Quote:
Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier
What I'm referring to is this question.
If a person murders somebody with a firearm, are the statistics for this type of crime higher, lower or more or less the same in a state that has the death penalty? I'm just trying to fathom if capital punishment is any type of deterrent here. I know murder is murder gun or no gun, but as we're talking gun crime here, I'm just restricting it to guns.
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Okay, well here's the breakdown...
The ten states with the
highest rate of gun murder are:
- Louisiana
- Maryland
- Mississippi
- California
- Nevada
- South Carolina
- Illinois*
- Michigan*
- Arizona
- New Mexico*
The ten states with the
lowest rate of gun murder are:
- New Hampshire
- Vermont*
- Hawaii*
- Wyoming
- North Dakota*
- Maine*
- Iowa*
- South Dakota
- Utah
- Idaho
States without the death penalty are marked with asterisks. Not too much of a pattern here, although if you look at the top five in each category, you notice that all of the worst states for gun murder have the death penalty, while only 2 out of 5 of the best states have it. It should also be pointed out that, even though New Hampshire has the death penalty on the books, they haven't executed anyone in over 35 years. Similarly, Wyoming hasn't executed anyone in 20 years.
(
death penalty source,
murder by gun source)