Data visualization firm Periscopic analyzed the FBI’s Unified Crime Report from 2010, which includes data about gun murder victims - age, gender, race, relationship to killer, and weapon used:
This is the challenge with visualizing data that relates to humans. The very act of collecting data often removes its human connection and inoculates against any semblance of emotion.
What the Unified Crime Report did not contain was an assessment of the potential life that was stolen from these individuals as a result of their murder.
To calculate that, we used the World Health Organization’s UNSD Demographic Statistics, and first performed an age prediction, weighted according to the age distribution of US deaths. Using this age, we then predicted a likely cause of death at that age.
Be sure and check out their striking tool used to visualize this data.
Resist the urge for the data to act as self-confirming toward your particular political leanings or views toward gun safety and control. Instead, help accomplish Periscopic’s goal by connecting to the data in a humanistic manner. Their Stolen Years metric should not be divisive, rather it should be as it is, horrific and deeply saddening.