Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Guns and Women

Reposted by popular demand from Guns and Women (updated twice)

From the book by Prof. David Hemenway, Private Guns Public Health, here are some statistics which support my very unpopular comment that "guns are bad news for women." The following chart describes female deaths.

High gun states: Wyoming, Montana, Alaska, South Dakota, Arkansas, West Virginia, Alabama, Idaho, Mississippi, North Dakota and Kentucky - total population 100.6 million

Low gun states: Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Connecticut - total population 100.6 million.


(click once for clearer view)


What the chart indisputably shows is that where there are guns there are more incidents of gun violence. It's a sad fact that in America, women are brutalized by men too often, but what this chart shows is that when there's a gun in the house, it becomes lethal. The total figures on suicides indicate that the gun is especially effective. Where there are fewer guns, there are fewer successful suicides. (source is CDC WISQARS 2003)

5 comments:

  1. source is CDC WISQARS 2003

    Why 2003 and not 2008? Eh, doesn't matter anyway. What your chart and other studies on guns in homes fails to address is why is there a gun in the home. Do women buy firearms because there is a threat from a stalker? Do women buy firearms because of an abusive spouse? Are the firearms owned by women used against them, or are the women killed with another firearm brought into the house by the killer?

    Looking at your chart, non firearms related homicides in high gun states are also higher than low gun states. Does this indicate that the sampled states have a propensity to be more violent than their counterparts in the other states? Did these homes have a firearm and the victim was beat to death, or was there no firearm at all in the home?

    Mike, you said yourself that statistics can be swayed to prove one point or another and I see that the comparison left out Maryland (a low gun state with high firearms related deaths) and Vermont (high gun state with low firearms related deaths)

    I did a little fact checking for you. According to CDC 2003:
    United States
    Unintentional Firearm Deaths
    All Races, Females, All Ages = 74 so I'm curious where the number of 343 total unintended firearms deaths came from. That puts the rest of the information under suspicion and now I must look up some other information.

    CDC, 2003, US, All ages, races, Female
    Firearm suicide 2,080 vs. your 3,235
    Other suicide 4,201 vs your 4,754
    How is it that CDC reports that suicide rates are lower for the entire United States than the selected group?

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    Replies
    1. More information while I'm waiting for the flood waters to recede.
      2003, U.S., Females, All ages
      Other Homicide 2,056 vs your 3,287. Again Your source indicates that there were more homicides just in the sample states than all of the United States combined.

      Delete
  2. Any statistics or analysis on how many of those ladies that were murder victims would still be alive if all of them had been armed?

    I know you guys keep trying to correlate firearm murders to states where firearms are readily available and that falls flat on its face. As people have pointed out, Vermont has a very low firearm murder rate. And none of the gun grabbers ever have a counterpoint to the unbelievably low -- in fact non-existent -- murder rate at shooting ranges. Boy there is nearly a 100% firearm possession rate at shooting ranges and murders with firearms just never happen.

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  3. C'mon guys, that little chart right there, and the book it came from, offers one of the greatest proofs that guns are doing more harm than good.

    You can do the wiggle dance to get out of it, I know you're up to it. And then you can come back with other surveys and reports to refute it.

    But this is a good one, don't you agree?

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    Replies
    1. mikeb, I got my numbers from CDC and FBI and it clearly shows that the information presented in "the chart" is wrong.

      More facts:
      FBI UCR 2003 Violent crime rate
      High gun states = 312.53/100,000
      Low gun states = 342.44/100,000

      and

      FBI URC 2003 Violent crime rate
      High gun states w/Vermont = 296
      Low gun states w/Maryland = 402.61

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