Where the bullets fly --- and why
by digby
Richard Florida has compiled some interesting information about gun violence. I don't know what it means, but it's food for thought:
Let's start by looking at factors that are sometimes assumed to be associated with gun violence but statistically are not.
It is commonly assumed that mental illness or stress levels trigger gun violence. But that's not borne out at the state level. We found no statistical association between gun deaths and mental illness or stress levels. We also found no association between gun violence and the proportion of neurotic personalities.
Images of drug-crazed gunmen are a commonplace: Guns and drug abuse are presumed to go together. But, again, that was not the case in our state-level analysis. We found no association between illegal drug use and death from gun violence at the state level.
Some might think gun violence would be higher in states with higher levels of unemployment and higher levels of inequality. But, again, we found no evidence of any such association with either of these variables.
So what are the factors that are associated with firearm deaths at the state level?
Poverty is one. The correlation between death by gun and poverty at the state level is .59.
An economy dominated by working class jobs is another. Having a high percentage of working class jobs is closely associated with firearm deaths (.55).
And, not surprisingly, firearm-related deaths are positively correlated with the rates of high school students that carry weapons on school property (.54).
What about politics? It's hard to quantify political rhetoric, but we can distinguish blue from red states. Taking the voting patterns from the 2008 presidential election, we found a striking pattern: Firearm-related deaths were positively associated with states that voted for McCain (.66) and negatively associated with states that voted for Obama (-.66). Though this association is likely to infuriate many people, the statistics are unmistakable. Partisan affiliations alone cannot explain them; most likely they stem from two broader, underlying factors - the economic and employment makeup of the states and their policies toward guns and gun ownership.
I think the issue of gun control has pretty much been decimated by the Supreme Court's ruling on the constitutional right to bear arms. So, I'm not even interested in litigating it. But it do think there should be some discussion of the recent emergence of a gun fetish in politics and a normalizing of the idea that using guns to solve your problems is a constitutional liberty.
Let's face it, even if the founders anticipated a future revolution when they wrote the second Amerndment (which I doubt --- I assume the anticipated a future invasion.) But whatever it was, they didn't anticipate the kind of weaponry the government would someday be able to muster against the people if such a thing happened. It's a silly notion at this point that a revolutionary force armed with Glocks could defeat the government if it decided to turn its sites on the people.
So, the only real argument for personal ownership is just a principle that people should be able to own what they want, including guns. I'll even go along with that. But its irresponsible and undemocratic to bring them into politics for the purpose of threats and intimidation. No matter how subtle it is, people get the message loud and clear. The first phone call I got after the full story of Byron Williams came out was from a friend who told me that I was crazy to be involved in politics and that I should be very careful not to make the right wingers angry on my blog. I don't feel that way, but I imagine there are a lot of people who think life is too short already to get into disagreements with people who are packing heat. Look what's happened to the abortion providers.
Meanwhile, this story startled me:
Greg Wolff, the owner of two Arizona gun shops, told his manager to get ready for a stampede of new customers after a Glock-wielding gunman killed six people at a Tucson shopping center on Jan. 8.
Wolff was right. Instead of hurting sales, the massacre had the $499 semi-automatic pistols -- popular with police, sport shooters and gangsters -- flying out the doors of his Glockmeister stores in Mesa and Phoenix.
“We’re at double our volume over what we usually do,” Wolff said two days after the shooting spree that also left 14 wounded, including Democratic Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who remains in critical condition.
I don't know what to think about this. They say it's mostly because the paranoid gun people assume the gun will be banned (which hasn't been done for nearly 40 years.) But this is just creepy:
Wolff called the shooting “horrible.” Nonetheless, it has created a surge of publicity for the gun, he said.
“It’s in the news now. I’m sure the Green Bay Packers are selling all kinds of jerseys today as well,” he said. “I just think our state embraces guns.”
h/t to AB
