These are two maps I saw recently. The first one is from The Seattle Times and the one below it is from the Indexmundi.
The top map shows the average spending on books in major American cities in 2012.
The bottom map, from 2007, shows gun deaths (per 100,00) and gun ownership, by state, across America.
I know correlation doesn’t always mean causation. The Newtown school massacre was in Connecticut which has some of the lowest death and gun ownership numbers. There’re still plenty of guns there and at least one deranged guy.
There might be some crossover between these maps. Generally speaking, it looks like where there’s more book buying, there also tends to be fewer gun deaths.
The NRA would probably say that because people are spending their money on books they don’t have enough money to buy guns with.
If that’s the case, that’s ok.