Geospatial Gun Laws

Gun Laws by State

how well do they protect from gun violence?

Libraries and data import

The first task that I had to complete for this analysis was finding data on gun laws. Luckily I had help from my professor and he was able to send me a few data sets that were already clean and easy to work worth. All I had to do was import them into tableau and into R. This way I was able to create graphs and tables based on the information in the data sets.

library(tidyverse)

## Warning in system2("/usr/bin/otool", c("-L", shQuote(DSO)), stdout = TRUE):
## running command ''/usr/bin/otool' -L '/Library/Frameworks/R.framework/Resources/
## modules/R_de.so'' had status 1

library(readxl)
gun_related_deaths_by_state <- read_excel("/Volumes/Sam's SSD/Geospatial Gun Laws/gun-related-deaths-by-state.xlsx")

firearms_data %>% 
  left_join(gun_related_deaths_by_state) -> combined

Combining Data Sets

Next I wanted all of the data in the same place. Instead of 3 different data sets I wanted all the information in one data set. I used left join function in order to join all the data into one big dataset which I named ‘combined’. Pretty much the same thing was done in tableau in order to make the next two chloropleth maps.

library(readxl)
Copy_of_gun_law_grades <- read_excel("/Volumes/Sam's SSD/Geospatial Gun Laws/Copy of gun_law_grades.xlsx")

combined %>% 
  left_join(Copy_of_gun_law_grades) -> combined

## Joining, by = "State"

Average Gun-Related Deaths per 100,000 for each Gun Law Grade.

This graph shows the average number of gun-related deaths by state for the states that got each grade. For example the states with an -A grade had a mean of about 6 deaths per 100,00. The graph shows a pretty steady increase which would make sense with an outlier of an average of over 20 deaths in states with a grade of C.

combined %>% 
  group_by(Grade2) %>% 
  summarise(mean = mean(`2020 gun-related deaths per 100,000`)) %>% 
  ggplot(aes(Grade2, mean)) + geom_col()

Gun Laws and Gun-Related Deaths per 100,000 by state.

This Chloropleth map shows the certain gun laws of the state which could be do you need a permit to purchase the fun do you need a permit to carry the gun can you carry the gun in the open and is a firearm regulation required to own the gun. The next number is the number of deaths by firearm in 2020 per 100,000 people in the state. You can scroll over the darker states and compare their laws to the states with lighter colors.

Gun Laws Graded by State

This chloropleth map shows the grade given to each state based on how safe their gun laws are. The main aspect that catches the eye from this map is the amount of F’s given. A majority of states were graded at the F grade which means their gun laws are not adequite.

Conclusion

There are a lot of states that need to improve their gnu laws according to the grade map. There is however a large outlier. One state who graded pretty average but had an unique amount of gun-related deaths. From this I feel that a solid conclusion cant be made and more research into the outlier is necessary.