Top ten states for deaths by firearm:
1. Alaska
2. Louisiana
3. Mississippi
4. Alabama
5. Arkansas
6. Montana
7. Wyoming
8. Oklahoma
9. New Mexico
10. Tennessee
Source: http://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/death-by-gun-top-20-states-with-highest-rates/
Just like you would expect, the states with the highest firearms deaths per capita are all red states (in fairness, New Mexico is really purple). Do you live in one of these, Joan?
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/08/the-states-with-the-most-gun-laws-see-the-fewest-gun-related-deaths/448044/
– FACT: Despite making up just 13% of the population, blacks commit around half of homicides in the United States. DOJ statistics show that between 1980 and 2008, blacks committed 52% of homicides, compared to 45% of homicides committed by whites.
More up to date FBI statistics tell a similar story. In 2013, black criminals carried out 38% of murders, compared to 31.1% for whites, again despite the fact that there are five times more white people in the U.S.
– FACT: From 2011 to 2013, 38.5 per cent of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black. This figure is three times higher than the 13% black population figure. When you account for the fact that black males aged 15-34, who account for around 3% of the population, are responsible for the vast majority of these crimes, the figures are even more staggering.
– FACT: Despite the fact that black people commit an equal or greater number of violent crimes than whites, whites are almost TWICE as likely to be killed by police officers.
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, between 1999 and 2011, 2,151 whites died as a result of being shot by police compared to 1,130 blacks.
Critics argue that black people are overrepresented in these figures because they only represent 13% of the population, but they are underrepresented if you factor in violent crime offenders. In other words, you would expect the number of blacks and whites killed by police to be roughly equal given that they commit a roughly equal number of violent crimes, but that’s not the case. Whites are nearly 100% more likely to be victims.
And what about black on white violence in general?
– FACT: Despite being outnumbered by whites five to one, blacks commit eight times more crimes against whites than vice-versa, according to FBI statistics from 2007. A black male is 40 times as likely to assault a white person as the reverse. These figures also show that interracial rape is almost exclusively black on white.
“Even allowing for the existence of discrimination in the criminal justice system, the higher rates of crime among black Americans cannot be denied,” wrote James Q. Wilson and Richard Herrnstein in their widely cited 1985 study, “Crime and Human Nature.” “Every study of crime using official data shows blacks to be overrepresented among persons arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for street crimes.”
It’s clear that the greater propensity for black people to commit violent crimes is a driving factor as to why blacks are becoming involved in more violent confrontations with police than their 13% population figure suggests they should be. If the 911 calls are coming from black areas and are related to black people committing violent crimes, then of course black people are more likely to be involved in violent confrontations with cops.
Does that justify police brutality in cases such as Freddie Gray, Walter Scott or Eric Garner? No. But it does demolish the ‘Black Lives Matter’ narrative that the general trend of black people being victims of violent encounters with police is solely down to the fact that cops are racist towards black people. Racism is a factor, but the statistics clearly show that it’s by no means the only factor, and some would argue not even the dominant factor.
But aren’t all these statistics undermined by the fact that black people are unfairly targeted and framed for crimes by police officers in the first place? Don’t higher arrest and conviction rates of blacks merely prove that police are racist? This argument is debunked by looking at the proportion of offenders identified – not by police – but by victims – as black. The National Crime Victimization Survey shows that the number of blacks arrested generally correlates with the number of offenders identified as black by victims.