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According to that article, Idahoans are mass murdering each other constantly.
I think you misread the article and/or the gun ownership chart. By the chart, Idaho has a high gun ownership percentage, but the gun deaths are lower than in the rest of the dark red states. Our death rate is right among those that are two percentage brackets down from us. West Virginia's rates are slightly higher than ours. All the others are much higher, with Alaska at the highest of all.
I was actually surprised Wyoming, another dark red state on the map has a higher death rate than ours. Their population is about 2/3 the size of ours.
Im sure this article only accounts for LEGAL gun ownership...
doubt there is a map that has all the criminals/thugs with guns
The intent of the "study" is to create cultural, racial, and societal criteria to try to better pin down who owns guns and who doesn't. The article is laced with psuedo-scientific data and references to dubious past studies in order to validate a biased interpretation. Notice how the actual document is locked behind a paywall. We are supposed to just accept the interpretation of someone we don't know and have not qualified.
People naturally gravitate towards others who have similar interests. Using a phrase like "gun culture" is analogous to "religious culture" or "remote control airplane culture". It's a simple phrasing put together to help stigmatize a specific group of people who offend a different group of people. Intolerant people want everyone to be just like them, and until they are the only person left on the planet, this kind of passive aggressive behavior will persist.
The Business Insider article didn't really say much and does not appear to be biased. However, the article links to the original "journal" article that appeared in 'Injury Prevention', (the following "Sign In" hyperlink is a direct link to the article in PDF format - it will display in your browser):
What is most telling is that at the end of the 'journal' article, it states that the paper was NOT peer reviewed and that the first author is the vice-president of 'Gun Violence Survivors Foundation'. Also, all four authors are faculty members of northeastern universities, (Columbia and Boston University).
Yeah, I'd say biased. But, from this geographer's perspective, it's a pretty cool map that tells me things are not what I had thought.
Unsurprisingly, gun owners are more than twice as likely as non-owners to be part of a "social gun culture" in which family and friends often own guns and look down on non-gun owners.
Wow. What a ridiculous statement.
Also, something to be aware of is that this article, like so many others, focuses on an interesting term - "gun deaths". That figure almost always includes suicides, deaths from police action, self-defense situations, etc. in addition to outright criminal homicides carried out via firearm. For instance, the chart says there's a ton of gun related deaths in Alaska because there are lot of guns in Alaska. That's true, but Alaska also has a very high suicide rate and most suicides there involve a firearm. So I wonder if Alaska banned guns if Mother Jones would post articles about wildlife attacks. States with more bears have more bear-related deaths! Probably should just get rid of the bears... that'll solve it...
Well I answer the door with guns-a-blazin so mother something jones can stick that in his pipe and stereotype it.
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