(Originally published by Time on September 15, 2025.)

Last week, Charlie Kirk was shot and killed in Utah while answering a question about gun violence in America. Hours later, a Colorado high school was added to the nation’s grim tally of school shootings. Two tragedies collided in one day, forcing us to face an old truth of American life: America’s gun carnage is not the cost of freedom, but the product of political choices. 

The striking fact is that crime overall is falling. Murders spiked in the last year of the initial Trump Administration, but then plummeted, dropping 11.6% in 2023 and another 15.8% in 2024, the sharpest back-to-back declines on record.

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