According to Everytown’s Gun Law Rankings for 2023, Ohio, Georgia, Alabama, and Indiana Dropped In Ranking After Passing Permitless Carry Legislation, While New Jersey, Oregon and Delaware Climbed in the Rankings After Passing Several Significant Gun Safety Laws in 2022
Analysis Shows States With Strong Gun Safety Policies Have Lower Rates of Gun Violence; Compares 50 Laws Across the Nation
NEW YORK — Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund today launched the updated “Gun Law Rankings” for 2023, an online tool and website that ranks all 50 states based on their strength of gun laws and shows the direct correlation between a state’s gun laws and the state’s rate of gun deaths. For 2023, several states moved up in the rankings after passing several important gun safety laws and others dropped multiple rankings, including those that passed permitless carry legislation and other bills that weakened gun laws.
Highlights from 2023 Gun Law Rankings:
- Georgia, Alabama, Ohio and Indiana all dropped several rankings after passing permitless carry. In fact, Georgia dropped all the way down to 47.
- New Jersey moved up to number four after passing multiple gun safety bills, including a bill that requires training to purchase a gun and a bill to keep guns out of sensitive public locations like daycares in response to SCOTUS’ Bruen decision that gutted a crucial aspect of its public carry law.
- Oregon moved up to nine after a ballot initiative passed which included requiring a permit to purchase a firearm, prohibiting high capacity magazines, and closing the Charleston Loophole.
- Delaware moved up to 11 after prohibiting assault weapons and high capacity magazines and raising the age to purchase guns, among other things.
The analysis once again demonstrates that states with strong gun safety policies, such as background checks on all gun sales and Red Flag laws, also known as extreme risk laws, have lower rates of gun violence while states with weaker gun laws, such as permitless carry and Shoot First laws, also known as Stand Your Ground, have higher rates of gun violence.
“Gun laws save lives. The updated gun law rankings show once again the direct correlation between the strength of a state’s gun laws and the magnitude of its gun violence crisis,” said Nick Suplina, Senior Vice President of Law and Policy at Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. “States at the top of this list are national leaders because what they are doing is enhancing public safety. States at the bottom, on the other hand, are playing politics with our lives.”
Comparing gun policy across 50 states, and lining up each state’s gun violence deaths (using the most recent-available 2021 CDC data) with the strength of its laws, there is a clear pattern: in states where government officials have taken action to implement gun safety policies, fewer people die by gun violence. States that have failed to put basic protections into their laws and policies or continually weaken their gun laws and policies have higher rates of gun deaths, nearly triple that of states that are national leaders in gun safety.
Everytown’s Gun Law Rankings includes:
- A unique ranking system that ranks all 50 states based on the strength of their gun laws, looking across 50 different gun policies – from California at number one to Mississippi at the very bottom;
- A U.S. map for each gun safety policy indicating which states have adopted that policy;
- Side-by-side comparisons that provide analysis across policies for all states and across states for all policies.
- For example, the two states with the lowest rates of gun violence – Hawaii and Massachusetts – both rank in the top six for strength of gun laws, while Mississippi has both the highest rate of gun deaths and the weakest gun laws in the country;
- A complete list of the top 50 gun policies that exist in every state.
For more information on the tool and website, please don’t hesitate to reach out.