The Vox article, Here’s how gun control works in Canada, talks about the many differences between the gun laws in the United States and Canada. The article touches on a subject that we discussed in class, open carry. In Canada, concealed carry is effectively outlawed while in the USA, open carry is legal in 44 states. Outlawing concealed carry would lower the risk for criminals to commit crimes because they are confident no one has a gun, based on our class discussions.
One of the differences in gun laws involves the background check process prior to a citizen purchasing a weapon. In Canada, “must pass background checks which consider criminal, mental, addiction and domestic violence records.”(Mathews, 2014). The United States background check system is much less cut and dry. Federally licensed gun dealers must conduct background checks but often records are incomplete and sales by unlicensed sellers don’t require background checks(Mathews, 2014). Some states have their own laws that are stricter. However, it is discouraging to me that the United States can’t create a standard background check system. It’s a scary thought that someone can purchase a firearm and the seller has no information about his or her criminal history.
So in this project, I analyzed gun violence by state and then specifically in West Virginia. I started by creating a new variable incidents, which is the sum of the number of victims killed by gun violence plus the number injured. From there I created my first viz which is a map of the United States and the darker the color of the state the higher the number of incidents there. This does not factor for population so states like California and Texas are at the top. However, Illinois actually has the most incidents despite having the sixth largest population. My next viz is a chart of ten cities in West Virginia ranked by the number of incidents there. Beckley had the third most gun incidents of any city in West Virginia despite having the ninth largest population. They have a population roughly half the city of Morgantown and 40% more incidents. Princeton is another city and although they are only the twenty second largest city in WV, they are on the top 10 list of violent incidents. Bluefield and Dunbar are also not in the top ten largest cities in WV but they are top 10 in violent crime. My final viz is a chart of the incidents based on the day of the week and the month. It shows that weekends are the most dangerous days of the week and that May and June are probably the safest months.
References
Mathews, D. (2019). Here’s how gun control works in Canada. [online] Vox. Available
at: https://www.vox.com/2014/10/24/7047547/canada-gun-law-us-comparison