1.82% | Info and Violence

Information and Violence is an interactive data visualization showing a timeline of major U.S. news headlines along with gun sales and homicides from 2016. Since 2016, the numbers of gun sales and homicides has been steadily increasing. What is the cause? Could it be influenced by the media that we consume? By seeing violent information, does it make us more violent? Does violent information increase gun sales leading to more violence?

:: Legend ::

Monthly Homicide counts in U.S.

Estimated monthly gun sales in U.S.

Significant news events related to violence, politics and guns. Click or tap to see more about the event.

The screen is scrollable horizontally. The timeline captured in this version is from January 2016 to January 2021.

For both Homicides and Gun Sales, the bottom of the screen is 0, and the higher the graph, the higher the number is.

:: Data Sources ::

HOMICIDES = From 2016 to 2019, the data is from CDC WONDER Data Archive. From 2020, since the data publishing by CDC has been paused since the COVID pandemic, we used the estimated monthly homicide numbers from the report published by CCJ National Commission on COVID-19 and Criminal Justice.

GUN SALES = Brady's estimated monthly gun sales, which is caluculated based on NICS's background check for firearm sales.

NEWS EVENTS = Significant news events picked from Wikipedia's list of incidences in U.S. 2016 in the United States, 2017 in the United States, 2018 in the United States, 2019 in the United States, 2020 in the United States, 2021 in the United States.

:: Credits ::

Research, Art and Code by Siori Kitajima
Created in an online artist residency program 2020 - 2021 by Buckwheat Space

Made with amazing tools: D3.js and more

Thank you Yvonne Buchanan, Dorene Quinn, Corrabelle and Orlando.