FiveThirtyEight Launches Ambitious Multi-Part Examination of Gun Deaths in America

Today FiveThirtyEight launched its most ambitious project to date: a multi-part exploration of gun deaths and gun violence in America. The project includes 10 major articles on different types of gun deaths and how they can be reduced, an in-depth interactive graphic, and stunning photography and illustration. It is the result of months of reporting and analysis by a team of FiveThirtyEight reporters who traveled the country to explore the true nature of the victims of gun violence in the U.S. and the successes and failures in trying to reduce their numbers.

The project is based on hard data, but goes beyond numbers to look into demographics, circumstances and potential solutions. It examines the nature of suicides (which account for two-thirds of all gun deaths), homicides, domestic violence deaths, mass shootings, police shootings, terrorism and accidental gun deaths.

"The political conversation about guns tends to focus on mass shootings or assault weapons or terrorists," said David Firestone, FiveThirtyEight's managing editor. "But the totality of gun violence is much broader and more complex, and is exactly the right subject for FiveThirtyEight's method of empirical journalism, starting with the data and seeing where it takes us. Simone Landon, the project's editor, along with her team of reporters, editors and visual journalists, have assembled a powerful and compelling series of stories that illuminates this American epidemic in new ways."

The launch will be accompanied by a special seven-part series on FiveThirtyEight's "What's the Point" podcast, featuring interviews with each of the reporters involved in the project.

Below is rundown of the content from Gun Death in America, now live on FiveThirtyEight.com:

Gun Death In America
An interactive visualization of gun death in America
By Reuben Fischer-Baum and Ben Casselman

What Would It Take?
A letter from the editor
By Simone Landon

Surviving Suicide In Wyoming
Older men in the West are among the most at risk but the hardest to help
By Anna Maria Barry-Jester

Always Ready, Always There
Military suicide looks a lot like civilian suicide
By Maggie Koerth-Baker

New Orleans Searches For The Truth
The best way to prevent gun violence is knowing who's most likely to die
By Ben Casselman

In The Shadow Of Exile
Cities around the country tried to stop gun violence by sending offenders to faraway prisons. Rochester is still dealing with the consequences.
By Carl Bialik

How To Protect Women
Authorities are going after domestic abusers' guns.
By Hayley Munguia

Where Background Checks Work
Homicides rose after Missouri loosened its gun laws. That carries lessons for everywhere else.
By Ben Casselman

Legal Intervention
Police departments are embracing body camera technology with the hope that filming every encounter will both reduce violence against civilians and prove most cops are good cops.
By Carl Bialik

The Mass Shooting Fix
Looking abroad for ways to reduce the number of shootings in America doesn't offer easy solutions
By Leah Libresco and Carl Bialik

Instrument Of Terror
Terrorist attacks in the U.S. increasingly take the form of mass shootings.
By Carl Bialik

What Counts As An Accident?
When it comes to gun deaths, medical examiners and public health scientists don't agree on what "accidental" really means.
By Maggie-Koerth Baker

To post a comment, you must register and login.