Mother Jones recently posted a fascinating but disturbing map of US states showing the number of deaths by cars vs deaths by guns. In light of the Newtown anniversary I wanted to share it with blog readers. The lead was the Bloomberg News study “ suggesting that by 2015, guns would kill more Americans than traffic accidents do.” As the piece notes, “A number of states have already hit this grisly milestone.” You will need to go to the website of the original piece to see the map but here is the salient comment Mother Jones makes: “It’s little surprise that many of these states—including Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Utah, and Virginia—are notorious for lax gun laws. What’s more, the numbers aren’t driven just by “bad guys with guns.” Nationally, close to two-thirds of gun deaths are suicides, and the split is much higher in states such as Alaska, which reported more than twice as many gun suicides as traffic deaths in 2010. Utah, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington are also seeing more gun suicides than traffic fatalities. Idaho, Montana, and others are close behind.” Sorry to spring this on blog readers at this time of year but I feel we owe it to Sandy Hill families to do so.