NEWS BRIEF: Gun violence is up all over the state — who gets the blame?

Kemp is part of the problem.

Guns For Jason015 from 2003 CL Photo File. No photo credit.
Photo credit: CL File
Data from the Department of Public Health revealed that violent deaths in five metropolitan Atlanta counties last year altogether registered 501 homicides, a third more than in 2019. About half of 2020’s homicides took place in Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett counties. The rest of Georgia had 556 killings, a 21 percent increase. Poverty, isolation, a broken mental health system, domestic violence, joblessness, drugs, gangs, a police shortage, and the preponderance of available weapons are all given as causes. Gov. Brian Kemp has skirted the issue of easy accessibility to guns and instead blames his opponents for being “soft on crime.” ajc.com