A statistical analysis of the impact of gun ownership on mass shootings in the United States between 2013 and 2022

Abstract

Abstract Mass shootings are becoming more frequent in the United States, posing a significant threat to public health and safety in the country. In the current study, we intended to analyze the impact of state-level prevalence of gun ownership on mass shootings - both the frequency and severity of these events. We applied the negative binomial generalized linear mixed model to investigate the association between gun ownership rate, as measured by a proxy (i.e, the proportion of suicides committed with firearms to total suicides), and population-adjusted rates of mass shooting incidents and fatalities at the state level from 2013 to 2022. Gun ownership was found to be significantly associated with the rate of mass shooting fatalities. Specifically, our model indicated that for every 1-SD increase - that is, for every 12.5% increase - in gun ownership, the rate of mass shooting fatalities increased by 34% (p-value < 0.001). However, no significant association was found between gun ownership and rate of mass shooting incidents. These findings suggest that restricting gun ownership (and therefore reducing availability to guns) may not decrease the number of mass shooting events, but it may save lives when these events occur.