Poverty, education, inequality, institutional problems are much more likely to be correlated with crime, so it's not exactly that surprising. Now of course the problem is that what should the states/regions/counties/cities do that have gun violence. Eg. if I remember correctly Chicago/Illinois tried various forms of gun control, but it made an impact next to nothing because it was pretty easy to just get guns from out of city/state.

My state is one of the poorer states and worst educated states in America.