States with more gun laws have fewest firearm deaths

States with the most laws regulating firearms, including Massachusetts and New York, have the lowest gun-death rates from homicides and suicides, according to a study published by the American Medical Association.

Physicians and researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard University used data on gun fatalities collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and surveys of states’ laws compiled by advocacy groups such as the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence to find a statistical relationship between gun regulation and death prevention.

“States that have the most firearm laws have the fewest firearm deaths, and it’s a very direct association,” said Eric Fleegler, lead author of the study published Wednesday in JAMA Internal Medicine. Further studies are needed to draw any conclusions about cause-and-effect relationships, the researchers said.

The article appeared as a debate unfolds in Congress and state legislatures over whether to require more background checks and ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre. The Dec. 14 shooting inside a Connecticut elementary school left 26 dead, including 20 children, and sparked a national outcry about gun violence.

Louisiana, which has only one gun law, had the highest gun- fatality rate, 18 per 100,000 people, the study showed.

New York averaged 19 firearms laws from 2007 through 2010, the fifth-most among the 50 states. The state had the fourth- lowest gun-death rate, with 4.8 per 100,000, the study found. It trailed Hawaii, Massachusetts and Rhode Island in that category. New York City reported a record-low number of homicides last year. Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who advocates stricter gun control, is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.

Illinois, whose biggest city, Chicago, has seen a wave of gun violence, ranked ninth in laws and 11th among the states in firearms deaths, with an average 7.9 per 100,000. Chicago recorded 506 homicides last year and drew national attention when a 15-year-old girl, Hadiya Pendleton, who had performed at President Obama’s inauguration, was killed Jan. 29, about a mile from Obama’s South Side home.

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy told the Illinois House Judiciary Committee last month that his department “recovers more guns than any municipality in the United States of America, year in and year out.”

A person answering the phone at the Fairfax, Va., press office of the National Rifle Association, the nation’s biggest gun-rights lobby, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment about the study. The person said it was the organization’s policy not to identify its phone representatives by name.

Hawaii, which ranked sixth among the states with 16 laws, had the lowest rate, 2.9 gun-fatalities per 100,000, the study found. Massachusetts, with the most firearms laws, had a gun- fatality rate of 3.4 per 100,000.

South Dakota was an anomaly. It had only two gun laws, yet its rate of 8.2 gun fatalities per 100,000 ranked below the national median of 9.9, according to the study.

Researchers tallied and scored the states on how many of 24 key gun regulations they had on their books, then split the states into four groups based on the number of laws they had enacted.

When they compared states with the most laws with those that have less than two, rates of homicide and suicide by gun were 42 percent less in states with the most laws, said Fleegler, a pediatrician at Boston Children’s Hospital and professor at Harvard Medical School.

In the four-year period studied, the U.S. experienced 121,084 deaths from guns, averaging more than 30,000 a year.

In 2010 guns were responsible for 68 percent of the 16,259 homicides and 51 percent of the 38,364 suicides, the study reported, citing CDC data. In 2005, the CDC estimated costs from fatal and nonfatal firearm injuries at $711 million in medical care and $40.5 billion in lost work and productivity, the study said.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Local News

A firefighter stands in silence before a panel bearing the names of L. John Regelbrugge and Kris Regelbrugge during the ten-year remembrance of the Oso landslide on Friday, March 22, 2024, at the Oso Landslide Memorial in Oso, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
‘Flood of emotions’ as Oso Landslide Memorial opens on 10th anniversary

Friends, family and first responders held a moment of silence at 10:37 a.m. at the new 2-acre memorial off Highway 530.

Julie Petersen poses for a photo with images of her sister Christina Jefferds and Jefferds’ grand daughter Sanoah Violet Huestis next to a memorial for Sanoah at her home on March 20, 2024 in Arlington, Washington. Peterson wears her sister’s favorite color and one of her bangles. (Annie Barker / The Herald)
‘It just all came down’: An oral history of the Oso mudslide

Ten years later, The Daily Herald spoke with dozens of people — first responders, family, survivors — touched by the deadliest slide in U.S. history.

Victims of the Oso mudslide on March 22, 2014. (Courtesy photos)
Remembering the 43 lives lost in the Oso mudslide

The slide wiped out a neighborhood along Highway 530 in 2014. “Even though you feel like you’re alone in your grief, you’re really not.”

Director Lucia Schmit, right, and Deputy Director Dara Salmon inside the Snohomish County Department of Emergency Management on Friday, March 8, 2024, in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
How Oso slide changed local emergency response ‘on virtually every level’

“In a decade, we have just really, really advanced,” through hard-earned lessons applied to the pandemic, floods and opioids.

Ron and Gail Thompson at their home on Monday, March 4, 2024 in Oso, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
In shadow of scarred Oso hillside, mudslide’s wounds still feel fresh

Locals reflected on living with grief and finding meaning in the wake of a catastrophe “nothing like you can ever imagine” in 2014.

Rep. Suzan DelBene, left, introduces Xichitl Torres Small, center, Undersecretary for Rural Development with the U.S. Department of Agriculture during a talk at Thomas Family Farms on Monday, April 3, 2023, in Snohomish, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Under new federal program, Washingtonians can file taxes for free

At a press conference Wednesday, U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene called the Direct File program safe, easy and secure.

Former Snohomish County sheriff’s deputy Jeremie Zeller appears in court for sentencing on multiple counts of misdemeanor theft Wednesday, March 27, 2024, at Snohomish County Superior Court in Everett, Washington. (Ryan Berry / The Herald)
Ex-sheriff’s deputy sentenced to 1 week of jail time for hardware theft

Jeremie Zeller, 47, stole merchandise from Home Depot in south Everett, where he worked overtime as a security guard.

Everett
11 months later, Lake Stevens man charged in fatal Casino Road shooting

Malik Fulson is accused of shooting Joseph Haderlie to death in the parking lot at the Crystal Springs Apartments last April.

T.J. Peters testifies during the murder trial of Alan Dean at the Snohomish County Courthouse on Tuesday, March 26, 2024 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Bothell cold case trial now in jury’s hands

In court this week, the ex-boyfriend of Melissa Lee denied any role in her death. The defendant, Alan Dean, didn’t testify.

A speed camera facing west along 220th Street Southwest on Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023 in Edmonds, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
New Washington law will allow traffic cams on more city, county roads

The move, led by a Snohomish County Democrat, comes as roadway deaths in the state have hit historic highs.

Mrs. Hildenbrand runs through a spelling exercise with her first grade class on the classroom’s Boxlight interactive display board funded by a pervious tech levy on Tuesday, March 19, 2024 in Marysville, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Lakewood School District’s new levy pitch: This time, it won’t raise taxes

After two levies failed, the district went back to the drawing board, with one levy that would increase taxes and another that would not.

Alex Hanson looks over sections of the Herald and sets the ink on Wednesday, March 30, 2022 in Everett, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Black Press, publisher of Everett’s Daily Herald, is sold

The new owners include two Canadian private investment firms and a media company based in the southern United States.

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.