Let’s Make a Better World for Living:

  • Sympathy, unification and consistency for the creations.

  • Establishing truth, destroying falsehood, fighting against atrocities, progress and prosperity of mankind.

  • Purification of ideas and wealth.

School Shooting in Uvalde, Texas:

On May 24, nineteen children, two teachers were killed and wounding several others in a massacre at Robb Elementary School, in a small city, Uvalde about 85 miles west of San Antonio, by a lone gunman, Salvador Ramos, 18. By The New York Times it was the deadliest school shooting since the murders at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012 [2].

What is gun violence?

Commonly observed violence are of three categories: Physical, Sexual, and Psychological. Violence leads to the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, destroy or kill human lives. A violence committed with the use of firearms or guns such as handguns, shotguns, assault rifles or machine guns is called gun violence.

Although much of the public debate and campaign is focusing on gun regulation and legislative change to keep the firearms from the reach of potential killers but the problem is deeply rooted to money and power of the imperial world. The problem of violence and specifically gun violence go along with social injustice, unemployment, economic disparity, discrimination, racism, immoralities, sex and porno business, gambling, drugs and alcohol, and discriminatory judicial systems etc.

The impact of gun violence on victims are far more severe and long lasting with consequences that affect the entire society, communities, families, and children. So, addressing only the gun control regulation will not solve the problem without eliminating the root causes of the problem that require strong political will and the required policy shift to bring the changes into reality.

Worldwide Gun Violence Statistics:

According to the Amnesty International [3] more than 500 people die every day from gun violence which is about 44% of all homicides globally. There were 1.4 million firearm-related deaths globally between 2012 and 2016. An estimated 2,000 people are injured by gunshots every single day. Only in the year of 2019, more than 250,000 people were killed with the use of firearms globally. Among the total deaths, 71% of gun deaths were homicides, about 21% were suicides, and 8% were unintentional firearms-related accidents. A negligible number of gun deaths occurred due to mass shootings and school shootings, which get the most public attention due to huge media coverage.

Gun violence is a worldwide problem due to easy access and availability of guns in the black market and through smuggling. All kinds of handheld guns are being used and integrated for running many types of drug business, sex trafficking, smuggling etc. Irrespective of strict gun control laws in some countries gun-related violence remain a burning issue for many countries in the world. Data shows only a few countries add up to the total gun-related deaths of 250,227 worldwide in 2019. A statistical estimate by Amnesty International [3] reveal that about 65.9% of the total gun-violence deaths occurred in just six countries in Central and South America.

Globally about 2 million people are living with firearm injuries and many millions are suffering from severe and long-term psychological trauma. According to the Amnesty International the majority of victims and perpetrators are male young men in their twenties.

Data Analysis and Visualization:

Data analysis and visualization quickly help us to determine which countries or states have the highest gun-related mortalities and which countries or states have the lowest? How large is a typical country or state in terms of population and area? What are the correlations among the population size and total murders? How do murder rates vary across regions of the country? To answer these questions may not that easy just by looking at the raw data.

An important saying “a picture is worth a thousand words” and that can be implemented through data visualization a powerful way to communicate a data-driven finding to the readers or to the communities. In some cases, the visualization is self revealing and no further explanation is required.

The easy availability of many kinds of datasets along with the visualization libraries and tools has led to increased reliability on data analysis outcomes and building confidence among the major stake holders that include but not limited to industry, academia and government. Most of the news media and dailies, are taking the full benefits of data journalism and including effective infographics as part of their reporting. In this article global data analysis and visualization is done on a csv dataset taken from Our World in Data [4]. One of the objectives of this article is to present some facts and figures about homicide specifically gun homicide in the world and in the USA. The task of a data scientist is to study and extract from vast volumes of data using modern tools and techniques to find unseen patterns, derive meaningful information, and present it to the policy makers. Hence the focus of this article is to study the global scenario of homicide and gun homicide in the first part and later parts of this article will concentrate on US status of gun homicide.

The sources of data must be authentic, complete, accurate and reliable to come up with the right results for policy makers and business leaders for making the right decisions.

