Over the years I've un-followed a lot of people on social media for excessive political posts, but I continue to follow a few people with whom I mostly disagree but still count as friends. One of these people has gone over the top with anti-gun posts in the last week, and it's gotten to the point that it's really annoying me. I have trouble knowing how to respond. On one extreme, I could just say nothing. On the other, I could have a public rant and "unfriend" him. Neither seems like the right option. This friend and I are both scientists, so we're comfortable arguing about data.
With that in mind, I dug out a graphic I prepared a few years ago, and put together a new one this afternoon. I think that both of these figures are relatively straightforward and easy to interpret. I am going to judiciously use them in my social media postings and welcome others to do the same. If anyone else has thoughtful graphics that could benefit our cause, please share them here. I prefer that people not share highly partisan or condescending graphics as those do nothing to expand our base. As per Glenn's comments in several other threads, we need to work more on outreach and not simply bolster those who already feel as strongly as we do.
I should revise the second figure so that it needs less explanation, but I can't find the file where I saved the numbers. The data came from two separate Wikipedia pages, and getting the data into Excel was awfully tedius. In short, each dot is a country.
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Originally Posted by White Crane
