These visualizations tell the story of gun violence in America.
You will first be met with a map. This map displays the gun control grades
assigned to each state using shading of the states on the map.
The map also displays mass shootings in each state from 2012 to 2020. The number of victims,
both killed and injured, is depicted by the size of the cirlce that represents the shooting,
a larger circle meaning a greater number of victims.
You may click on any state to view that states shootings and gun control legislation.
You may filter the shootings in that state by shooter demograhpics.
As you scroll down, you will then see a timeline. This timeline shows the number of victims
in each shooting over the course of the 8 years.
You may brush this timeline to filter out data on the map, as well as filter shooter demographics.
To navigate, use the menu options at the top.
To continue on to the story of gun violence
in America, click the "The Data" menu option.
Olivia Schotz - 464342
Spencer Bredoff - 466082
Caleb Diaz - 456507
oschotz@wustl.edu
spencer.bredoff@wustl.edu
calebdiaz@wustl.edu
Guns are extremely dangerous weapons if put in the wrong hands. In the news, we only see some mass shootings reported, when there are many more occurrences of gun violence across the nation. We wanted to create visualizations surrounding the amount of shootings there are in the United States to shed some light on the threat that guns pose to our society. These visualizations will explore gun laws in the U.S. and the number of shootings that occur over some period of time. We argue that gun violence is too normalized in today's world, so we are trying to convey how serious and prevalent this issue is.
We want to explore and answer questions such as:
What is the correlation between gun laws and regulations and mass shootings per state?
How often
do shootings occur in the United States?
Who are the perpetrators of shootings?
To discover the correlation between gun laws and shootings in America, we will collect data about legislation that has been passed in each state, and create a visualization
that will display when different legislation is passed along with the number of shootings and/or deaths over a time period.
In order to visualize how often shootings occur in the U.S., we will have some type of timeline or animation that will display the number of shootings and deaths
over a time to visualize trends in the number of shootings that occur, discovering whether there is more or less gun violence in America today than in the past.
With data we retrieve about shootings, we will parse out the demographics available of the shooters to visualize any trends about who is more likely to
commit these shootings.
We are planning on incorporating features such as brushing, zooming in on maps, and allowing viewers to see individual state data in order to better visualize any trends
or more specific data.
Our visualizations of data could potentially help states pass different or better laws to lower rates of mass gun violence, since regardless of views on gun regulations,
we believe everyone in the U.S. would like to see lower rates of shootings.
The Violence Project - Data on mass shootings in America, with specifications such as geographic location and perpetrator
Giffords Law Center - State grades based on the strength of gun laws in each state
CDC Data Request - Data on gun violence in America, with specifications such as non-geographic location (i.e. school) and number killed
We expect that we will not be using all of the data provided by our sources; for example, I will need to limit the timespan, due both to mismatches in the periods of time our data sources cover (GLC only goes back to 2012), and to statistical concerns (I believe that 2020 is not likely to be representative). We will be using data on how many people died, where, and when from The Violence Project, as well as details on the nature of the shooter and how they acquired their weapons. At the same time, we will use data from the Giffords Law Center in order to measure the strength of gun laws in each state, and over time. All applicable data will be put into CSV files for reading.
This design explores a more complex mapping of data onto a map and grid system. The filled cirlces on the map represent shootings and their location in terms of the map, whereas the unfilled circles represent the type of shooting in relation to where it occured non-geographically (i.e. a school, workplace, etc). The unfilled circles are mapped to the background grid, and their location in terms of the grid represent what type of shooting it was. A user can zoom in on certain states on the map and learn more about the shootings in that state.
This map shows translucent cirlces of varying sizes on a map. The size of the circles represent the number of people killed in a particular shooting, and the location of the circle on the map dictates where the shooting occured. A barchart at the bottom serves as a timeline for the number of shootings in total over a certain time period, with the same data as the map. This timeline can be brushed to focus in on a certain section of data, and the map's circles will reflect this brushed area.
This bar chart visualizes the victims of gun violence by age. The viewer has the ability to filter the data based on different categories, such as method of aquisition of the gun, type of gun, etc. in this example. Without a filter, all gun violence victims are shown in the bar charts, and when a filter is chosen, the outline of the total numbers remains, but the filter's numbers fill in the bars. This visualization helps a viewer see which categories influence the number of gun victims more than others.
This visualization is an animation that a viewer can play. The visualization will start at the time our data starts, and it will run over certain intervals (maybe by month) until the end of the dataset. The design will start as an empty box, and as time passes, the box will start filling with icons representing the victims of gun violence at any given moment. The icons can either be of people, where size can represent age, or they can be different icons such as a school or office building to depict the location of the shooting. The design can also include popups whenever new gun legislation is passed over time, bringing in the gun laws aspect of gun violence.
This design is another animation that will fill a map with, in this case, gun icons. Like the previous animation, this will play over a time period and can be used to depict gun sales in the U.S. over time. Along with the other visualizations, this design will allow a viewer to see how gun sales have changed over time in the U.S., and potentially how this has impacted the volume of gun violence.