The plots that are presented in Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 are based on the data [4] as shown in the following table, on global homicide rate which are being calculated using the ratio of total number of deaths by the total number of population in 2019 and expressed in 100,000 individuals. Rate is defined as follows:

\[Rate = \frac{Total~ Deaths}{Total~ Population~ in ~the ~Country}\times 100,000\]

In Fig.1, a plot of country versus rate for 2019 is presented, keeping the homicide rate 10 and above. Among the top 10 countries with the highest homicide rate include El Salvador, Venezuela, Lesotho, Colombia, Guatemala, South Africa, Honduras, Brazil, Bahamas and Haiti. It is important to know where these countries are located. El Salvador is the smallest mountainous country in Central America and is smaller than the state of Massachusetts, and it is bordered by the pacific ocean, Guatemala, and Honduras. Venezuela, is located at the northern end of South America. On the other hand Lesotho, is in Southern Africa. Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America. Guatemala is in Central America. South Africa is one of the most geographically varied countries in Africa. Located at the southern tip of the African continent. Brazil is the largest country in South America and the fifth largest nation in the world. The Bahamas are generally flat and low-lying islands sit in the West Atlantic Ocean, 100 kilometers south-east of Florida of the United States and 80 kilometers from the north-east of Cuba. Haiti is located between the Caribbean Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean and bordering with Dominican Republic. Haiti’s closest neighbors include Jamaica to the west and Cuba to the northwest. So, one can easily observe that excepting Lesotho and South Africa top most countries with highest homicide rate are located in and around South America.

In Fig.2, a plot of country versus rate is presented for 2019 considering homicide rate less than or equal to 1. Among the 10 countries with the lowest homicide rate include Singapore, Monaco, England, San Marino, United Kingdom, Egypt, Japan, Andorra, Wales and Norway.

Fig. 3 and Fig. 4 are generated based on the data [4] as given in the following table on global homicide with firearm in 2019.

It is interesting to observe in Fig. 3, that US ranks 35 globally in the gun related homicide in 2019. Among the top 10 countries with the highest gun homicide rate in 2019 remain in the Central and South American countries. These are El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Colombia, Honduras, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Bahamas, United States Virgin Islands, and Latin America and Caribbean (WB). Comparing Fig. 1 and Fig. 3 we can easily observe that two African countries Lesotho and South Africa are dropped out from the top 10 list in the gun violence homicide.

The Latin American economy plays a major role in the global economy. In this region, Brazil generates almost half of all Latin American exports and other countries in the region such as Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Venezuela, Paraguay and Bolivia contribute to the rest of the economy. Exports include varieties of commodities such as soybean meal, corn, soybean oil, delivery trucks and cars, meat, mineral fuels, crude petroleum, iron ore, sulfate chemical woodpulp, copper ore, refined copper, fish fillets, pitted fruits, coal briquettes, refined petroleum, coffee, gold, crustaceans, bananas, processed fish, cars, computers, vehicle parts, zinc ore, etc.

But there are news paper and media reports reveal that some of these countries are having drug cartels that are heavily involved in smuggling cocaine and that are being transported from Colombia to Mexico or Central America by sea and then on wards by land to the United States and North American countries. This business is being heavily assisted with the under-world armed regiments and war lords whose arms are being smuggled and supplied from North American countries.

In Fig. 4, one can see that on the contrary Singapore, Japan, South Korea, China, Oman, England, United Kingdom, Wales, Northern Ireland, Iceland are among the countries with the lowest gun-related mortality rate in the world.

Gun Violence in the USA:

So far in 2022 there are 27 school shootings took place in the USA that includes the 27th shooting incidence at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, that has killed 19 children and two adults on May 24,2022 [4]. In the USA the level of gun violence is relatively high compared to many other countries in the world due to free access to firearms as the constitutional right by the US citizens. The second amendment of US constitution protects the right to bear fire arms by US citizens according to the following constitutional amendment that took place in 1791.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

US is one of the three countries in the world in which the right to bear arms is constitutionally protected. After analyzing the dataset, which was taken from CDC [5], show that the number of gun-violence incidents is increasing in the USA over the years from 2014 to 2020. Fig. 5 to Fig. 12 were generated using the CDC data [5] as shown in the following table:

Rate is defined as follows:

\[Rate = \frac{Total~ Deaths}{Total~ Population~ in ~the ~State}\times 100,000\]

Figs. 5 and 6 show the state versus death for the 2014 and 2020 respectively. Obviously, the plots indicate the increase in the number of deaths in 2020 with respect to 2014. Otherwise, the trend and pattern of murder deaths across the states remain same.

