• shalafi@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    One thing to note, those shootings are almost all meth heads and gangbangers blasting each other, not the random, “That could have been me!” violence people think of. I feel perfectly safe in Mississippi, not so much in the cities as the country, but still, I don’t belong to a group with rivals (or angry doped up white trash).

    Any surprise that poverty begets violence in our poorest state?

      • shalafi@lemmy.world
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        14 days ago

        Those poverty levels are not remotely comparable. Haitian minimum wage is something like $150 per month.

        You can be poor as hell in MS and still own a gun. Hell, you may have not paid a dime for it if inherited. If you’re poor as hell in Haiti, you’re selling that gun to eat. If it doesn’t get stolen out your shack.

        And if you still think you have a “gotcha”, we’re talking about murder by gun. Want to talk murder in general?

        In 2023, the number of intentional homicides per 100,000 inhabitants in Haiti was estimated at 40.85

        It’s half that in Mississippi, the worst in the US.

        • MyOpinion@lemm.ee
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          14 days ago

          This is your final point you made “Any surprise that poverty begets violence in our poorest state?”. It would seem that Haitians are poor and Mississippi folks are poor. Both are experiencing violence. Attacking poverty is a good way to go in lowering violence. I would like to add on lowering the amount of guns floating around in a poor community is not a bad idea either. Both can be done at the same time.

        • benignintervention@lemmy.world
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          14 days ago

          This is a great point correlating gun access with gun violence. It shows that access to firearms is positively correlated with deaths by firearm