By Robert Preidt
HealthDay reporter
TUESDAY, April 27, 2021 (HealthDay News) – According to a new US study, the more gun laws a state has, the lower the suicide and homicide rates.
Gun violence in the United States is a public health crisis. In 2017, nearly 67,000 Americans died from suicide and homicide. And guns were involved in roughly half of the suicides and 74% of the murders, the researchers reported.
But in the last few decades “as the austerity of states [on gun ownership] their suicide and homicide rates fell, “lead author John Gunn said in a Rutgers University press release, a postdoctoral fellow at the Rutgers School of Public Health and the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center.
To assess the relationship between gun laws and suicide and homicide rates, the researchers analyzed the data collected across the country from 1991 to 2017.
After considering gun ownership rates and other factors, the study found that the number of gun laws in a state was a significant predictor of suicide and homicide rates.
continuation
“With nearly 40,000 gun violence deaths annually, regulations that can restrict access to firearms appear to reduce mortality at the state level,” said study co-author Bernadette Hohl, an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health.
“The evidence-based enforcement of gun laws across the United States has the potential to significantly reduce gun violence,” added Hohl.
The study was published on April 13 in the Journal of Public Health. According to the authors, the researchers were the first to focus on the impact of the total number of firearms regulations in each state.
Previous studies have found associations between state suicide and homicide rates and specific gun laws such as waiting times and general background checks. Most research has shown that certain gun laws are linked to reductions in gun deaths.
More research is needed to assess the relationship between gun laws and suicide and homicide rates, the study authors found.
“There will be a need to assess the impact of legislative changes, regulation enforcement and the link to the decline in violent crime,” Gunn said.
continuation
More information
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is more concerned with gun laws.
SOURCE: Rutgers University, press release, April 22, 2021
Comments are closed.