“If it bleeds, it leads,” appears to be the governing philosophy of the nightly news shows, but in reality, America is the safest it’s been in decades. Bryan Walsh reports for Vox on America achieving its lowest murder rate in 70 years, writing:
A few things are certain in life: death, taxes, LeBron James playing professional basketball — and Americans’ belief that crime is getting worse. Since Gallup began asking about national crime in 1989, a majority of respondents said they thought crime in the US was higher than the year before in every survey year except 2000, 2001, and 2025. Even in that last year, 49 percent still said more crime was happening. It’s perhaps the archetypal example of negativity bias, the mental habit of giving more weight to bad news than good.
Last week, the FBI put some numbers on just how big that bias is. The American murder rate — which peaked in 1980 at 10.2 per 100,000 — fell to an estimated 4.1 per 100,000 people in 2025, matching the rates recorded in 1955 and 1956 for the lowest ever measured in the country. The violent crime rate (murder, rape, robbery and aggravated assault) fell 9.7 percent, the largest single drop since J. Edgar Hoover was running the bureau in 1936.
Action Line: Everyone wants safe neighborhoods for their children and families. Putting criminals behind bars and keeping them there is the best way to do that. Americans can no longer afford to elect politicians who treat criminals as though they were the victims. Click here to subscribe to my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter.
