Study rejects NRA gun violence claim

As the United States has been discussing and looking for ways to reduce gun-related violence, a new study finds that increased gun ownership has led to higher levels of homicide across the nation.

The study, conducted by researchers in Boston University and published in the American Journal of Public Health, covers the last 30 years in all 50 US states.
It indicates that in any given state the rate of homicide by firearms goes up by 0.9 percent for every one percentage point in the prevalence of gun ownership.
The result is in sharp contrast to the claims by country’s National Rifle Association that gun-related deaths and violence are not linked to gun ownership.
The Boston University researchers had to study a previously-validated proxy variable, the percentage of a state’s suicides committed with a firearm, due to the absence of state-level data on gun ownership.
The study also found that national average of gun ownership in the US is 57.7 percent. The mean estimated percentage stood at a low of 25.8 percent in Hawaii and a high of 76.8 percent in Mississippi.
The survey is the first of its kind in the United States after the shooting in Sandy Hook Elementary School killed 26 people, including 20 students, in December 2012.