Gun Deaths and Religion
I once joked that San Francisco was “spiritually horny.” It is true, being the birthplace of the Church of Satan, home of Jim Jones, and containing the largest concentration of upper-middle-class white Buddhists on the planet. And a lot of Catholics. Between the Spanish missions and a flood of Irish, you often can tell how many miles you have driven in California by how many Catholic churches you have passed. It also explains California’s low “gun death” rate. Takeaways Religious affiliation changes suicide statistics Places with higher percentages of Catholic and non-Christian congregants have fewer suicides. Since guns are a favored American means of suicide, this ripples into lower gun suicide rates and thus lower “gun death” rates. The Culture Clues Culture is the major determinant variable for violence, including violence upon oneself. In our book “Guns and Control”, we made the following cultural comparison: Last time I checked, the … Continue reading →