Americans feel like violence is everywhere. What if I told you crime is actually down?

Before the Apalachee High School shooting headlines faded, a 16-year-old shot a 15-year-old in a bathroom at Joppatowne High School in Maryland.

A man injured five people by shooting at cars on I-75 in Kentucky . An 18-year-old is dead and a 20-year-old is hanging on to his life following an early morning shooting outside a nightclub just up Nolensville Road in South Nashville.

We can’t make sense of American violence, but I didn’t realize how disconnected my perception of violent crime was from reality.

Like many Americans reading the news headlines, I assumed violent crime was increasing across the nation. What else could be the explanation as to why I hear about atrocities committed against innocent victims on what seems to be a daily basis?

According to the FBI’s year-over-year comparison of data for the first quarter of 2024, violent crime decreased by 15.2%. More specifically, “murder decreased by 26.4%, rape decreased by 25.7%, robbery decreased by 17.8%, and aggravated assault decreased by 12.5%.”

Come again?

The disconnect between reality and perception isn’t just happening to me. A 2023 Gallup poll found that 77% of Americans believed that crime was increasing across the country … in spite of that fact the sentiment was objectively false.

Americans don't remember statistics, but they remember sensational stories

So why is it that so many of us feel like violence is everywhere?

American newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst coined the phrase, “ If it bleeds, it leads ,” more than a century ago. The idea is as popular as ever.

From a biological perspective, we’re primed to pay attention to anything that ends someone else’s life. Since humans have been around, the ones who learn to avoid known hazards tend to live longer.

At the same time, we do become desensitized to crime around us. For Hearst’s maxim to hold true, only violence which is out of the ordinary can hold our attention over time. That squares with the realities I’ve observed in my own community.

I live in the suburbs of Nashville. Few of my neighbors could tell me how many homicides occurred in Nashville in 2023. For the record, the answer is 103 .

Most folks could tell you where they were when they heard about The Covenant School shooting , how many people died, and maybe even the name of the shooter.

The main reason for the acute focus on six particular homicides out of more than 100 is that it’s truly a shocking crime, it impacts children, and the media turned it into a focal point. We understand why rival gang members would shoot each other even if we would hope they wouldn’t. We comprehend a crime of passion where a wife shoots an adulterous husband and his lover.

We have no real answers as to why an individual would walk into a school and kill innocent children she had never met.

Trump exploited myth of increasing crime rates and did not get challenged at CPAC

Whether it’s someone randomly shooting at cars on the highway or someone shooting a kid in a school bathroom, the inexplicable acts of violence scare us the most. They stick in our minds because we can’t come up with foolproof ways to avoid them in the future.

Media organizations knows we’re going to keep ruminating on those crimes, so they feed the activity. We’re still talking about The Covenant School shooter's journal because the public genuinely hopes there’s something to learn from it.

Sometimes, there isn’t.

To make matters worse, our elected leaders regularly sensationalize violence for their own political benefit.

“Four years ago, I told you that if crooked Joe Biden got to the White House, our borders would be abolished, our middle class would be decimated and our communities would be plagued by bloodshed, chaos and violent crime,” former President and 2024 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said in a speech earlier this year at the Conservative Political Action Conference . “We were right about everything.”

Trump conveniently leaves out the part about violent crime being down materially.

To find common ground, we need to rely on, not reject, the facts

In response to the Apalachee High School shooting, Georgia Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock posted on X , “Until we center the people and start a serious, bipartisan conversation in Washington & state capitols across the country to advance popular, common sense gun safety reforms, the sad truth is it’s only a matter of time before this kind of tragedy comes knocking on your door,” he added.

Like other violent crimes, mass shootings are down sharply in 2024. Suggesting that “it’s only a matter of time” until a school shooting visits every American parent is nothing more than political fear mongering.

There’s nothing wrong with being vigilant about violent crime. We should indeed take steps to protect children at school, help teens with positive conflict resolution, and improve our nation’s flagging mental health.

We can and should have a political discussion about gun regulations.

We can’t do any of that effectively if we don’t understand the massive gulf that currently exists between our perceptions of criminal violence and reality.

USA TODAY Network Tennessee Columnist Cameron Smith is a Memphis-born, Brentwood-raised recovering political attorney who worked for conservative Republicans. He and his wife Justine are raising three boys in Nolensville, Tenn. Direct outrage or agreement to smith.david.cameron@gmail.com or @DCameronSmith on X, formerly known as Twitter. Agree or disagree? Send a letter to the editor to letters@tennessean.com .

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Americans feel like violence is everywhere. What if I told you crime is actually down?