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Most US states get a failing grade on gun laws, according to a new scorecard published by the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
The group, which advocates for stricter gun laws as a way to save lives, gave What Matters a first look at the new analysis.
The key point is that more permissive gun laws equal more gun deaths in US states:
- Of the 10 states with the highest proportion of gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2021, all got failing grades – an F – from Giffords, except New Mexico, which got a C+.
- Of the 10 states with the lowest proportion of gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2021, all got passing grades except New Hampshire.
The recent shooting at an elementary school in Nashville, Tennessee, has only intensified discussion of how society can cut down on gun deaths.
Multiple states are moving in the direction of making laws even more lax:
- That includes Tennessee, where hundreds of protesters entered the state capitol Thursday. Lawmakers there want to roll back age restrictions put in place a few years ago and make it easier to openly carry a firearm in public.
- In Florida, lawmakers advanced a permitless-carry proposal and are on track to roll back age restrictions enacted just a few years ago from 21 back to 18.
- In North Carolina, the Republican-led legislature overrode the state’s Democratic governor to make it legal to buy a handgun without a permit.
But that’s not the whole story, as I learned from Kelly Drane, research director at Giffords. She explained more about the group’s scorecard to me by email and over the phone, and argued the country is diverging on guns, with about half of states picking at gun laws and the other half sewing them up.
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