Firefighters pray at a memorial at Sandy Hook Elementary School - Source: REUTERS/Daily Kos Image Library
Some images speak for themselves. So do numbers.
The Guardian provides valuable data for the coming debate I want to share so Daily Kos members have the facts to back-up their arguments to make the case for reasonable and sane regulations.
Charts and links to the Guardian articles and source data are posted after the fold and please note The Guardian posts this data to the public domain for public use and encourages readers to use it.
First, here are the links to charts and data published by The Guardian in July 2012:
DATA GRAPHIC: The gun ownership and gun homicides murder map of the world (pub. 2012 July 22)
DATA CHART: Gun homicides and gun ownership listed by country (pub. 2012 July 22)
DATA SPREADSHEET: Direct link to download the spreadsheet (Google Docs)
Note the last link is to a spreadsheet on Google Docs and this XML data can be saved in Excel, Numbers or most other spreadsheet formats.
Regardless of where you stand on the issues, facts are important and this is what they show (screenshots of the interactive chart at the first link):
Chart 1 - Average firearms per 100 people by country
Firearms per 100 people by country - Source: The Guardian
Chart 2 - Homicide by firearm per 100,000 population by country
Homicide by firearm rate per 100,000 population - Source: The Guardian
Chart 3 - Percentage of homicides by firearm by country
% of homicide by firearms by country - Source: The Guardian
I have posted the above images to the Dkos Image Library for public use and they are already sized to be posted in diaries and comments (500 pixels wide). They are tagged
Guns, Gun Control, Firearms.
What do the numbers say?
Compare these charts. What they tell me is:
- The more firearms a country has the more deaths by firearms occur. Surprising? Opportunity facilitates use.
- Conflict regions where guns are available have proportionately higher rates and % of death by firearms. When people use firearms to settle disputes (personal or tribal) people get killed.
- Countries with fewer firearms have fewer deaths by firearms.
- In other words, there is a positive correlation between the availability of weapons and their use to kill people and other living things.
While the above might seem like common sense, these conclusions are hotly contested by gun ownership advocates who seem to trot out their own statistics to prove guns save lives more than they end them and so (logically) more guns make us more safe.
Do you buy that reasoning?
When I look at this data, I personally find such arguments to be false.
This information wants to be free and to be used. Please do it. Thank You.
Update: H/T to Glen The Plumber for adding this link to a study that shows the correlation of rising income inequality to increase in homicides. It's important to understand how economic and social factors that drive people to desperation create circumstances where violence escalates. There is much work to be done. Will Congress act?
Update 2: As Roadbed Guy notes in the comments, this data should be homicides only and not include suicides and accidents, which would put the figures substantially higher. All the more reason to put these laws under scrutiny and work to strengthen gun controls and ban high capacity automatic weapons.
I would also add that it has now been confirmed that most of the rounds fired were from a semi-automatic rifle with 30 round clips, the weapons were legally obtained (by shooter's Mother, who became a victim) and all of the victims suffered multiple wounds with up to 11 hits.
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