The Washington Post has published some data on the percentage of households with firearms by state. (H/T Instapundit) I’ve combined that data with the 2009 FBI data on hate crimes. When plotted, it looks like the chart below.

Note that states with higher levels of gun ownership are somewhat more likely to have below average rates of hate crimes. Note that jurisdictions with ownership rates less than half the national average are certain to have a higher rate of hate crimes.

Hmmm.

The real flyer in the data is DC with a very low rate of gun ownership and a very high rate of hate crimes. Over 1/3 of the states are in the more guns / less crime quadrant of the graph. That is significantly higher than one would expect if the distribution were random.

UPDATE–The graph below plots the same data with some curve fitting applied to create a trend line.