Gun Safety Study

A gun safety study was recently compiled and findings released by a non-profit out of Washington. The non-profit is anti-gun and feels that stricter gun laws reduce gun related crime, including murder. The study found that Louisiana owns the nation's highest rate of death by gunfire, according the the study no other state comes close.

In Louisiana, it is estimated that nearly half of all households own a gun. The study attempts to correlate that statistic with a gun death rate of 19.87 per 100,000 which is nearly double the national average. Mississippi, Alaska, and Nevada complete the top five in overally gun deaths.

The lowest rates were recorded in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut and New York, where the gun death rate is 5 percent or less and ownership less than 20 percent of households.

While the study does suggest a correlation between gun ownership and the rate of death from gunfire, the numbers do not correlate and there thought process is flawed. For instance, Mississippi, Alaska and Alabama all have substantially higher gun-ownership rates than Louisiana, but lower rates of death from gunfire. In addition, this study does not take address crime related deaths, drugs or poverty. New Orleans has owned th dubious distinction of the murder capital of the nation. This is in large part to drugs, gangs and poverty. The majority of the murders are black on black and committed by and against young males. Most of these are entrenched in gangs and the drug trade.