Rural states in the American South and West recorded some of the nation’s highest violent crime and homicide rates in 2024, according to FBI data analyzed by Axios.

Much of this violence is concentrated in small towns, which Axios concluded puts a complicating twist on the political narrative around crime as President Donald Trump threatens to deploy the National Guard to Democrat-led cities.

Trump has already sent troops to Washington, D.C., and warned of sending them to Chicago, Oakland, and Baltimore. The Axios analysis shows that many rural, Republican-led states face even higher crime rates than these cities.

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