Maybe not a great example (not sure the exact argument you're going for) given the murder rate in Baltimore is about 55 and the rate in Wyoming is about 1. I also question if socioeconomic factors are really that similar between the two. A better comparison might be city rates vs the state rate for the stare they are in, like Baltimore at 55 vs MD at 9 (even better if you could exclude Baltimore from the MD stats).
Does it obscure that fact? Maybe those facts are the underlying reason for some of the other ills.
> Given that murders occur where there are more people (cities), I don't find these findings that surprising.
This makes little sense as the places with more density are more likely to vote Democratic. Yet, this data shows us that (some) more rural states have higher murder rates.
All these states also have democrats in their state legislature. If we wanted to play this political game most the murders would be come from democrat areas which are the larger population centers aka cities.
I could flip this and point to more burglary per capita in rural areas which tend to be republican areas. Yet for this example its not because they are republicans, but in rural areas you tend have more unattended buildings.
Crime varies a lot based off location. Lets not try to politize these things.