While a stalemated, big-money controlled Congress has little more than thoughts and prayers to offer a nation suffering a pandemic of gun violence, some states have managed to pass and enforce effective gun-control laws. Such laws vary from state to state and some combinations are more effective than others. However, as a recent study shows, gun-control laws save lives.
Everytown for Gun Safety maintains a constantly updated state-by-state database of gun-control laws. Every January they publish a study comparing the strength of gun laws with the rate of gun violence for all 50 states. The most recent study strongly supports the effectiveness of gun-control laws in reducing gun violence and saving lives. The researchers found a correlation of 0.63 between a state's gun law strength rating and the number of gun deaths per 100,000 people.
That correlation summarizes the striking differences between states with effective sets of gun laws and those with ineffective or nonexistent gun controls. The eight states with the strongest gun laws - California, New York, Hawaii, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Illinois and Maryland - average 8.2 gun deaths per 100,000 population . In contrast, the 14 states with the weakest gun laws -including Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Alaska, New Hampshire and Kansas - average 21 gun deaths per 100,000 - 2.6 times higher.
Those numbers translate into a significant number of actual lives needlessly lost or potentially saved. If the 49,000,000 people in the states with the weakest gun laws had been protected as well as people in the states with the most effective gun laws, more than 6,200 lives could have been saved last year alone. In contrast, if the nearly 99,000,000 people in the states with the strongest gun laws were to lose that protection - a distinct possibility - more than 12,600 additional lives could be lost each year.
Clearly, a state's gun laws don't perfectly predict the amount of gun violence it will suffer. The researchers highlight three factors that can impact gun deaths in states with strong gun-control laws - high rates of pre-existing gun ownership, how long strong gun-control laws have been in effect, and lax gun laws in neighboring states. "Out of all guns showing up at crime scenes after crossing state lines, four out of five come from states that lack good background check laws," the researchers write.
The researchers identify the most effective laws. These include background checks and purchase permitting, extreme risk laws, secure gun storage requirements and outlawing stand your ground and permitless carry. "While each of the top 14 states in the gun law rankings has all five of these policies in place, only one of the bottom 14 states has even one of these critical protections," they write.
If a state's goal is to protect the health and safety of its citizens, the lesson is clear - pass and enforce a strong suite of gun-control laws that have been proven to reduce gun violence and deaths.
Unfortunately, even this life-saving motive for gun-control legislation is now under threat. In June, 2022, the Supreme Court issued what may turn out to be a momentous decision in "New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc., v Breun." The Court struck down a 100-year-old law requiring a permit to carry a concealed handgun. Breaking with decades of precedent, Justice Thomas, writing for the now dominant conservative majority, created a new rule for determining the constitutionality of gun-control laws. For such laws to be constitutional, he wrote, "The government must " justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation's historical tradition of firearm regulation."
In other words, public health and safety are irrelevant unless the government can first demonstrate consistency with historical tradition, whatever that means. Justice Breyer, one of the three dissenting justices, pointed out that this test not only ignores public health and safety, but is "deeply impractical," imposing "a task on the lower courts that judges cannot easily accomplish."
You can find an in-depth analysis of the Breun decison here.
Since the Breun decision, courts have overturned laws aimed at regulating homemade or otherwise untraceable "ghost guns," and keeping guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and people accused of felonies,
In short, we know that gun-control laws can be remarkably impactful, demonstrably saving many thousands of lives every year (and even more non-fatal but life-changing injuries). Unfortunately, even states that have effective laws in place to protect their citizens may now find their efforts blocked or undone by a Supreme Court that has shown itself willing and eager to erase long-standing precedents.
Guns kill people. People kill people. Laws can kill people too.
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