ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
 I've posted it a couple of times before, but it's one of my favorites.  
 

                     Correlation
 

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
It's awesome that it's automated like that.  Some of my spurious correlation charts took forever to plot out.
 
2004 was very telling.

 
 
Create your own Spurious Correlation:

Whales Swimming Around Hawaii

via

 haresfur wrote: 

Truer words.  I think gun control or lack of has very little to do with the impact on crime, just the ability of families to protect themselves when it happens.  It is all about economic opportunity.

 miamizsun wrote: 
Well that is a misleading graph, too.  It says it is plotting the percent change but the numbers do not at all match the data table.  It appears to be plotting the values as a percent change from the 1993 values ie (1993 total violent crime - 2010 total violent crime)*100/1993 total violent crime).  My initial reading of the graph and its title was that it plots the annual percent change since 1993 - what is tabulated in the table.

In any case the takeaway message for me is that the stand your ground laws had essentially no impact on violent crime and if you want to reduce crime rates then avoid recessions. 

 Proclivities wrote: 
Well at the very least it's an innocent catastrophic fail, if the designer was trying to mimic that other chart. But where that chart is easily understood (more ink = more deaths) even if it's upside-down, the whole point of a graph is to make numbers easily understood, even without reading the actual numbers. If I'm supposed to read the x & y axis labels before the visual representation makes its way into my eyeballs, then why even have a graph? Why not say "gun deaths in Florida rose from 700 to 800 in the months after SYG laws were enacted" and leave the graph out entirely? That's the innocent version. The lying version knows that convention says to put the 0,0 points of a line graph at the lower left, and any other configuration will obfuscate the information in the numbers and leave a false impression, based on our life-long experience in reading properly-constructed graphs.

 islander wrote: 
I think that designer was suggesting dripping blood, which was based on an earlier chart about deaths in Iraq.  The "blood" suggests the actual numbers, but since it is upside-down it cannot immediately be read correctly.

 Proclivities wrote: 
I went through 3 blogs explaining the problems but never to the original article.  After the blogs it seems the intent was right and the article factual, but the graph didn't follow that intent.  I'd chalk that up to failed execution instead of outright lie.  Still a wonky chart though, I had to look at it several times to figure it out.

 islander wrote: 
Click on the chart/image for an explanation and another within that article.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
What was the point of the original article?  

 miamizsun wrote: 
Perhaps, but the Reuter's chart appears to be based on gun related homicides only, not overall violent crime.

Violent Crime for Florida, 1992 - 2012

Violent crime includes Murder, Forcible Sex Offenses, Robbery, and Aggravated Assault. From 1992 to 2012, Florida experienced a decrease in the number of reported Violent offenses, down 41.7 percent from 161,137 reported offenses in 1992 to 93,965 in 2012. The overall Violent crime rate has had a significant decrease of 59.0 percent from 1,200.3 offenses per 100,000 population in 1992 to 492.6 in 2012. Florida's population increased 42.1 percent during the period. 
 

Violent Crime in Florida, 1992 - 2012 Click on specific year for by county details.
Year	Population	Murder	Forcible Sex Offenses	Robbery	Aggravated Assault	Total Violent Crime	% Change in Number	Violent Crime Rate per 100,000	Rate Change
1992	13,424,416	1,191	13,429	48,957	97,560	161,137	—	1,200.3	—
1993	13,608,627	1,187	13,752	47,742	99,108	161,789	0.4	1,188.9	-1.0
1994	13,878,905	1,152	13,413	45,263	98,007	157,835	-2.4	1,137.2	-4.3
1995	14,149,317	1,030	12,259	42,142	94,777	150,208	-4.8	1,061.6	-6.7
1996	14,411,563	1,077	12,942	41,643	95,688	151,350	0.8	1,050.2	-1.1
1997	14,712,922	1,014	13,224	40,703	95,860	150,801	-0.4	1,025.0	-2.4
1998	15,000,475	966	12,702	36,130	89,875	139,673	-7.4	931.1	-9.2
1999	15,322,040	856	12,583	31,996	83,424	128,859	-7.7	841.0	-9.7
2000	15,982,378	890	12,388	31,392	83,371	128,041	-0.6	801.1	-4.7
2001	16,331,739	867	12,756	32,808	83,892	130,323	1.8	798.0	-0.4
2002	16,674,608	906	12,810	32,413	81,776	127,905	-1.9	767.1	-3.9
2003	17,071,508	924	12,756	31,512	79,044	124,236	-2.9	727.7	-5.1
2004	17,516,732	946	12,427	29,984	80,340	123,697	-0.4	706.2	-3.0
2005	17,918,227	881	12,230	30,092	82,622	125,825	1.7	702.2	-0.6
2006	18,349,132	1,129	11,567	34,123	82,682	129,501	2.9	705.8	0.5
2007	18,680,367	1,202	11,214	38,112	81,253	131,781	1.8	705.5	-0.04
2008	18,807,219	1,168	10,823	36,232	77,849	126,072	-4.3	670.3	-5.0
2009	18,750,483	1,017	10,227	30,881	71,290	113,415	-10.0	604.9	-9.8
2010	18,771,768	987	9,885	26,074	64,960	101,906	-10.1	542.9	-10.2
2011	18,905,048	985	9,880	25,617	61,701	98,183	-3.7	519.3	-4.3
2012	19,074,434	1,009	10,145	23,856	58,958	93,965	-4.3	492.6	-5.1
SOURCE: Florida Statistical Analysis Center:  FDLE (1991-2012). Crime in Florida, Florida uniform crime report . Tallahassee, FL.