If Mississippi’s National Guard is truly needed to combat crime, there is more than enough for them to do in the soldiers’ home state.
That’s why Gov. Tate Reeves’ decision to contribute 200 of the state’s Guardsmen to the deployment in Washington, D.C., is more about publicity than public safety.
Last month, Reeves and the Republican governors of five other states dispatched Guard units to the nation’s capital in support of President Donald Trump’s decision to supplement local law enforcement efforts with more than 2,000 troops.
Parroting Trump’s exaggerated claims of lawlessness in Washington, Reeves said at the time of his deployment decision, “Crime is out of control there, and it’s clear something must be done to combat it.”
Mississippi is hardly one to be accusing any other state or city of having a crime problem. Statistically at least, Mississippi is just as dangerous a place as Washington.
According to the FBI statistics analyzed by Trace, a nonprofit newsroom that focuses on investigating gun violence in America, at least 17 Mississippi counties endured more gun homicides per capita than the nation’s capital in 2024. For the state as a whole, Mississippi’s homicide rate of 16.9 per 100,000 population was not far behind D.C.’s rate of 18.7 per 100,000. And while annual gun homicide rates fell by double-digit percentages last year in Washington, at least 31 of 82 Mississippi counties saw their rates increase, the Trace analysis found.
Admittedly, for the past several years, a lot of attention at the state level, including by Reeves, has been put on the crime problem in Jackson, which has had one of the highest homicide rates in the nation. The Mississippi Legislature, with the governor’s concurrence, has put state resources into trying to make Jackson a safer place to live and visit, notably by expanding the size and reach of the state-run Capitol Police force.
That extra attention and investment have been well-deserved, given that Jackson is the state’s largest city, its business hub and the seat of state government. Still, though, there are at least 16 other counties where Reeves has determined that local authorities can handle their higher-than-D.C. crime problems without additional state intervention.
Mississippi’s contribution of troops to the D.C. deployment, thankfully, will not cost the state any money. The federal government is responsible for picking up the entire tab for the White House-engineered crackdown. Still, the contradiction of Mississippi trying to fight crime elsewhere when it doesn’t have a handle on crime within its own borders is undeniable.
