We made a plot of total murders versus population and noted a strong relationship. Not surprisingly, states with larger populations had more murders.

library(dslabs)
data(murders)
population_in_millions <- murders$population/10^6
total_gun_murders <- murders$total
plot(population_in_millions, total_gun_murders)

Keep in mind that many states have populations below 5 million and are bunched up. We may gain further insights from making this plot in the log scale. Transform the population_in_millions and total_gun_murders variables using the log10 transformation, storing them as population_in_millions_log and total_gun_murders_log and then plot them using the same method shown above.