Good news: according to rankings from an international think tank, Arizona is not the most violent state in America, which may come as a shock considering we're one of only two states in the entire country to consider having its own "official state gun."
Bad news: Arizona isn't even close to being the "most peaceful."
The Institute for Economics and Peace released its first-ever peace rankings of U.S. states, and -- like many lists ranking positive aspects of individual states -- Arizona ranks near the bottom.
According to the rankings, when it comes to peaceful states, Arizona ranks 37 (that's out of 50 for anyone who may be a product of Arizona's less-than-stellar public education system).
The group defines peace as "the absence of violence." It looked at a set of five indicators, including homicide rates, violent crimes, percentage of the population in jail, number of police officers, and availability of small arms (per 100,000 people) to rank the states.
The top 10 "most peaceful" states, according to the rankings, are as follows: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Minnesota, North Dakota, Utah, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Iowa, and Washington.
Utah? It beat Arizona to the punch on naming a state gun.
The 10 least peaceful include Louisiana, Tennessee, Nevada, Florida, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Maryland, respectively.
New Mexico, Georgia, and Missouri were also found to be less peaceful than Arizona.
See the entire study here.