This design shows multiple visualizations, the first being a map. Each state on this map will be given a color based on a red scale, where the darker the shade of red, the weaker the gun control is in that state. On this map will also be translucent circles, similar to the second design, with their location indicating where the shooting took place and their size indicating the number of victims in the shooting. A viewer can click on a state and a larger image of that state will come up, proving the user with more information about the state's gun laws and any shootings that happened there, such as number of victims, shooter demographics, etc. To support this map, a timeline is shown below that can be brushed, filtering out some of the shooting data so a viewer can focus on shootings within a smaller time frame. The bottom visualization shows a bar chart that provides the viewer with a closer look into the gun violence during a specific year that they can choose.
For our final design, we have created different visualizations for the data that we will be researching. The first visualization is a map, with
a color scale indicating the gun control scores given to each state (a darker red meaning weaker laws and regulations). Each state will also have a colored circle
with a size indicating the number of shootings that occurred in that state. At this moment, our data does not specifcy all locations of shootings, so we cannot
mark the locations, but we will be exploring that possiblity in the next few days.
When a user clicks on a state, a larger view of that state will come up, and the state will be colored to show data on the shootings in that state
based on different filters that a viewer can choose, such as gender or possibly age of victims. There will also be a section for the legislation
that is currently in that state surrounding gun control and regulations. A user can see when the legislation was passed and more details about it, as well as
go through a drop-down menu to go through legislation one-by-one.
The last two visualizations are of timelines throughout different time periods. The first timeline will be from 2012-2020, displaying the number of shootings over time.
A viewer will be able to mouse-over the bars to get more information about the numbers they are depicting, as well as any noteable events (in terms of legislation) that happened around that time.
The second timeline will be for a specific year. This more detailed view will provide the user with more specific stats on the shootings of that year, giving dates of shootings, victims of the shootings,
and more data like that.
While is our final design, we anticipate adapting or adding to the visualizations as we finalize our datasets and explore d3's functionality further throughout the project. We want this project
to be extremely interactive for the user as well as adequately communicate the weight of the data we are displaying.
Able to display gun violence/laws for each year
Able to click on states on the map to see more information
Filter victims by various demographics
Distinguish state by death rate
Distinguish state by gun law grade
Make it clear that states are selectable
Graphs for death totals and percentages for demographics and death type
Selecting multiple years at once
Graph of gun law scores over time (per state)
Show demographics as stacked (not just being able to filter)
Some animation over time of gun violence victims
| Date | Due |
|---|---|
| 11/16 | Project Proposal |
| 11/16-11/23 |
Weekly Meeting Get all data processed and in folder for use Start visualizations: one map view, one other view Start Process Book |
| 11/23 | Milestone 1 |
| 11/23-11/30 |
Weekly Meeting Implement other visualizations and interactions Continue Process Book |
| 11/30-12/07 |
Weekly Meeting Finalize interactions with visualizations Continue Process Book |
| 12/07 | Milestone 2 |
| 12/07-12/14 |
Weekly Meeting Create and practice presentation Film screencast |
| 12/15-12/17 | Project Presentation |
| 12/15-01/06 |
Plan meetings based on winter break schedules Revise visualizations based on user-studies and feedback Finalize website/project |
| 01/06 | Final Project Due |
Since our project proposal, we have sourced new data, including the locations for individual shootings. Displayed on the map are the individual shootings in the
in the location that they occurred as a circle whose size reflects the number of victims.
The state map now appears as a pop-up visualization displayed over the national map. The locations for each shooting are displayed the same as on the national map.
A drop down menu filters the shootings by race of the perpetrator. We have also decided against displaying individual legislation, as the data isn't easily available
and the grade assigned to the state already reflects the state's legislation. We may choose to include it in the future should we find a complete source for legislation.
The timeline now displays continuous data, and is brushable. Brushing updates the state and national maps.
As of Wednesday, December 2: The map and timeline have both been resized so as to fit on the page together, and state coloration has been modified so that it looks at most recent year in the brushing, rather than the most recent grade overall.
As of Monday, December 7: The dots have been been divided by whether or not the shooting was fatal (non-fatal shootings are now yellow), and fatal shootings have been rescaled so that size is solely a function of deaths (rather than deaths and injuries together, which caused some shootings to dominate the scale). Additionally, shooter demographics have been used to color shootings in the state zoomed-in view, and aggregate demographics over the brushed time period are used to populate pie charts at the bottom of the visualization. Finally, states' gun laws in various key categories as of 2020 are now displayed in the state view.
As of Wednesday, December 23: The timeline has been changed from deaths and injuries at each shooting to cumulative deaths over time. The zoomed-in shootings have had their location data fixed, so that everything shows up where they are supposed to; they were also sorted by least fatal to most, so that everything could be selected. The multiple pie charts have been turned into a single, larger pie chart that allows you to select which demographic type you are analyzing, and the colors have been standardized, and each slice is now labeled with the number. The demographics' keys have also been reordered to make more logical sense. Shooting victims per 100,000 citizens has been added to each state's tooltip. The legislation key's colors have been filtered to properly match those on the map. Finally, the map and timeline have been shruken so that all three parts of the visualization could fit on the screen at once.