Most peaceful, least peaceful U.S. states

WebMD Health News ^ | April 26, 2012 | Cari Nierenberg and Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

[ConservativeStatement]

For the 11th year in a row, Maine is the most peaceful state in America, according to the 2012 United States Peace Index report.

[ConservativeStatement]

What would Barry say? "If I had a son...he look like..." Likely just a coincidence.

[goodnesswins]

"Each state's peace index score was determined by analyzing its homicide, violent crime, policing, and prison rates, as well as by the availability of guns among its residents."

So...is availability of guns....a positive or a negative?

[WildHighlander57]

Where’d the article go? I get an “article not found” message when I click on the link.

[raybbr]

Do not go to page unless your anti-virus is working!!!!

Tried to get me with a trojan but Microsoft Security Essentials caught it. Had to reboot to clean it up.

[cripplecreek]

Among regions, the Northeast was considered the most peaceful area with the country's lowest homicide, violent crime, and prison rates. It was followed by the Midwest, West, and lastly, the South, which had the highest rates of gun ownership.

No agendas here. /s

I see they listed Detroit as the most violent but I suspect they aren't making a distinction between violent crime and violent defense. (Self defense shootings in Detroit are skyrocketing) I'd be interested in a comparison between Detroit and Chicago.

[9YearLurker]

Only two out of the five criteria they use reflect actual crime rates. Guns? Police? Prison? Who needs those!

[cripplecreek]

My Norton’s caught it too.

[ConservativeStatement]

Type in” ajc peaceful states” in Google and it should be the first link; however, two posts that follow on FR mentioned a potential virus, though I am not sure if it is the AJC page or the link provided there.

[shove_it]

Ditto.

[ConservativeStatement]

(typo) “ajc peaceful states”

[I am bigjohn]

Avg blocked it immediately.

[cripplecreek]

I’ve got a lot of issues with the story.

It rates regions with the northeast being least violent with the south being most violent (and includes the fact that there are lots of guns in the south) However, there are a lot of guns in the west and midwest but they didn’t mention them.

[BwanaNdege]

Demographics?

Caliber?

Magazine Capacity?

I wonder which factor is most important?

What about the percentage of SUVs?

/s

[ought-six]

Norton caught it.

[Tigerized]

Very weak attempt to tie legal gun ownership to high crime rates.

Imagine a city where the law-abiding are prohibited from all gun ownership.

100% safe, right?

(Washington, DC. No crime at all...)

[jjotto]

Southern states - Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, (Maryland), South Carolina and Alabama - have the highest percentage of black Americans that (politically incorrectly) skew the statistics.

Maine, Vermont, Idaho and Montana have the lowest.

[ought-six]

Notice the least peaceful have a very high number (in most cases a majority) of a certain demographic. Just saying. Coincidence?

[Tex-Con-Man]

From their website...

The USPI measures peacefulness according to five indicators:
The number of homicides,
Number of violent crimes,
The incarceration rate,
Number of police employees and
The availability of small arms.

How utterly useless.

[cripplecreek]

The availability of small arms.

Long guns don't kill people till they reach puberty and develop tripods and banana clips, then they go rabid and become assault weapons.

[matthew fuller]

I had some sort of BS “virus attack” yesterday, when I went to weather underground (a weather site). It was said to be discovered by a MS Windows Antivirus, or some such MS program- trouble is, I don’t have any MS antivirus or Windows Defender running. I immediately used my Kaspersky, and my computer was clean and protected. Anyway the suspect program gave me a decision to clean the “attacking virus” which I ignored, and closed the decision box. Then a big evil red page filled my screen anyway, telling me to load some protection program. I killed that too. I suggest that anyone getting this kill it, and have a reputable antivirus and firewall already loaded and running.