JAMA: states with most gun laws have fewer deaths

[staylo]

**sigh**

http://www.wptv.com/dpp/news/nationa...e-fewer-deaths

Gun control study 2013: JAMA Internal Medicine says states with most gun laws have fewer deaths.

States with the most gun laws experienced a lower overall mortality rate from firearms than did states with the fewest laws, researchers in Boston reported in a study published Wednesday.

"States that have the most laws have a 42% decreased rate of firearm fatalities compared to those with the least laws," said Dr. Eric W. Fleegler, an attending physician in pediatric emergency medicine at Boston Children's Hospital and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

Those states with the most gun laws saw a 40% reduction in firearm-related homicides and a 37% reduction in firearm-related suicides, he said in a telephone interview.

Fleegler, the lead author in the study published online in JAMA Internal Medicine, reached that conclusion by analyzing data reported to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 2007 through 2010 and then correlating those figures with state-level firearm legislation aggregated by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

Figuring out how many laws existed in each state was difficult. "What do you do when one law has seven parts" Fleegler asked. "Is that seven laws? Is that one law?"

So the researchers checked the state laws to determine whether they were intended to curb firearm trafficking; strengthen background checks beyond what's required under the Brady Hangun Violence Prevention Act; ensure child safety; ban military-style assault weapons; or restrict guns in public places.

Based on how many of those categories a state's laws covered, the researchers calculated a "legislative strength score," which they compared with firearm-related mortality rates in all 50 states. The legislative strength scores ranged from 0 in Utah to 24 out of a possible 28 in Massachusetts.

Over the four years scrutinized, 121,084 firearm fatalities occurred, with rates ranging from a high of 17.9 per 100,000 in Louisiana to a low of 2.9 per 100,000 in Hawaii.

When compared with the quartile of states with the fewest laws, the quartile of states that had the most laws had a lower firearm suicide rate and a lower firearm homicide rate, Fleegler said. The absolute difference in the suicide rates was 6.25 deaths per 100,000; in the homicide rates it was 0.40 deaths per 100,000.

"When you're talking about 300 million people, you're talking about thousands of deaths that would not otherwise have occurred," Fleegler said.

Even on a state level, some figures were striking. For example, there was a three-fold difference in firearm-related suicide between Massachusetts and Louisiana, which has few laws limiting the use of firearms.

"We anticipated that there was going to be a relationship between state laws and firearm mortality," he said. "The magnitude of the effect, a 42% reduction, that was a big number to look at."

The authors acknowledged that they showed only an association; they did not prove that more laws on firearms translate into fewer deaths.

Fleegler said his study "speaks to the importance of having legislation. One of the things that we've learned over time is that there are laws that have been passed that have large loopholes, and those loopholes make the enforcement and efficacy of the laws diminished. There are ways to make these laws better and stronger."

But Dr. Garen Wintemute, an emergency medicine physician and director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, urged caution in interpreting the study in an accompanying editorial published in the journal.

"Correlation does not imply causation," he wrote. "This fundamental limitation is beyond the power of the authors to redress."

He added that the list of laws takes no account of differences between states in the specifics of laws and takes no account of how hard states worked to enforce those laws.

The biggest difficulty, Wintemute continued, is that almost all of the associations between more laws and fewer deaths disappeared when the investigators took into account the prevalence of gun ownership in each state.

"This is a problem because there are two completely opposite explanations for why that might be the case," Wintemute said in a video issued by his university. "One is that these laws work, and that they work by decreasing the rate of gun ownership in a state, because we know that the rate of gun ownership is associated with the rate of violent death in a state.

"But the other possibility, that's at least as plausible, is that it's easier to enact these laws in states that have a low rate of gun ownership to begin with. Gun ownership is not as important in those states, there's less opposition."

He added, "We really don't know what to do with the results. We cannot say that these laws -- individually or in aggregate -- drive firearm death rates up or down."

He predicted that policy makers would not be able to draw useful conclusions from the work. "The conclusion that I draw is we need to get this question answered right."

Wintemute said the researchers did a good job with the limited data they had available but said the larger problem dates back to the 1990s, when the National Rifle Association inserted language into the CDC's appropriation that limited its work on how to reduce firearm injuries.

Now, as lawmakers are looking for evidence on what works, "investigators like this group are reduced to doing the best they can with what's available," he said.

For his part, Fleegler bemoaned the dearth of data from individual cities about firearms-related injuries and noted that data on enforcement of those laws were also spotty. "We agree that there is a lot more research that needs to be done, that funding to allow robust research and robust collection of data is what's really going to move the science forward for understanding how we can reduce deaths," he said.

[gummy jones]

the ama is closet democrat. would love to read this article and analyze their "data" myself. it is not shocking that a super poor state like louisiana has more firearm homicides/suicides than boston (massachusetts is essentially boston just like ny is essentially nyc, statistically speaking). how about other states with increased disparity? how about dc, or those that state that contains americas asshole and taint (detroit and chicago)?

[Qtrborecrazy]

Jama got some balls. 100,000 deaths a year by doctors medical malpractice, another 100,000 deaths a year from secondary infections while in the hospital. Now they can't even be honest about gun stats, no surprise there. Keep everyones mind on gun and off themselves.

[NathanB]

how baout you take new orleans out of louisiana and try it again. Its not hard. Places iwth a high concentration of urban areas have more people killed. Chicago and NYC don't crack that list? and skew the stats? GTFO with that noise

[mikelets456]

From another thread info courtesy of "Metz":

Did the dear member of gun violence task force get the memo from the FBI, that murder rates were on steady decline since 1993 and last year (2012) had the lowest number of murders per capita since 1965?

And "T1066":
Start looking here:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/ucr

Specifically here:

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr...tables/table-1

[bogey1]

The article is in our local paper. I couldn't read it..

[mythaeus]

Causation vs. correlation seems to be a foreign concept to these "researchers". If this is true, I guess Japanese suicide rate must be zero right? Oh wait...

Al

[bodymangt]

that artical is total an complete bull just look up the fbi stats yourself . people who dont thoroughly research the issue should be BARRED from commenting in my op its just the lib influenced media trying to sway opinion .

[donm]

There are a lot of factors, and I suspect the biggest may be the conviction and incarceration rate for violent felonies. New York is very good at this, and Philly is very bad. The Inquirer published an article three or four years ago stating that the conviction rate for violent crimes (especially gun crimes) was less than 20%. New York City was at about 90%. I suspect New Orleans, Detroit, and Chicago are way down that list as well. Back in 2010, Philly dropped charges against 19,000 fugitives. Hardly a path to making a city "safe."

[fortysix]

Unpunished felons, and states overpowered by their cities. What do you think the murder rate is in the UP of Michigan vs the LP? One to fifty? How about the gun ownership (cannot include illegal ownership, i.e. gangbangers that picked one up *somewhere*)? Say 50:1? Yea. Now try Illinois minus Chicago, Mass minus Boston, California minus SF/OAK/SD/LA, PA minus PHI, etc. Then come at it from the other side, you know who lives in places like CT and RI? Not exactly the murderous types, to say the least.

This study is completely ridiculous and without any scientific merit, certainly not the type of thing that belongs in a peer-reviewed publication. They even admit that their premise is flawed, i.e. that they cannot say whether limited gun ownership spawns easier-to-pass gun laws that further restrict gun ownership, or if low gun ownership causes lower violence overall. F the authors and their sponsors.