Tuesday, July 16, 2019

Gun Violence Trends in US States


The USA has one of the highest levels of gun violence in the first world. Not only is the level of gun violence in America shockingly high the number of gun deaths is actually rising in nearly every state.

The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government has released an interactive map which allows you to explore the trends in gun violence in every U.S. state from 2001-2017. Exploring the data in the Gun Violence Dashboard it appears that of the 50 states the only ones that saw a downward trend in gun deaths from 2001-2017 were California, New York, Hawaii, Arizona and Connecticut. The District of Columbia also saw a decline in the number of gun deaths during that period. Every other state appears to have seen a rise in the levels of gun deaths per 100,000 people since 2011.

The Gun Violence Dashboard visualizes a number of different measures of gun violence by state and by year. Not only can you explore the state trends in total gun deaths you can also view the levels of gun homicide deaths and gun suicide deaths. In terms of the overall number of gun deaths per population Alaska ranks the highest of all states. The rate of gun deaths in Alaska is almost ten times as high as that of Hawaii, which has the lowest rate. Alabama, Montana, Louisiana and Mississippi are, after Alaska, the states with the next highest levels of gun deaths.

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