Gun Ownership and Homocides
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6 States With Most Guns and Homicides
By Cathryn Conroy, CompuServe News Editor
Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Wyoming, West Virginia, Arkansas, which are the six states with the highest rates of gun ownership, have more than 21,000 homicides combined. That is nearly three times as many as the four states with the lowest rates of gun ownership, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, according to a new study from Harvard University's School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts.
The study, which used U.S. Census data from nine regions and 50 states, implies "that guns, on balance, lethally imperil rather than protect Americans," lead author Dr. Matthew Miller told Reuters. "This inference is consistent with previous...studies that have found that the presence of a gun in the home is a risk factor for homicide, and starkly at odds with the unsubstantiated, yet often adduced, notion that guns are a public good." Reuters notes that the link between household gun ownership and homicide rate was found in all nine census regions, and at the state level it existed for all homicide victims older than age 5.
People who live in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Wyoming, West Virginia, and Arkansas are more than three times as likely to be murdered and four times as likely to die from a gun-related homicide than people who lived in the low gun-ownership states of Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey. In the six high gun-ownership states, about half of all households have firearms, compared with 13 percent of households in the low gun-ownership states. The Harvard team said they are not certain if the higher rates of household gun ownership are a cause or a result of the increased number of homicides. "It is possible, for example, that locally elevated homicide rates may have led to increased local gun acquisition," they write in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health where the research was published.
Throwing a bone to Jafa
By Cathryn Conroy, CompuServe News Editor
Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Wyoming, West Virginia, Arkansas, which are the six states with the highest rates of gun ownership, have more than 21,000 homicides combined. That is nearly three times as many as the four states with the lowest rates of gun ownership, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey, according to a new study from Harvard University's School of Public Health in Boston, Massachusetts.
The study, which used U.S. Census data from nine regions and 50 states, implies "that guns, on balance, lethally imperil rather than protect Americans," lead author Dr. Matthew Miller told Reuters. "This inference is consistent with previous...studies that have found that the presence of a gun in the home is a risk factor for homicide, and starkly at odds with the unsubstantiated, yet often adduced, notion that guns are a public good." Reuters notes that the link between household gun ownership and homicide rate was found in all nine census regions, and at the state level it existed for all homicide victims older than age 5.
People who live in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Wyoming, West Virginia, and Arkansas are more than three times as likely to be murdered and four times as likely to die from a gun-related homicide than people who lived in the low gun-ownership states of Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Jersey. In the six high gun-ownership states, about half of all households have firearms, compared with 13 percent of households in the low gun-ownership states. The Harvard team said they are not certain if the higher rates of household gun ownership are a cause or a result of the increased number of homicides. "It is possible, for example, that locally elevated homicide rates may have led to increased local gun acquisition," they write in the December issue of the American Journal of Public Health where the research was published.
Throwing a bone to Jafa
