gunsVganja:big.38

gunsVganja

gunsVganja

Aaryan Sharma, Bhaskar Joshi, N Harsha Vardhan, Manav Chaudhary, Mugundan Kottur Suresh

Problem Statement:

Does a correlation exist between fluctuating weed prices and instances of gun violence?

The motivation behind the research question:

Gun violence is a persistent issue in the United States, necessitating an exploration of factors influencing its occurrence. Moreover, substance misuse often leads to impaired judgement, increased aggressiveness, and probable engagement in illegal activities. This study investigates the potential correlation between fluctuating weed prices and instances of gun violence in the USA from 2013 to 2018. With the increasing acceptance and legalization of cannabis in various states, understanding the impact of weed market changes on gun violence is crucial. Identifying a correlation could indicate that accessibility or affordability of weed affects the occurrence of gun violence. Such findings would be invaluable for policymakers, law enforcement agencies, and communities, enabling the formulation of targeted strategies to combat drug-related crime and gun violence.

Ultimately, this research contributes to a deeper understanding of the multifaceted influences of gun violence and aids in developing evidence-based interventions and policies. By shedding light on the potential connection between fluctuating weed prices and gun violence, the study aims to promote community safety and well-being in the face of these intertwined challenges.

Research Methods:

For the project, we followed an analytical + exploratory research approach.

Datasets:

As the data is crucial for getting unbiased and accurate results. We went ahead to use the following datasets:

  • [PriceOfWeed], The PriceOfWeed website allows users to contribute and access information on current and historical marijuana pricing, allowing users to get insights into the cannabis market's dynamics.
  • [CPS Data], The CPS dataset census is a comprehensive collection of demographic and socioeconomic information acquired through the Current Population Survey, providing significant insights into the characteristics and trends of the American population.
  • [GunViolenceArchive],  a Kaggle dataset containing information on gun-related incidents in America between 2013 and 2017. We use the location of the incident, the firearm involved, and the number of injuries and deaths in our study from this dataset.

Results:

  • The R-squared value between the price per gram of weed and the number of injuries is 0.024, indicating a positive correlation between the two variables. This suggests that when the price of weed per gram changes, it can explain about 2.4% of the variation in the number of injuries.
  • Changes in prices per gram can account for around 3% of the variation in deaths.
  • Racial disparities can account for variations in the number of injured and deaths. About 16.3% of injured and 5% of deaths can be attributed to African-Americans, and 13.2% of injured and 7.6% of deaths can be attributed to White Americans.
  • Education is linked to the variations in injuries, deaths, and price per gram. About 6.8% of injuries and 2.7% of deaths can be attributed to the percentage of educated people. In comparison, 6.7% of the variations in price per gram can also be accounted for by the percentage of educated people.
  • By combining variables of price per gram, education, and race distribution in a community, we can explain a substantial portion of the variations. Overall, there is an 18.6% explainability in injured and 8.2% in deaths when considering price per gram, education, and black percentage. Similarly, a 15% explainability in injured and 9.7% in deaths can be attributed to the price per gram, education, and white percentage.
  • Gender doesn't seem to play a significant role in gun violence, but the ratio of males to females in a community can account for about 6.8% of the variations in price per gram.
  • Using the method of propensity score matching, we found that there is a relationship between the price of weed and deaths in a month. About 4% of the variation in weed price can be explained by deaths, taking into account extraneous factors like political data and racial distribution.

Propensity Score Matching Results

  • Despite conducting Granger causality analysis, the study did not find evidence of causation between fluctuating weed prices and gun violence at a nationwide level. However, intriguingly, significant causation was observed in specific states, primarily those with a predominantly Republican affiliation.

where the first image shows the results of Granger Causality analysis whereas the next image shows the republican and democrat distribution during 2016.

Future Work:

Future work for this project could involve expanding the temporal scope to include more recent years, exploring regional variations in the correlation between weed prices and gun violence, conducting qualitative research to delve deeper into the underlying mechanisms, and considering additional variables to assess the comprehensive impact on gun violence trends. Moreover, we can work hand-in-hand with the government agencies for better policy implementations. Other aspects, like Financial status and political affiliations, might also be interesting to consider and the project talks about weed in the US, which can be seen as a proxy for other substance abuse.

Limitations:

  • The Guns Violence Archive dataset doesn’t explicitly mention whether any incident of gun violence is due to substance abuse.
  • The project include the reliance on correlational analysis, which cannot establish causation.
  • The specific focus on the USA, limiting generalizability to other countries or contexts; the potential for incomplete or biased data on both weed prices and gun violence incidents; and the exclusion of other potential confounding variables, such as socio-economic factors or drug policy variations, which could influence the relationship between weed prices and gun violence.
  • Additionally, the chosen timeframe of 2013-2018 may not capture recent developments in cannabis legalization and market dynamics.

Ethics:

  • We did not use Social Media Data and replaced the incidents posted online with secondary sources.
  • The Data used for the project comes from 3 different sources:
    • [Price of Weed], The data from this site only contains the location where the weed was sold and at what price, neither of which can be traced back to a participant.
    • [Gun Violence], This is a publicly available dataset with no restrictions on how the data can be used.
    • [CPS] is free to use for research purposes on the restriction that we cite them.
  • We observe the data aggregated state-wise.
  • None of the data we use can be used as identifiers that can be traced back to participants.

Poster:


The Team


And #PK


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