It seems like a relatively obvious equation: The weaker the gun laws and the higher the rate of gun ownership in a given state, the more deaths from gun violence that state will see.
That’s the conclusion of a report released Thursday by the Violence Policy Center, a nonprofit organization that researches the public health impact of gun violence.
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Hawaii, the state that had the fewest gun deaths in 2013, has only 9.7 percent gun ownership and a gun death rate of 2.71 out of 100,000. Yet VPC’s analysis noted that those numbers are still far higher than in many industrialized countries. For instance, in the UK, where very few people own guns and do so under tight restrictions, the gun violence death rate in 2013 was 0.23 deaths per 100,000.
The 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, focused global attention on America’s gun crisis and resulted in a pledge from President Barack Obama to work to remedy the situation. Since then, however, Americans have stockpiled more ammunition and firearms than before amid weakened gun laws in many states.
