Introduction

• Analyze whether stricter firearm control laws reduce firearm mortality.
• Use data from the CDC on firearm-related deaths.
• Incorporate information from the Giffords Annual Gun Law Scorecard.
• Categorize each state’s gun control laws.
• Compare categorized gun control laws against firearm death rates.
• Present results using heat maps to visualize relationships between gun law strictness and firearm mortality.

Heat Map: Firearm Mortality Rate by Gun Law Strictness

Heat Map: Average Firearm Mortality by Likert Scale

Conclusion

• States with stricter gun control laws (“Very Strict”) tend to have lower firearm mortality rates, as seen in the highlighted heatmap where these states generally show reduced rates compared to others.
• The average firearm mortality rate heatmap also supports this conclusion, with the “Very Strict” category displaying the lowest average mortality rate (70.9), compared to more lenient categories such as “Lax” or “Very Lax,” which have higher average rates (89.6 and 89.4, respectively).
• These findings suggest that stricter gun control laws may contribute to reducing firearm-related deaths, although variations do exist, and other factors such as socio-economic conditions could also influence mortality rates.

Sources

• CDC Firearm Mortality Data: https://data.cdc.gov/resource/489q-934x.json
• Giffords Gun Law Scorecard: https://giffords.org/lawcenter/resources/scorecard2019/)