A study released April 20 by the Brennan Center for Justice shows that the murder rate jumped 13.3 percent in America’s biggest cities during 2015.

Three Democrat-run, heavily gun-controlled cities–Baltimore, Chicago, and Washington DC–“account for more than half” of the murder increase, the report admits.

The study claims that the murder increase in these cities is driven by local factors rather than national trends. The Brennan Center put it thus:

These serious increases seem to be localized, rather than part of a national pandemic, suggesting that community conditions remain the major factor. Notably, these three cities all seem to have falling populations, higher poverty rates, and higher unemployment than the national average. This implies that economic deterioration of these cities could be a contributor to murder increases.

Again, the three cities in view–which by themselves constitute more than half the increase in murders for 2015–are run by Democrats and have been run by Democrats for decades. And another shared trait between these cities is the fact that they are heavily gun-controlled.

For example, Baltimore has an “assault weapons” ban–as does the entire state of Maryland–and Chicago and DC both have “assault weapons” bans.

Chicago has a “violence tax” that raises the price of every gun sold at retail in the city, and DC has a registration program which is broken down into six steps and requires more than a full page of explanation from the Metropolitan Police Department. The steps include multiple paragraph explanations for satisfying gun safety requirements, certifying that you are not legally blind, and paying a total of $94 to the DC Treasurer, none of which will impact or hinder criminals in the least.

So the gun control in all three cities continue, even though the extra murders there were so high in 2015 that they represent more than half the overall increase in murders in the U.S.

The Baltimore Sun reported 344 homicides in Baltimore during 2015, the Chicago Tribune reported 488 homicides in Chicago, and the MPD reported 162 homicides in DC–which was a 54 percent jump over D.C. homicides in 2014.

AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.