June, 02 2010, 10:13am EDT
States with Higher Gun Ownership and Weak Gun Laws Lead Nation in Gun Death
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alaska, Alabama, and Nevada Have Highest Gun Death Rates
WASHINGTON
States
with higher gun ownership rates and weak gun laws have the
highest rates
of overall gun death according to a new analysis by the Violence
Policy
Center (VPC) of just-released 2007 national data (the most
recent available)
from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's
National
Center for Injury Prevention and Control.
The
analysis reveals
that the five states with the highest per capita gun death rates
were
Louisiana, Mississippi, Alaska, Alabama, and Nevada. Each of
these states
had a per capita gun death rate far exceeding the national per
capita
gun death rate of 10.34 per 100,000 for 2007. Each of the
top-ranking
states has lax gun laws and higher gun ownership rates. By
contrast, states
with strong gun laws and low rates of gun ownership had far
lower rates
of firearm-related death. Ranking last in the nation for gun
death was
Hawaii, followed by Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
and New
York. (See rankings below for top and bottom five states. See https://www.vpc.org/fadeathchart10.htm
for a ranking of all 50 states.)
VPC
Legislative Director
Kristen Rand states, "The equation is simple. More guns lead to
more gun
death, but limiting exposure to firearms saves lives."
States | States | ||||||
Rank | State | Household Gun Ownership | Gun Death Rate per 100,000 | Rank | State | Household Gun Ownership | Gun Death Rate per 100,000 |
| 1 | Louisiana | 45.6 percent | 19.87 | 50 | Hawaii | 9.7 percent | 2.82 |
| 2 | Mississippi | 54.3 percent | 18.32 | 49 | Rhode Island | 13.3 percent | 3.51 |
| 3 | Alaska | 60.6 percent | 17.62 | 48 | Massachusetts | 12.8 percent | 3.63 |
| 4 | Alabama | 57.2 percent | 17.55 | 47 | Connecticut | 16.2 percent | 4.27 |
| 5 | Nevada | 31.5 percent | 16.21 | 46 | New York | 18.1 percent | 5.07 |
The VPC
defined states
with "weak" gun laws as those that add little or nothing to
federal restrictions
and have permissive laws governing the open or concealed
carrying of firearms
in public. States with "strong" gun laws were defined as those
that add
significant state regulation in addition to federal law, such as
restricting
access to particularly hazardous types of firearms (for example,
assault
weapons), setting minimum safety standards for firearms and/or
requiring
a permit to purchase a firearm, and restrictive laws governing
the open
and concealed carrying of firearms in public. State gun
ownership rates
were obtained from the September 2005 Pediatrics article
"Prevalence of
Household Firearms and Firearm-Storage Practices in the 50
States and
the District of Columbia: Findings From the Behavioral Risk
Factor Surveillance
System, 2002," which is the most up-to-date, comprehensive
source for
state gun ownership rates.
The Violence Policy Center (VPC) works to stop gun death and injury through research, education, advocacy, and collaboration. Founded in 1988 by Executive Director Josh Sugarmann, a native of Newtown, Connecticut, the VPC informs the public about the impact of gun violence on their daily lives, exposes the profit-driven marketing and lobbying activities of the firearms industry and gun lobby, offers unique technical expertise to policymakers, organizations, and advocates on the federal, state, and local levels, and works for policy changes that save lives. The VPC has a long and proven record of policy successes on the federal, state, and local levels, leading the National Rifle Association to acknowledge us as "the most effective ... anti-gun rabble-rouser in Washington."
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