Effectiveness of Gun Control Laws
Gun control laws have had limited success in reducing US gun related mortality. From 1999 to 2013, the firearm fatality rate in the US has remained unchanged [8]. Furthermore, when looking at 25 different gun control laws implemented by states in the US, nine were found to be beneficial, nine found to be counterproductive, and seven were inconclusive [4].
This is not to say that gun control laws have no effect. Although the overall firearm fatality rate in the US has not changed since 1999, some individual states have had more success in limited firearm related deaths. In general, states with more restrictive gun laws have a lower firearm fatality rate [8]. Also, it has been shown that if the top three most effective gun control laws were uniformly applied to everyone in the US, firearm mortality rates could be reduced from 10.35 per 100,000 down to less than 1 per 100,000. These three gun control laws thought to be most effective are universal background checks for the purchase of guns, background checks for the purchase of ammunition, and firearm identification through ballistic fingerprinting or microstamping [4].