Gun violence in the rural U.S., especially in the red states, has been on the rise, matching or outpacing the level in urban areas, the Center for American Progress reported on Monday.

From 2016 to 2020, the two U.S. counties to experience the most gun homicides per capita were rural: Phillips County, Arkansas, with 55.45 age-adjusted homicides per 100,000 people, and Lowndes County, Alabama, with 48.36 age-adjusted homicides per 100,000 people.

During the same period, 13 of the 20 U.S. counties with the most gun homicides per capita were rural, and 80 percent of these 20 counties are in states that received an "F" grade for their weak gun laws, according to Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence's 2021 annual state scorecard rankings.

"Southern and Midwestern states, such as Arizona, Arkansas and Missouri, have drastically contributed to the more than 100-fold relative increase in gun homicide rates from 2014 to 2019," said the report.

Many of the Southern states where gun violence has spiked have weaker gun laws, according to Everytown for Gun Safety.

The report also showed that gun ownership rates among rural citizen are higher than they are in urban areas, which can lead to increased gun violence.

This is not new, as a Pew Research Center report published in June 2017 showed that 46 percent of adults who live in rural areas are gun owners, compared with only 19 percent of adults in urban areas and 28 percent of suburbanites.

In the end, the report urged the U.S. political leaders to show their constituents that their lives matter and push for more commonsense gun laws.

(With input from Xinhua)