The table below lists the ten U.S states with the weakest gun control laws (as of 5/14/22) according to research done by the Giffords Law Center. Correlating this list with homicide death data from the National Center for Health Statistics, a unit of the CDC, we found that in 2020 the collective homicide rate for these ten weak gun control states was, at 9.8 deaths per 100,000 population, more than 30% higher than the national homicide rate.  However, the collective results were heavily skewed by inordinately high homicide rates in four states in the group (Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Arkansas).  The other six weak gun control states in the group recorded homicide rates in 2020 that were at, or below, that national average homicide rate.

Visit the Giffords Law Center for more about their research into gun laws and for their rankings of U.S. states by the strength of their respective gun control laws.

Homicide Rates in States with the Weakest Gun Control Laws

**	State	Deaths	Population	Death Rate*
41	Alaska	55	731,158	7.5
42	Kentucky	404	4,477,251	9.0
43	Arizona	525	7,421,401	7.1
44	South Dakota	52	892,717	5.8
45	Mississippi	576	2,966,786	19.4
46	Kansas	195	2,913,805	6.7
47	Missouri	803	6,151,548	13.1
48	Idaho	42	1,826,913	2.3
49	Wyoming	25	582,328	4.3
50	Arkansas	371	3,030,522	12.2
	Sub-total	3,048	30,994,429	9.8
	U.S.	24,576	329,484,123	7.5

(**) status of gun control laws ranked strongest to weakest
(*) number of homicide deaths per 100,000 population

Report Period: 2020

Source: CDC Wonder. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Underlying Cause of Death 1999-2020 on CDC WONDER Online Database, released in 2021. Data are from the Multiple Cause of Death Files, 1999-2020, as compiled from data provided by the 57 vital statistics jurisdictions through the Vital Statistics Cooperative Program. Accessed on May 14, 2022