Facts are stupid things: gun violence edition

We often hear claims that firearm regulation just doesn ' t work. People who want to get guns and shoot people are going to do it anyway. Conversely, making it easy for peaceful citizens to obtain and carry guns means that people can protect themselves and make us all safer. This is just BS the NRA pulls out of an orifice -- there is plenty of evidence that it ' s the opposite of the truth.These investigators ran a regression over 17 years of the rate of mass shootings in states on the permissiveness of their firearm laws. There are various definitions of mass shootings, but they use a relatively non-restrictive one: four or more people killed in a single incident. Most firearm deaths are actually suicides and most homicides do not result from mass shootings, but these events get a lot of attention. The findings are stark and quite compelling:Table 1 shows that in fully adjusted models, a 10 unit increase in state gun law permissiveness was associated with a significant 11.5% (95% confidence interval 4.2% to 19.3%, P=0.002) higher rate of mass shootings. A 10% increase in state gun ownership was associated with a significant 35.1% (12.7% to 62.7%, P=0.001) higher rate of mass shootings.The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is not letting have a gun in the first place.
Source: Stayin' Alive - Category: American Health Source Type: blogs