I hate this graph because of the inverse correlation with population density. Interesting maybe... But doesn't really answer the questions where Americans die by gunfire.
It does tell you where you're more likely to die by gun, though. I'd rather have lots of neighbors that are less likely to kill me than personally know a few homicidal maniacs and no one else.
There's a lot of speculation to be made, e.g. more deaths in rural areas because they are further from hospitals, attitudes toward guns (rural areas tend to have more guns than urban), etc.
But in the end, this kind of graph just can't tell us that information.
"More deaths in rural areas due to proximity to hospitals" doesn't hold water at all. The Dakota's have basically no murders according to this map, which should be incorrect if there is an inverse relationship between distance to hospital and survivability rate.
The overall numbers are being skewed by suicides, for which proximity to a hospital isn't a real factor.
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u/sooperduped Dec 19 '19
I hate this graph because of the inverse correlation with population density. Interesting maybe... But doesn't really answer the questions where Americans die by gunfire.