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I found this CATO Gun Defense map and didn't see it already posted here. It lets you look by state, zoom in etc. You can click on a bubble and see some particulars of what happened. I wasn't sure if this should go here or in the Crime Blotter secdtion. Anyway, I thought it was pretty good.

http://www.cato.org/guns-and-self-defense" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This suggests that more incidents occur in heavily populated areas, along the coasts and into the midwest. There are virtually no incidents west of San Antonio Dallas line, until you get to the coast. This leads me to conclude that guns aren't the problem, people are. Furthermore, flyover country is sparsely populated and represented in this depiction.

The map is a good idea, but it is amazingly incomplete.

For example, I see news reports 2-3 days a week of defensive gun usage in the Houston-Galveston area. Nationally, I believe the estimates that go as high as 2.5-3.0 million DGU'S per year. The map is just a small percentage of actual cases.

It it just me and my monitor, or are there several of the same shades, or very close to the same shades, of colors that represent very different incidence? For example, Animal = Carjacking = Home Invasion, and Minor Offender = Senior = Street Robbery. The colors in the legend don't even match the ones on the map.

Jumping Frog wrote:The map is a good idea, but it is amazingly incomplete.

For example, I see news reports 2-3 days a week of defensive gun usage in the Houston-Galveston area. Nationally, I believe the estimates that go as high as 2.5-3.0 million DGU'S per year. The map is just a small percentage of actual cases.

One problem with DGU stats is they are near impossible to be accurate. For starters, what counts as a DGU? Displaying a firearm (still holstered) as a warning? Drawing? Drawing & aiming? And the list goes on. Second, if you count all of the above, is there a report filed somewhere? When I had my incident at Medical City Dallas, the police came, looked around, but never filed a report. And third, is there anyone compiling all those reports to create accurate stats?

If we want to be able to use DGU stats in our arguments, we need hard figures. And those are going to be impossible to get.

The write up that accompanies the map even says it's not complete, I still found it interesting being able to see a dispersion, types of crimes and details of so many in one place that's easy to look at.

Kadelic wrote:It it just me and my monitor, or are there several of the same shades, or very close to the same shades, of colors that represent very different incidence? For example, Animal = Carjacking = Home Invasion, and Minor Offender = Senior = Street Robbery. The colors in the legend don't even match the ones on the map.

It's not just you. It looks like they just used a handful of colors so several categories share the same color.