(courtesy top-criminal-justice-schools.net)

As a math-challenged gun writer, I love me some info-graphics. That’s true even when the stats are provided by an anti-gun group like top-criminal-justice-schools.net, who couldn’t resist chiding pro-gun folk with a picture of a 1911 in their gun death stat info-graphic. And proclaiming that “U.S. gun deaths are off the chart” – at the top of their charts. Anyway, it seems clear that moving to a farm is the best way to decrease your odds of buying the farm via gun homicide. Saying that, rural communities have more firearms-related suicides per head of population than urban areas. Anyway, your odds of dying in a hail of bullets are a LOT lower than dying from any number of hideously debilitating diseases. How great is that?

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48 COMMENTS

  1. “Whatever the solution, that’s a lot of violence.” Actually, since they only give percentages and not actual figures to give those percentages context, we have no idea if that’s “a lot of violence” or not. They hoped to find stats that supported their position, and failing that they opted to make a colorful graphic and hope it persuaded someone.

    • And I can’t figure out the comparison with gun, poison, arson on the right. It’s beyond meaningless. The only thing I can think of is that they’re trying to implant the idea that guns are just as bad as arson.

      • “Percentage of homicides per region by” and it lists “Gun”, “Poison” and “Arson” but again, no context, no citations, no nothing. If you add these percentages under any of the three they all of course add to round about 90% or so. Where is the remaining 10% anyway? And again, in what context is this? These figures are ridiculous. Let’s carry on with the ridiculousness and sum up the point of this infographic:

        100% OF PEOPLE IN AMERICA KILLED WITH A FIREARM WERE KILLED WITH A FIREARM. HOT DIGGITY DOOGLE BOOGIE DAMN THAT IS A LOT OF VIOLENCE.

        Or

        TWO PLUS TWO EQUALS FOUR. WHATEVER THE SOLUTION, THAT IS A LOT OF NUMBERS.

        Stats only work for the anti-gun crowd when they are removed from context or falsified. They can barely even get any stats to work for them by misconstruing or misrepresenting their figures that they just have to resort to this.

      • Notice they don’t include any comparisons against murder by blunt objects/fists/feet or knives. Why? …because they would be off the chart!

  2. A weirdly elongated 1911 at that.

    I’m surprised that small cities are safer than suburbs. I really thought it would be a straight function of population density. Then again, maybe it is, as suburbs can sprawl for quite a large area and rack up a lot of crime stats through sheer area covered.

    In other words, an utter meaningless collection of numbers with no real valuable information contained. Yup, sounds like anti-speak.

    • Suburbs are closer to big cities. Mt. Vernon, NY is a “suburb” yet parts of it might as well be the South Bronx.

      • Gary Indiana is a favorite target that the anti’s try to use. It’s essentially an extension of Chicago but without the police resources of that city. They conclude of course that Chicago has lower crime and murder because of gun laws…

  3. It’s interesting that gang violence is very high in the big cities in proportion to the small cities and suburban areas, yet workplace violence is relatively low there. But they screwed up, of course – for much of that gang violence IS “workplace” violence, if you stop to consider that their workplace is the street corner and the bidness is selling drugs and sex. So the graphic is certainly flawed from that perspective.

  4. That graphic seems meaningless to me. Its appears to be using straight percentages with out acknowledging the population distribution in the U.S. – most people live in large urban areas, followed by suburbs, and then rural/small-small town.

    What is the distribution of each crime category based on population rates? Its probably closer to even. There are also fairly significant gaps in the total percentages – what other locations besides the 3 listed are crimes being committed…aircraft?

  5. Yeah, well, the country comes with its own set of risks, though smaller than murder. See: http://historylist.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/human-deaths-in-the-us-caused-by-animals/

    Average Number of Deaths per Year in the U.S

    Bee/Wasp 53
    Dogs 31
    Spider 6.5
    Rattlesnake 5.5
    Mountain lion 1
    Shark 1
    Alligator 0.3
    Bear 0.5
    Scorpion 0.5
    Centipede 0.5
    Elephant 0.25
    Wolf 0.1
    Horse 20
    Bull 3

    And of course boredom leading to suicide, not to mention starving because no place worth eating delivers. Just sayin’.

    • I think your missing the crappiness of this graphic. Knowing that 80% of the U.S. population lives in Uban areas, with over 60% living in urban areas of more than 200K, I’d say at first glance the country doesn’t look all that safe. In fact based on actual population distribution, the Suburbs appear to be much safer than either of the others.

