In July 2012, The Guardian’s “Data Blog“ published an interactive map to visualize gun homicides and gun ownership listed by country. Data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Small Arms Survey were used to create this informatory example of data journalism:
How does the US really compare on firearms?
Key facts, as stated by The Guardian:
• The US has the highest gun ownership rate in the world – an average of 88 per 100 people. That puts it first in the world for gun ownership – and even the number two country, Yemen, has significantly fewer – 54.8 per 100 people
• But the US does not have the worst firearm murder rate – that prize belongs to Honduras, El Salvador and Jamaica. In fact, the US is number 28, with a rate of 2.97 per 100,000 people
• Puerto Rico tops the world’s table for firearms murders as a percentage of all homicides – 94.8%. It’s followed by Sierra Leone in Africa and Saint Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean
Even though the crime figures provided by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime do include most developed countries, there is no data about countries like China, Russia or Afghanistan.
The data clearly shows that the US has the highest gun ownership rate in the world, but it is important to mention that the countries with most guns don’t necessarily have the most gun-related homicides. A closer look at gun related violence places the United States somewhere near the mid-range. Still, there are far more cases of gun violence in America than in Canada, India, Australia and countries in Europe.
The publication of this map started an interesting and diversified discussion in the comment section of the Data Blog. Visit The Guardian to get a closer look at the data-set and let us know what you think about it!
There were 11,078 homicides by firearms in the U.S. (2010) and 358 of them were by rifle (that would include assault style weapons which are rifles), included in the total are 1939 in which the type of firearm used was unreported. Some of them are sure to be rifles and some of those are sure to be assult style rifles.
There were 33,808 deaths by automobile or 22,730 more than people murdered by guns. The U.S. ranks 1st in firearm ownership and 27th in deaths by firearms. Check the rank of other countries with the rate of gun ownership and I think you’ll be supprised. Want to limit high capacity magazines, OK but how about 300, 400, 500, horsepower readily available production cars.
I should think we need to ban automobiles. Sounds silly but that is the same reasoning used by those who want to limit, reduce, curtail, or ban firearm ownership to law abiding citizens.
Going a step further 70,000 people died last year in the U.S. because of air polution. 61% of air polution is caused by automobile emissions. That means (by extrapilation) there were an additional 42,000 deaths to attribute to the automobile bringing the total to 75,808. To add to the problem U.S transpotation accounts for 30% of U.S. global warming emissions (are you worried about the enviornment?).
The point of this exercise is the murder of people by any means is tragic. One is too many but lets work on the real cause which the government and much of the media have ignored…..and what are they you ask?
A welfare system which for the last 50+ years has destroyed the family by removing fathers in order to get government money. Want more money….have more kids. Remember whatever you subsidize you will get more of. In our case it’s illegitimacy, illiteracy, and crime.
Removing a fathers responsibility for his children. No daddys in the gehto.
Movies, music, video games that glorify and encourage violence to the extreme reducing taking human life to cartoon like imagery.
My name is Rick and I don’t care if you own a gun or a fast car. I spent two years in the infantry(66-68) and twenty two years a cop in Chicago. I have seen more violence and death than most of you have had hot meals. I would like to get past the partisan politics and solve the problem(s). I do not belong to the NRA or the VFW both probably fine organizations.
What do you think?
Posted by Rick | February 13, 2013, 5:48 pmRick, first of all, thank you for your well-argumented response and thank you for your service to this country! We definitely agree that other explanations for the violence level in the US deserve more attention. Right now the media gives the gun control debate a disproportional amount of attention, especially if you take the statistics into account that you mentioned. On top of that they don’t even do a good job covering this issue (in our opinion) because they are polarizing the debate. This is also the main reason why we started this blog, to provide people with more comprehensive information on this topic.
The number of automobile deaths really surprised us. We do, however, believe that the comparison you draw is not a perfect fit for this situation. Driving is actually one of the most regulated activities in our country. Think about it, you can’t drive without a license, you can’t drive without a seat belt on, you can’t drive while drinking alcohol, and you can’t drive faster than the speed limit. Without these restrictions, the number of traffic deaths would probably be even higher. We do agree that there is no reason to have a car that has 500 horsepower, except for maybe on the race track.
Of course there are many people who want to ban guns altogether, and for them, the car metaphor actually works pretty well. However, when it comes to restrictions, automobiles might not be right example. By the way, this does not mean that we agree or disagree with the restrictions proposed by President Obama, we just think that this might not be the best comparison.
It is true that assault style weapons account for a small part of the gun deaths. It is therefore remarkable that assault weapons receive so much attention. It probably has to do with the fact that Adam Lanza used an assault style weapon. But whatever your opinion is about these type of weapons, they do make it easy for someone to shoot a lot of people. Is that a reason to ban them? We don’t know.
If we may ask, do you own an assault rifle? And if so, where do you use it for? We have heard that some people use them for hunting, but not everybody seems to agree on its usefulness for this activity.
We also wonder what you think of the proposal President Obama has made (we summed them up in one of our earlier blog posts: http://uscrossfire.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/what-the-debate-is-really-about/). Which plans do you disagree with, and maybe more importantly, which plans do you support? It would be great if we, as a country, could look past our differences and focus on making America an even better place to live.
Posted by uscrossfire | February 13, 2013, 10:10 pmThanks for the reply. I don’t think I made my point clear (enough).
Firearms have one purpose. To Kill. They are not very regulated other than you can not own a fully automatic weapon without a federal stamp and most states but not all require they be registered. That is a state’s right and not the federal governments. The automobile’s purpose is transport; to work, to school, to the store, to the beauty parlor ect ect you get it. It is highly regulated with thousands of laws, ordinances, and requirements and yet we recorded 33,000 auto fatalities (the lowest in fifty years) opposed to 11,000 homicides (murders) by deadly firearms. The state of Illinois no longer calls them accidents. Rather they are classified as traffic crashes because in truth most are caused by drivers actions contrary to safe vehicle operation. Six thousand deaths attributed to texting while driving, ban cell phones. Add in the collateral damage, death by air pollution and the end of life by global warming, and the picture is very grim.
Yet if someone were to suggest a ban on cars it would be thought obsurd.
Violence in this country is cuased by the socialization process in our society, especially in the communities most effected by that violence and that is my point. Young men killing each other is acceptable in those communities. As a cop I knew the shooters were known to dozens in the communoty within twenty four hours of the shooting. It seems the conversation is not about the real cause rather it’s about those darn old guns (very sexy to the media).
My suggestion is to look at the real cause and do the hard work to stop the waste this violence is causing.
To answer your question I do not own a rifle of any sort but I do own four pistols of various purpose for my work. I do not shoot for fun or sport and I don’t hunt. I will defend myself and you from harm if the need arises.
Rick
Posted by Rick | February 15, 2013, 5:06 pm