A new analysis spanning over two decades found a connection between strict gun laws and fewer gun deaths.
The Nov. 2023 study, published in Epidemiology, examines the association between the change in state level gun regulations and the change in gun mortality from 1991 to 2016. Over that period, the U.S. experienced sharp declines in household gun ownership and gun deaths, according to their findings.
“The recent rise of gun violence may lead to the perception that the problem of gun mortality in the United States is intractable,” study authors Patrick Sharkey and Megan Kang, said in the study.
“This article provides evidence to counter this perception by bringing attention to the period spanning from 1991 to 2016 when most US states implemented more restrictive gun laws.”
The study determined that strict gun laws passed by 40 states in that time period reduced gun deaths by nearly 4,300 in 2016 alone — roughly 11% of gun deaths nationwide.
States with laws like background check requirements and waiting periods to purchase firearms consistently experienced fewer deaths, according to the findings.
“We find that specific policies, such as background checks and waiting periods for gun purchases, were associated with lower overall gun death rates, gun homicide rates, and gun suicide rates,” Sharkey and Kang said.
But that downward trend in gun deaths has changed since 2016 as many states loosened gun regulations and gun purchases spiked.
Firearm deaths and injuries have reached historic levels in recent years. In 2021, the most recent year for complete data, 48,830 people died from guns in the U.S., according to data from the CDC.
That total marks a 23% increase in gun deaths since 2019, according to the Pew Research Center.
Over half of those deaths, 54%, were suicides and 43% were murders, according to the CDC’s figures. Murders in particular climbed during the pandemic — increasing 45% between 2019 and 2021, while the number of gun suicides rose 10% during that time, Pew found.
Those increases were felt acutely in states with little gun regulations. Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, Alabama and Wyoming had the highest rates of gun deaths. States with the lowest rates were Massachusetts, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island.
