Share of suicides by firearm and Evangelical Protestant adherents
Where Share of suicides by firearm is higher, Evangelical Protestant adherents tends to be higher. The link is weak: +0.33 across 2,220 counties, on a scale from −1 (opposite) to +1 (in step). That figure compares places with the same population density, income and education, so those differences can't explain it. It holds inside states too. Measured separately within each of 35 states, the middle value of the link is +0.13.
Holds after adjusting
Every place, plotted
One dot for each place reporting both measures. Hover over or tap a dot to see its name and values. The thin line is the straight line that best fits the dots. The bold line, shown for counties, is the link after adjusting for density, income and education. A dot far from the lines is a place that does not follow the pattern.
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What each measure is
Share of suicides by firearm
The percentage of suicides that were by gun, 2018-2023. Where more households own guns, more suicides are by gun. So researchers use this as the standard stand-in for gun ownership, which nobody counts directly.
CDC WONDER mortality; RAND firearm ownership database · CDC WONDER underlying cause of death, suicide by intent, firearm by mechanism, 2018-2023
Evangelical Protestant adherents
Members of evangelical Protestant churches, such as Southern Baptist, Assemblies of God, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and about two hundred others, as a share of the population.
· Religion Census EVANRATE (2010, 2020)
Highest and lowest
Where each measure is highest and lowest among the places reporting both (2023), with the other measure beside it. This is shown for every size of place where both are published. Metro-area values are added up from their counties. A measure that cannot be added up across counties, such as a middle value (median), has no metro figure. Counts are shown per 1,000 residents, since raw totals would only list the largest places. Cities and towns and ZIP codes are shown where the Census survey or the CDC publishes them; most other sources stop at the county. They are shown for places of 5,000 residents or more, and only where the survey’s margin of error is small enough for the figure to be usable. The CDC publishes its health estimates for cities in a version adjusted for age, so places with older or younger people can be compared fairly, but not for ZIP codes.
Counties
By share of suicides by firearm
| Share of suicides by firearm | Evangelical Protestant adherents | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Custer County, ID | 100% | 20.5 |
| Harrison County, MO | 100% | 41.1 |
| Teton County, MT | 100% | 22.4 |
| Gates County, NC | 100% | 38.5 |
| Pendleton County, WV | 100% | 31.3 |
| Lowest | ||
| New York County, NY | 6.48% | 4.99 |
| Queens County, NY | 10.5% | 4.77 |
| Kings County, NY | 12.2% | 4.92 |
| Bronx County, NY | 12.7% | 4.33 |
| Hudson County, NJ | 14.7% | 4.78 |
By evangelical Protestant adherents
| Share of suicides by firearm | Evangelical Protestant adherents | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Edmonson County, KY | 76.9% | 129 |
| Yalobusha County, MS | 65% | 83.4 |
| Caldwell County, KY | 75% | 80.5 |
| Eastland County, TX | 61.8% | 79 |
| Bell County, KY | 51.6% | 76.4 |
| Lowest | ||
| Clear Creek County, CO | 61.1% | 0 |
| Juab County, UT | 68.8% | 0 |
| Utah County, UT | 53.8% | 0.38 |
| Wasatch County, UT | 55.2% | 0.46 |
| Garfield County, UT | 71.4% | 0.71 |
States
By share of suicides by firearm
| Share of suicides by firearm | Evangelical Protestant adherents | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Mississippi | 70.8% | 39 |
| Wyoming | 70.6% | 11.2 |
| Alabama | 70.5% | 42.1 |
| Louisiana | 65.6% | 25 |
| South Carolina | 64.7% | 29 |
| Lowest | ||
| Hawaii | 19% | 9.29 |
| Massachusetts | 22% | 3.65 |
| District of Columbia | 24% | 15.3 |
| Rhode Island | 27% | 3.83 |
| New Jersey | 27% | 5.1 |
By evangelical Protestant adherents
| Share of suicides by firearm | Evangelical Protestant adherents | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Alabama | 70.5% | 42.1 |
| Oklahoma | 61.5% | 41.9 |
| Mississippi | 70.8% | 39 |
| Arkansas | 62.6% | 38.3 |
| Tennessee | 64.4% | 36.3 |
| Lowest | ||
| Utah | 53.7% | 2.03 |
| Massachusetts | 22% | 3.65 |
| Rhode Island | 27% | 3.83 |
| New Hampshire | 51.5% | 4.84 |
| New Jersey | 27% | 5.1 |
Metro areas
By share of suicides by firearm
| Share of suicides by firearm | Evangelical Protestant adherents | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Cleveland, MS | 94.1% | 31.9 |
| Brenham, TX | 90% | 20.7 |
| Troy, AL | 87% | 31.3 |
| Ruidoso, NM | 86.8% | 16.1 |
| Scottsboro, AL | 86.2% | 41.4 |
| Lowest | ||
| Urban Honolulu, HI | 16.6% | 8.14 |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 18.1% | 4.4 |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | 20.8% | 3.42 |
| Kahului-Wailuku, HI | 21.1% | 13.1 |
| Barnstable Town, MA | 22.5% | 2.6 |
By evangelical Protestant adherents
| Share of suicides by firearm | Evangelical Protestant adherents | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Middlesborough, KY | 51.6% | 76.4 |
| Vernon, TX | 84.2% | 68.1 |
| Durant, OK | 55.4% | 64.6 |
| Gadsden, AL | 69.9% | 64.5 |
| Mount Pleasant, TX | 77.4% | 62.1 |
| Lowest | ||
| Provo-Orem-Lehi, UT | 54.1% | 0.373 |
| Heber, UT | 56.3% | 0.702 |
| Amherst Town-Northampton, MA | 28.3% | 0.82 |
| Rexburg, ID | 57.3% | 1.21 |
| Logan, UT-ID | 55.8% | 1.32 |
Counties furthest from the pattern
Compared with the straight line that best fits all 2,220 counties: the five with far more evangelical Protestant adherents than their share of suicides by firearm would suggest, and the five with far less.
