Visualizing Gun Violence in US

America has the highest concentration of firearms per capita in the entire world. This has primarily been attributed to people’s “Right to keep and bear arms” protected by the second amendment of the constitution that went in effect on December 15, 1791.  The second amendment was influenced by the 1689 Bill of Rights act of parliament of England which states Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law. Incidentally, United Kingdom revised this act twice, once as part of 1920 Firearms Act which place serious control on firearms and later in 1953 when it was made a criminal offence to carry knife or any offensive weapon in public.

The high concentration of firearms has resulted in significant amount of firearms related incidents in US and has been described by many experts as an uniquely American issue. What makes this issue even more controversial is that it divides the country more or less along partisan lines.

Goal

We want to present a holistic, multi-faceted and interactive view of the economics, politics and statistics of firearms in US.

Audience

Our audience are general public (preferably from US). We would like to make this tool accessible even to people who are not very comfortable with technology.