  6. Meth heads and meth labs usually reside in the country, for whatever that’s worth.

    I live in a peaceful, rural community, but meth labs get busted up every so often around here and those are just the ones that get caught.

    Meth heads can be country folks too and drug addicts are an unpredictable and dangerous bunch, stay vigilant and armed up, no matter where you live.

  8. The CDC web site shows over a hundred categories a person can die. Gun deaths for children 14 and younger are near the bottom of the list; pretty interesting site.

  9. Am I missing something. I would expect the numbers in the upper right to add up to 100% or less in Large City, Small City and Suburb but if you add up the Large City you get more than 150% of the murders were either Gun, Arson or Poison. No wonder Large Cities are to be avoided.

    • That’s how I originally read it, too. I think they just have a really messed up way of trying to do the visual. What I think they are trying to say, for example, is that for all gun-related homicides 59.6% happen in suburbs, 28.3% happen in small cities, and 12.4% happen in small cities. The numbers are still whacked, and so is the conclusion. For one thing, no one knows how the define those three categories.

  10. So in a large city, 150.6% of people are killed by guns, poison and arson? Wow. I live in a metro are with over 1,000,000 people so I guess I’m doomed to die one-and-a-half deaths by gunfire.

    This chart makes no sense…

  11. What is a “small city” I guess they are using something like 50k that is NOT small.

    Story/graphics have nothing rural in it Rural is “can swing cat by tail and release and will not hit your property line (at a minimum). Mpre appropriately can fire shotgun without reaching the property line (+).

    My chance of suicide by firearm is ZERO. If every happens someone go discuss with the usual jackbooted suspects.

    • Well, Reno, NV is the “bittest little city” in the world (or something like that), so anything the size of Reno or smaller?

  13. So, from a purley visual-aide perspective, it looks like drugs and gangs are related to a lot of homocides.
    Here’s my shocked face :O

  14. Most of the big factors driving one’s risk of being a homicide victim are lifestyle related, only part of which is location. You can move to the country, but you may just be taking your poor and dangerous decisions with you.

  15. My town has about 3,000.
    Quiet little place. Usually don’t lock the car.
    Crime is pretty unusual here.
    Except for those thriving deer that eat my strawberries. One of these days….

  16. I disagree. Nothing beats a suburb with it’s own county sheriff deputy in his vehicle 3-minutes away 24/7, with a bridge as the only way in or out. And, everyone alarmed and armed. Predators go for a lot easier targets that us.

    About 18 years ago someone tried. On our home, I was away on business but the noise made by the perp woke my wife up around 2:00am. 911 call followed, was told to stand by the alarm system and to press the panic button if she needed to. The deputy was in our backyard within 2-minutes. The bridge was raised immediately. Helicopter followed, as well as K9 units. Needless to say the perp was caught and processed.

  18. Murders by: Blunt Objects/Fists & Feet ??
    Murders by: Knives ??

    Yeah, those numbers would make their hoplophobia look pretty stupid.

  19. The graph in the upper right makes no sense. How can Large Cities have 59.6% of their murders by gun, 53% by poison and 38% by arson. That’s 150.6%! Are they importing people to kill them?

  20. If U.S. gun deaths are off the chart, then what the heck is ON their “gun death” chart?

    Answer: Some truly breathtaking revelations. I could hardly believe that:
    — Cities have a lot more gang violence than small towns and the ‘burbs.
    — Most murders are felonies.
    — Sex and drugs are powerful motivators.
    — People sometimes argue violently.
    — Some people hate the people they work with enough to kill them.
    — Oh, hey, side note: People frequently kill each other without guns.
    — And…surprise…100% of gun deaths involve guns! And violence is violent!

    Thanks for the help, schop-jiminal-crustice-tools.net! I knows a lotta t’ings now!

  21. Right now I am in rural area with high risk of violence. Heck you could even say workplace violence is part of the job. Either way I can’t wait to get back to rural Georgia where it is both safe and gun friendly.

  22. Country safer? Not necessarily. a friend of mine lives in the country about 20 miles from the city where we work. The neighbor across the road just had his crackhead brother, who just got out of prison,come to live with him. Wednesday, my friend’s four dogs got out and came into the felon’s yard. So he shot all four then hauled off the bodies to cover the evidence.
    Now the family is wondering what’s next.
    I guess the moral is: always, always carry.

    • Tell you friend that works both ways, only NOT with dogs…Country living motto, “Shoot, Shovel, Shut up”…

  25. Out here in small town Texas, I wave at everybody, my neighbor asked me why did I do that if I don’t know them? I told him there might come a time I need to know them.

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