From the no shit Sherlock files
by dibby
Here's a headline that will have you reeling:
States With Most Gun Deaths Have High Gun Ownership And Weak Gun Laws, Report Shows
How can that be? Surely there must be a lot of "good guys with guns" making everybody all polite and friendly. What's going on here?
Alaska has the highest rate of gun fatalities in the country, according to data from 2013. The state saw 19.59 deaths per 100,000 people, which is significantly above the national average of 10.64 deaths per 100,000. VPC's report indicates that Alaska also has the country's third-highest rate of gun ownership, with firearms in 60.6% percent of households.
The study found a similar correlation between gun ownership and gun deaths in the rest of the country. Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Wyoming, the states that followed Alaska in terms of highest gun death rates, had some of the nation's largest percentages of households owning guns.
VPC also noted that states with weaker gun laws tend to see higher gun death rates. All five states named above have gun restrictions that the report's authors describe as "lax."
The study defined states with weak gun laws as those that don't add extra provisions to federal gun laws, such as banning assault weapons or requiring a permit to buy a gun. In addition, states with open or concealed carry laws were considered to have weak gun restrictions.
States with the lowest gun death rates -- the top three were Hawaii, Massachusetts and New York -- were found to have strong gun laws as well as low rates of gun ownership. A separate 2013 analysis from the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence similarly found that these three states were among those with the strongest gun restrictions in place.
A number of previous studies have linked gun laws and gun ownership with deaths by gun violence, challenging the "more guns, less crime" hypothesis that suggests a higher rate of gun ownership makes communities safer. The Violence Policy Center published a similar study last year, using data from 2011. According to the two studies, between 2011 and 2013, the five states with the highest percentages of gun-owning households saw a noticeable spike in gun deaths per 100,00 residents.
Another recent report from researchers at Johns Hopkins and Stanford Universities found a positive link in all 50 states between right-to-carry laws and a rise in violent crimes.
I, for one, am shocked. I've been told for years that the answer to gun violence if for more people to have guns and here it turns out that the more people have guns, the more gun violence there is. I simply cannot fathom how this could be. Why, you'd have to think that there's something about gun culture doesn't make much sense. Like the fatuous notion that a bunch of doughy yahoos running around with AR-15s strapped to the backs are going to fight off the jackbooted thugs come knocking on our doors. These statistics indicate that they will more likely panic and shoot one of their kids by mistake.
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