States with lax gun laws experience a higher level of gun-related violence than those with stronger firearms laws on the books, according to findings from a report released Wednesday.
The report, from the liberal Center for American Progress, analyzed 10 indicators of gun violence: overall firearm deaths in 2010; overall firearm deaths from 2001 through 2010; firearm homicides in 2010; firearm suicides in 2010; firearm homicides among women from 2001 through 2010; firearm deaths among children ages 0 to 17, from 2001 through 2010; law-enforcement agents feloniously killed with a firearm from 2002 through 2011; aggravated assaults with a firearm in 2011; crime-gun export rates in 2009; and percentage of crime guns with a short “time to crime” in 2009.
Applying this criterion, the report found that the states with the weakest gun laws “collectively have an aggregate level of gun violence that is more than twice as high—104 percent higher, in fact—than the 10 states with the strongest gun laws.” Of the the 10 states with the highest level of gun violence, eight have some of the loosest gun laws in the country. The report’s rankings of the states with the worst level of gun violence are as follows:
1) Louisiana
2) Alaska
3) Alabama
4) Arizona
5) Misssissippi
6) South Carolina
7) New Mexico
8) Missouri
9) Arkansas
10) Georgia
Read the complete report here.
