![]() Half the states with the 10 lowest homicide rates also had loose gun laws and F grades from Giffords, from Maine (0.8) to South Dakota (1.5), both F-rated. But there were two rated A- among them: Maryland (7.4) and Illinois (6.5).īut that didn’t tell the full story. Looking at homicides, the states with the 10 highest rates - from Louisiana (10.9) to Georgia (6.2) - typically had few gun laws and an F grade from Giffords. California - graded A for its strict gun laws - had the country’s seventh-lowest firearm fatality rate at 3.5 per 100,000 residents. The states with the 10 lowest firearm fatality rates ranged from Massachusetts (3.6), whose gun laws Giffords rated A-minus, to Nebraska (9.3), graded a C. That state, New Mexico - which received a C+ gun law grade and had a firearm fatality rate of 19.9 - has universal background checks and a red-flag law. It gave all but one state with the 10 highest firearm fatality rates an F. Giffords, the gun control advocacy group, grades states annually on the strength of their gun laws. Demonstrators participate in a “lie-in” during a protest in favor of gun control reform in front of the White House, Monday, Feb. The states with the 10 highest firearm fatality rates, from 23.5 in Alaska to 18.1 in Oklahoma, also have the least restrictions on firearm ownership.Īlaska and Oklahoma have no waiting period on gun purchases, no universal background checks on all firearm sales, no restrictions on military-style assault weapons or large-capacity ammunition magazines or red-flag laws to temporarily disarm menacing or deranged people. Taken together, the annual firearm fatality rate per 100,000 residents over the five-year period by state shows a strong correlation to gun restrictions. A Stanford University study a year ago found gun ownership increased suicide risk eight times in men and 35 times in women. The rest included 2,606 killings by law enforcement, 2,414 unintentional deaths and 1,619 that could not be determined.Ī number of studies have linked firearm access to higher suicide rates. Of those, 117,183, or more than 60%, were suicides. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a total of 194,130 firearm fatalities from 2015 through 2019, the most recent year available. Attorney General Rob Bonta immediately vowed to appeal the decision, setting up another fierce legal battle over California’s strict gun laws.īut what do the figures tell us? Nationwide, firearm mortality data compiled by the U.S. The debate comes as a federal judge in San Diego on Friday ruled that the Golden State’s 32-year-old ban on assault-style weapons violated Californians’ constitutional right to bear arms. “We know we have more work to do, but among the 50 states, California has the seventh-lowest rate of gun deaths in the U.S., so I think there’s a lot of evidence that California gun laws are working and saving lives,” said Kelly Drane, research director for the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, based in San Francisco. To those seeking stricter and more uniform gun legislation nationally, the figures affirm that stricter gun laws work, even if some states that have them still see higher homicide and mass shooting rates. “Gun control disarms law-abiding citizens who might otherwise equip themselves with the tools to fight back against criminals and mass murderers.” “Gun control doesn’t save lives and doesn’t stop firearm-related crimes,” said Aidan Johnston, director of federal affairs for Gun Owners of America, based in Virginia. ![]() To gun-rights advocates, it affirms their argument that gun laws aren’t effective and even counterproductive. A similar picture emerges when looking just at mass shootings in recent years. Looking just at homicides, there’s a wide range of gun death rates among states with weak as well as strict gun laws. But nearly two-thirds of those deaths were suicides, and only about a third were homicides. So who’s right? A Bay Area News Group analysis of recent gun death data from 2015-2019 shows there’s a strong correlation between strict state gun laws and lower overall firearm fatality rates. The San Jose light rail yard massacre reignited the country’s gun violence debate, with cries for new federal laws countered by observations that California’s many restrictions didn’t stop the latest killings. No assault weapons ban.īut the Bay Area just saw its deadliest mass shooting late last month, the second this year in California, a state with the nation’s strictest laws on gun ownership. When mass shootings erupted earlier this year in Georgia, Colorado and Indiana, there was a sad sense about it to many Californians.
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