| Share of suicides by firearm | Evangelical Protestant adherents | |
|---|---|---|
| Above the line | ||
| Edmonson County, KY | 76.9% | 129 |
| Yalobusha County, MS | 65% | 83.4 |
| Bell County, KY | 51.6% | 76.4 |
| Eastland County, TX | 61.8% | 79 |
| Caldwell County, KY | 75% | 80.5 |
| Below the line | ||
| Caribou County, ID | 83.3% | 0.75 |
| White Pine County, NV | 86.7% | 2.64 |
| Crawford County, WI | 88.2% | 3.4 |
| Catron County, NM | 92.9% | 5.89 |
| Ritchie County, WV | 100% | 9.3 |
Two series, one county
Both measures over time for a county you pick. The two charts are stacked, so they share only the years along the bottom. You can pick from the thirty largest counties reporting both. This panel covers 2010–2024, and a measure published only once shows as a single dot.
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Every version of the link
Each row measures the same link, from −1 to +1, in a different way. If the rows mostly agree, the link does not depend on one choice of method.
| Before adjusting for anything | +0.402 | 2,220 counties reporting both |
| After adjusting for density, income and education | +0.325 | the part of the link that is not just how urban, rich and educated a place is |
| Also adjusting for population size | +0.291 | size taken out as well as density |
| Also comparing only within each state | +0.056 | each county is compared only with others in its own state, so this is no longer a comparison between states |
| Giving bigger counties more weight | +0.514 | the adjusted link for the average resident rather than the average county. With this weighting, the data counts for about 274 equally weighted counties |
| Middle value inside single states | +0.125 | the link worked out inside each of 35 states with at least 20 counties reporting |
| Using ranks, after adjusting | +0.364 | uses each county’s rank, not its value, so a few extreme counties cannot create the link |
How much to believe it
Could it be chance?
The p-value is the chance of seeing a link this strong if there were really none. A value of 0.05 or less means the link is unlikely to be chance. Very small values are written in short form: 3.1e-16 means 0.00000000000000031, and the bigger the number after “e-”, the smaller the value. Treating every county as a separate case gives p = 1.4e-55. But counties in the same state tend to resemble each other, so the better figure allows for that: p = 9.5e-12. The site tested 20,910 pairs, and testing so many turns up some flukes. The q-value allows for that too. For this pair it is 8.0e-55.
Do nearby places look alike?
Moran’s I measures how much nearby places look alike: 0 means no map pattern, and higher means neighbours are more similar. For the part of each county that the adjustment leaves unexplained, it is +0.49 (p = 0.001). That unexplained part still clusters on the map. So some regional factor shared by both measures is not accounted for.
Did they change together?
Not measurable: at least one of these is published for too few of the years a change needs (2014–2019 or 2019–2023), or for too few counties in both.
Related pairs
- Republican share of the two-party vote, 2008 and Evangelical Protestant adherents — +0.43
- Median property tax bill and Share of suicides by firearm — -0.42
- Republican share of the two-party vote, 2012 and Evangelical Protestant adherents — +0.40
- Share of suicides by firearm and Returns reporting unemployment compensation — -0.39
- Effective property tax rate and Share of suicides by firearm — -0.35
- High cholesterol and Evangelical Protestant adherents — +0.35
- Returns reporting unemployment compensation and Evangelical Protestant adherents — -0.35
- Republican share of the two-party vote, 2020 and Evangelical Protestant adherents — +0.34
Association only. Nothing here shows that either measure changes the other. This describes counties, not the people in them. Two measures going together across places does not mean the same people have both. How the US county data works · Explore Share of suicides by firearm and Evangelical Protestant adherents