Share never married and Share of suicides by firearm
Where Share never married is higher, Share of suicides by firearm tends to be lower. The link is weak: -0.30 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 -0.40.
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 never married
The percentage of people aged 15 and over who have never married. The Census counts from age 15, not 18, so every county's figure includes some teenagers.
Census ACS 5-year · ACS table B12001_003…B12001_012 (2 cells), divided by population aged 15 and over
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
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 never married
| Share never married | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Harrisonburg city, VA | 58.3% | 58.6% |
| District of Columbia, DC | 55.2% | 24% |
| Todd County, SD | 53.6% | 31.6% |
| Clarke County, GA | 53.4% | 62.5% |
| Suffolk County, MA | 53.4% | 16.3% |
| Lowest | ||
| Sumter County, FL | 13.8% | 61.9% |
| Alleghany County, NC | 14.6% | 76.5% |
| Llano County, TX | 14.8% | 73.7% |
| Boise County, ID | 15.5% | 90.9% |
| Brown County, IN | 15.7% | 62.5% |
By share of suicides by firearm
| Share never married | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Custer County, ID | 16.9% | 100% |
| Harrison County, MO | 23.8% | 100% |
| Teton County, MT | 22.3% | 100% |
| Gates County, NC | 27.7% | 100% |
| Pendleton County, WV | 24% | 100% |
| Lowest | ||
| New York County, NY | 49.9% | 6.48% |
| Queens County, NY | 38.2% | 10.5% |
| Kings County, NY | 44.3% | 12.2% |
| Bronx County, NY | 49% | 12.7% |
| Hudson County, NJ | 41.4% | 14.7% |
States
By share never married
| Share never married | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| District of Columbia | 55.2% | 24% |
| New York | 38.6% | 27.3% |
| California | 37.8% | 37.6% |
| Rhode Island | 37.3% | 27% |
| Massachusetts | 37.2% | 22% |
| Lowest | ||
| Wyoming | 27.6% | 70.6% |
| Idaho | 28.3% | 64.2% |
| Maine | 28.9% | 56% |
| West Virginia | 29% | 63.4% |
| Arkansas | 29.5% | 62.6% |
By share of suicides by firearm
| Share never married | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Mississippi | 34.2% | 70.8% |
| Wyoming | 27.6% | 70.6% |
| Alabama | 31.6% | 70.5% |
| Louisiana | 36.2% | 65.6% |
| South Carolina | 32.5% | 64.7% |
| Lowest | ||
| Hawaii | 34.1% | 19% |
| Massachusetts | 37.2% | 22% |
| District of Columbia | 55.2% | 24% |
| Rhode Island | 37.3% | 27% |
| New Jersey | 34.5% | 27% |
Metro areas
By share never married
| Share never married | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Pullman, WA | 52.5% | 48.7% |
| Gallup, NM | 52.5% | 28.7% |
| Ruston, LA | 51% | 75.9% |
| Clarksdale, MS | 49.5% | 81.3% |
| Athens, OH | 48.5% | 51.9% |
| Lowest | ||
| Wildwood-The Villages, FL | 13.8% | 61.9% |
| Crossville, TN | 17.3% | 74.2% |
| Brookings, OR | 17.4% | 77.4% |
| Mountain Home, AR | 18.6% | 76.9% |
| Granbury, TX | 19.5% | 64.5% |
By share of suicides by firearm
| Share never married | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Cleveland, MS | 43.3% | 94.1% |
| Brenham, TX | 25.9% | 90% |
| Troy, AL | 45.5% | 87% |
| Ruidoso, NM | 21.6% | 86.8% |
| Scottsboro, AL | 24.6% | 86.2% |
| Lowest | ||
| Urban Honolulu, HI | 34.6% | 16.6% |
| New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ | 38.3% | 18.1% |
| Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA-NH | 37.5% | 20.8% |
| Kahului-Wailuku, HI | 33.2% | 21.1% |
| Barnstable Town, MA | 25.7% | 22.5% |
Cities and towns — Share of suicides by firearm is not published for cities and towns
By share never married
| Share never married | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| Clemson University CDP, SC | 99.9% | — |
| Binghamton University CDP, NY | 99.3% | — |
| Rochester Institute of Technology CDP, NY | 99.3% | — |
| Notre Dame CDP, IN | 99.1% | — |
| California Polytechnic State University CDP, CA | 98.8% | — |
| Lowest | ||
| Desert Palms CDP, CA | 3.45% | — |
| Longboat Key town, FL | 3.52% | — |
| Pelican Bay CDP, FL | 3.69% | — |
| The Villages CDP, FL | 4.24% | — |
| On Top of the World CDP, FL | 4.4% | — |
ZIP codes — Share of suicides by firearm is not published for ZIP codes
By share never married
| Share never married | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Highest | ||
| ZIP 19717 (Newark city, DE) | 100% | — |
| ZIP 38677 (University CDP, MS) | 100% | — |
| ZIP 32612 (Gainesville city, FL) | 99.9% | — |
| ZIP 93410 (California Polytechnic State University CDP, CA) | 99.9% | — |
| ZIP 13244 (Syracuse city, NY) | 99.9% | — |
| Lowest | ||
| ZIP 34228 (Longboat Key town, FL) | 3.52% | — |
| ZIP 32162 (The Villages CDP, FL) | 3.98% | — |
| ZIP 85375 (Sun City West CDP, AZ) | 5.31% | — |
| ZIP 32163 (Wildwood city, FL) | 5.45% | — |
| ZIP 85622 (Pima County, AZ) | 6.24% | — |
Counties furthest from the pattern
Compared with the straight line that best fits all 2,220 counties: the five with far more share of suicides by firearm than their share never married would suggest, and the five with far less.
| Share never married | Share of suicides by firearm | |
|---|---|---|
| Above the line | ||
| Hale County, AL | 41.4% | 100% |
| Bolivar County, MS | 43.3% | 94.1% |
| Leflore County, MS | 49.9% | 88.9% |
| Conecuh County, AL | 31.1% | 100% |
| Pike County, AL | 45.5% | 87% |
| Below the line | ||
| Queens County, NY | 38.2% | 10.5% |
| Norfolk County, MA | 33.6% | 15.8% |
| Bergen County, NJ | 30.5% | 18.7% |
| Barnstable County, MA | 25.7% | 22.5% |
| Honolulu County, HI | 34.6% | 16.6% |
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 | -0.366 | 2,220 counties reporting both |
| After adjusting for density, income and education | -0.301 | the part of the link that is not just how urban, rich and educated a place is |
| Also adjusting for population size | -0.256 | size taken out as well as density |
| Also comparing only within each state | -0.226 | 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 | -0.393 | 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 | -0.398 | the link worked out inside each of 35 states with at least 20 counties reporting |
| Using ranks, after adjusting | -0.317 | 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-47. But counties in the same state tend to resemble each other, so the better figure allows for that: p = 1.1e-6. 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 7.5e-47.
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 +0.37 (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
- Share never married and Share White, not Hispanic — -0.59
- Median age and Share never married — -0.59
- Share never married and Republican share of the two-party vote, 2020 — -0.58
- Share never married and Republican share of the two-party vote, 2016 — -0.58
- Share aged 65 and over and Share never married — -0.56
- Share never married and Republican share of the two-party vote, 2024 — -0.56
- Homeownership rate and Share never married — -0.53
- Share never married and Material security score — -0.52
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 never married and Share of suicides by firearm