Fig. 7 is the statewise cumulative deaths from 2014-2020. The top three states Texas, California and Floria remain the same.

As indicated in Fig. 8, that the total cumulative gun violence death in 2020 is 45,222 which is in conformation with CDC. It is important to note that among the total number of deaths in 2020, suicides accounted for 54% of all gun-related deaths (24,292) in the U.S., 43% were murders (19,384), according to the CDC. The remaining gun deaths that year were unintentional (535), involved law enforcement (611) or had undetermined circumstances (400). The total number of gun violence deaths in 2020 is the highest since 1968, when CDC starts making this data online. The total gun deaths in 2020 which is 45,222, represent an increase of 14% from the year 2019, and about 25% increase from 2014.

Figs. 9 and 10 illustrate the plots of total number of deaths versus total number of population in millions for 2014 and 2020 respectively. The plots clearly show the high mortality in the states of Texas, California and Florida due to higher number of population with respect to other states.

Figs. 11 and Fig. 12 reveal that the states such as Mississippi (MS), Louisiana (LA), Wyoming (WY) and Alaska (AK) are having the highest gun violence death rate with respect to Texas and California. The total population of these states ranges from 0.6 to 4.6 million. Whereas the population of Texas and California are 28.64 million (2020) and 39.35 million (2020) respectively. So, many of the US states with smaller population are having high gun violence and mortality rates. A few states such as Massachusetts, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and New Jersey are having relatively low mortality rate with gun violence.

Concluding Remarks:

The U.S. passport includes a quote from Dr. Anna Julia Cooper. And she is the only African American woman whose words appear in the US passport. She was born Anna Julia Haywood in Raleigh in 1858, seven years before slavery ended. Her mother was an enslaved servant in the home of Fabius Haywood, a doctor in Raleigh. Cooper became a respected author, educator, and activist. And following are her words that appear in the U.S. passport:

“The cause of freedom is not the cause of a race or a sect, a party or a class - it is the cause of humankind, the very birthright of humanity.” -Anna Julia Cooper

According to the Amnesty International the majority of homicide victims and perpetrators are young men between the ages of 15 and 24. Of course an easy availability of guns add up the deaths to a higher number but strong legislation on gun control is not the remedy. The root causes are with our policies of promoting gun business and gun culture for cover up our own misdeeds, unjust wars and genocides, atrocities, social injustice, unemployment, economic disparity, discrimination, racism, etc. The culture of war and gun business have been integrated at the individual, family, school, peer, community, and socio-cultural activities of life. So, to control gun violence require political might to bring fundamental policy shift from the imperial rule to a rational pro-people welfare nation with peace and harmony. The data analyses at the global and country level helped us identifying the countries with the highest homicides of all kinds. The bottom line is the baseline economy that is required by all humans on earth for maintaining a dignified life. But the question is who will ensure this and how it can be done at this massive scale. We now see why and how homicide rates are so high in the neighborhood countries of USA such as El Salvador, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Brazil, Bahamas and Haiti. Soon or later the generation ahead of us will be seriously affected not only with increased homicide rate but also will be inflicted with the addiction of drugs and alcohol. Do we want to see our own children will be victims of our own misdeeds and inaction? Can the policies be shifted to bring changes and see a better neighborhood for living? Of course it is just the right policy shift that will create a better world for living.

The countries in North and Central America, South America and Caribbean (Combined GDP: $4.73 trillion) have huge business potentialities for global and USA economies. With a friendly regional collaboration and trade agreement, US (GDP: $25.35 trillion) could take leadership to help them to build their respective economies other than their full dependency on their export business of agricultural products and natural resources such as petroleum, iron, and copper. These revenues may not be good enough to sustain their respective economies. US policy shifts towards these countries will not only bring good living for their citizens it will also help to create a stronger economy in the US. The generations ahead of them or us will be relieved from the curse of drugs, drug culture and drug related short and long time effects on human health and psychology. The incident that has happened recently in Uvalde, Texas statistically may look insignificant but it’s outcome destroyed the victim families for the rest of their lives. Believing and ensuring the fundamentals human rights of having food, clothing, housing, healthcare, education and freedom of speech are the rights of humanity and all religions. So, we have to rise collectively for the causes of fundamental human rights and evict the curse of poverty from all family member countries in the world. Our prayers inside our respective religious institutions are just the promise to do good for us and others and cannot be fulfilled without implementing it by helping the people in need in the world.