Federal weapons convictions hit record high levels under the Biden administration in 2022, according to Justice Department data.
President Joe Biden has said that reducing gun violence is a priority for his administration, but his efforts have been resisted by Republicans who advocate for fewer restrictions, which is likely to make the issue one of the central debates in the 2024 election.
The judicial district with the highest rates of criminal convictions for weapons was the Eastern District of Missouri, at 60.58 convictions per million people.
The subsequent highest were Tennessee West (Memphis), New Mexico, the Southern District of Alabama (Mobile), and the Northern District of Iowa (Cedar Rapids). These rates were 49.95, 39.23, 37.18, and 33 respectively.
Perhaps surprisingly, most convictions of this nature were not concentrated around districts with sizeable urban areas. In fact, large metropolitan districts ranked rather low. New York South (Manhattan) ranked 80th, California Central (Los Angeles) 83rd, and New York East (Brooklyn) ranked 85th.
