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For years, the Bay State has received an “A” on the gun safety organization’s annual scorecard.
Massachusetts has long been known for its strict gun laws, and on Tuesday the state earned an “A” rating for the first time from the Giffords Law Center, a gun violence prevention organization.
Each year, the organization releases a dashboard scoring and ranking each state based on its gun laws, compared to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data on gun deaths.
“Massachusetts has some of the strictest gun laws in the country and is leading the nation in investing in community violence intervention strategies,” the organization wrote.
The state was ranked fifth out of 50 for the stringency of its gun laws, according to the Gifford Center. It is also the state with the lowest gun death rate, 3.7 per 100,000 residents.
For years, Massachusetts received an “A-” in the rankings. According to the Giffords Center, several changes took place from last year that resulted in a state level shift, including banning ghost guns, banning guns at polling places and government buildings, strengthening existing extreme risk protection order law. and investing $48 million in community violence intervention programs.
The bulk of those changes involved sweeping gun safety legislation that Gov. Maura Healey signed earlier this year after it was approved by the Legislature. Opponents of the new law say they seek to challenge the mandates by putting a ballot question before 2026 voters.
Even with the changes in 2024, the Gifford Center noted in its dashboard for Massachusetts that more can be done to improve gun safety in the state, including passing gun liability legislation. gun industry, limiting wholesale gun sales, limiting the minimum age, and banning guns in bars.
“As of 2022, Massachusetts had the second lowest gun death rate among states,” the organization writes. “In an average year, 257 people die from gun violence in the state. That means one person dies every 34 hours from gun violence. Fifty-five percent of these deaths are firearm suicides, and 42 percent are firearm homicides.
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