Most of the correlation factors that they found across states were not surprising. This particular item is what most people found interesting:
Firearm-related deaths were positively associated with states that voted for McCain (.66) and negatively associated with states that voted for Obama (-.66). … Partisan affiliations alone cannot explain them; most likely they stem from two broader, underlying factors – the economic and employment makeup of the states and their policies toward guns and gun ownership.
via The Geography of Gun Deaths – Richard Florida – National – The Atlantic
Along with the initial wave of mass finger pointing, I’ve seen some interesting and well thought out discussion about mental health, gun control, the power of words, and community after the shootings in Tucson. It remains to be seen if this will translate into real actions and long lasting change.
It would be a national shame if we did not learn significant lessons from this tragedy. We should expect those in government leadership, those that are seeking for it, and every day average citizens to be better tomorrow than they were yesterday.
6 replies on “The Geography of Gun Deaths”
The numbers “studied” by The Atlantic could be made to look anyway. Do they include police killings, justified and not? Black on black crime of the inner cities? The fact is that more responsible gun owners reduces crime. More criminals with guns increase it.
It doesn’t take a genius to realize that the Arizona murderer was mentally unstable, all one has to do is look at his videos and interviews with his classmates. No one, including teachers, classmates, law enforcements and more specially his parents, had the guts to take the next step and have him medically diagnosed. You can say it was another unintended consequence of “tolerance” gone wild.
A few days ago, during a televised town hall meeting, one of the shooting victims took a photo of a local representative of the Tea Party and told him “You’re dead!” for which he was arrested and submitted to a mental evaluation. That piece of news has not been promoted in the mainstream media because it doesn’t fit the template being pushed by the likes of The Atlantic, who choose to blame the heated political climate.
Political debate, as vitriolic as it can become, has been part of American politics since the founding. To attempt to remove it, in hopes of silencing dissent, is unpatriotic and unconstitutional.
It is irritating that there are no reference links for their data in the article. The statement in the article indicates that they didn’t not remove stats based on a particular category, but choose to include them all.
I did a quick Google search for the “You’re dead” threat you mentioned, where you looking for mainstream coverage from the likes of MSNBC? http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41094534/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/
I don’t find anything wrong with spirited debate. Beyond that, I even encourage that. I’m not sure where you are going with the “in hopes of silencing dissent, is unpatriotic and unconstitutional.” line.
Using tragedies like the one in Tucson to justify asking people to be less confrontational when expressing their political views is an attempt at shutting dissent, even when there is no evidence of it affecting the shooter’s mind.
I’m still not sure where you got the impression that my hope was to suppress the views of those that don’t agree with me 100% on every topic.
We can’t got back in time and undo horrible events like the shootings in Tucson, the best we can do learn from it and figure out how to grow and be better afterwards.
Sorry for not being clear. I never thought you were suppressing any views. I’m referring to author of that piece you referenced in The Atlantic and people in the media who use the same illogical associations to point the finger before the facts are in.
I didn’t get a sense from the article that they were looking to squash the voice of people they disagreed with.
That said, The Atlantic is not a publication that I regularly read (came across this article because someone else linked to it) and I don’t recall reading anything else by Richard Florida, so I don’t know enough about either to determine if that have a trend of particular party politics one way or the other.