Unwanted, of course. From a study by the Center for American Progress, here's a little map of gun violence in the United States by State:
I thought that it would be interesting to compare this with the
following, a map of how States voted in the last Presidential election.
Note that this map was issued before the idiots in Florida could count
their votes. Florida should be blue on this map:
I'll save you the trouble of counting. Every State in the top 20% of
gun violence, with the sole exception of New Mexico, voted Republican.
Exactly three Republican voting States were in the lowest 40%.
Of the 26 States that voted Democratic, 20 were in the lowest 40%, 6 were not.
Draw your own conclusions. While we are on the subject of maps, here is another interesting one I ran across a few days ago:
This is a map of how happy or angry people are in the various States, with green being the most happy and red the most angry.
I'm telling you, they don't call the South red states for nothing.
Hmmm ... roughly corresponds with slave states versus free states, and the United States versus Confederate States of 1860. Things haven't changed much in 150 years.
ReplyDelete"Draw your own conclusions."
ReplyDeleteWow. Hard to do without letting one's prejudices find strength in the data. I have no doubt that CAP has an interest in a particular conclusion however. Even so, the relationship between anger and certain kinds of crime looks pretty solid. But these are generalities and we need to ask a lot of questions if we're interested in understanding. Is the anger between rival gangs the same as the anger of people who feel victimized by the demands of what we see as progress and they don't? Are we angry because we can't afford a doctor or angry because we think we have to pay for someone elses? Maybe anger is more of a vector than a scalar?
You do really have to examine the sources of anger and I'm afraid you have to take living conditions like poverty and hopelessness and urban vs. rural culture into account, so I'm not confident in conclusions that seem obvious from these charts alone, interesting as they are.
The current locations of gang wars and drug distribution centers, plays a large and ever changing part and one has to look at what kind of violence we're talking about because there is a difference between domestic violence, street crime, etc. All with different etiologies. Miami used to be the murder capital and now it's Chicago. That's not about economics or economic opportunity or political conviction.
It's certainly not because of any gun control measures. It's about drugs.
I'd rather see the figures by county as there are vast differences when you get close to things. Chicago, for instance, which has the majority of murders in Illinois and about the highest in the nation, is quite different from rural and small town Illinois. Chicago is solidly Democratic and pro gun control while downstate is apoplectically red - with the exception of Springfield/Urbana (U of IL) perhaps. I'd like to see the data on a finer scale. But it's interesting, even though it's not definitive.
Northern MO Vs Southern KS? I don't think there's much difference but the map makes it seem so. I suggest the difference is in the urban vs rural balance.
It fits in with my prejudices to think that Republican Red is the color of anger, but as a most-of-the-time Democratic voter, I get pretty angry too. One man's anger is another man's righteous and justified indignation I think, but how you judge the aggregate statewide anger is beyond me. I think we're all angry and happy at the same time about different things.
As to being angry about local politics, about Republican politics where I live, about Florida corruption and destruction of resources, I'm pretty damn mad. About my life, about a Florida lifestyle, about the climate -- not so much. Very little gun violence in my county -- very high level of gun ownership. Palm Beach, the more urban one to the south is the only one where gun crime has not decreased radically in recent decades and it's predominantly in urban slum areas. So many possibilities I could argue both sides with adequate data.
And look at Kansas. Happy as hell, but as red as Mao's little book, it would seem. Is it more about population density? Law enforcement effectiveness? Economics? What part does strict gun control play? So may questions unanswered.
But yeah, the US is still divided on those old Mason Dixon cultural boundaries although the South is no longer all below the border and vice versa.