominated US Attorney Bill Essayli stated that federal agents would be “legally justified in shooting” someone who approached them while carrying a weapon, certified firearms instructor Stephen Gutowski contended in an MS NOW opinion piece that the Trump administration’s “systematic messages” have “already provoked opposition from some of Trump’s most ardent supporters: gun rights advocates.” The NRA itself posted on social media that Essayli’s remarks were “dangerous and incorrect,” noting that “responsible public figures should be waiting for a complete investigation, not making broad statements and vilifying law-abiding citizens.”
During his first term, Trump yielded when faced with the NRA., although on those occasions LaPierre remained in control of the organization. In 2018, Trump addressed a White House meeting with America’s governors, stating his support for “eliminating” bump stocks and enhancing background checks.
It doesn’t seem logical that you must wait until you are 21 to obtain a pistol, yet someone can acquire a weapon like the one this individual used at the school at 18,” Trump said to Fox News at that time. “I mean, that doesn’t make sense, and honestly, I conveyed that to the NRA.
Trump later retracted these comments and did not advocate for such regulations.Research articles about firearm regulation(as compiled by the RAND Corporation, a non-profit international policy research organization) identified a link between reduced crime rates and regulations such as mandatory waiting periods, laws preventing children from accessing firearms, forcibly taking guns away from individuals who are legally barred from owning them, and prohibiting those with domestic violence convictions from possessing firearms. Mandatory waiting periods, minimum age limits, and child-access prevention laws were also associated with decreases in suicide rates.
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