The Massachusetts Gun Owners’ Action League (GOAL) released a report reflecting a nearly two-fold increase in gun related homicides in the Bay State, despite increasingly strict gun controls adopted over the past several years.
The report included data taken directly from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Injury Surveillance Program (ISP, breaking down gun-related deaths in the Commonwealth into three categories: Homicides, Suicides, and Accidental deaths.
“What just jumps off the page is the more than doubling of gun related homicides since the passage of the 1998 Gun Control Act,” said GOAL Executive Director Jim Wallace. “For more than two decades we have constantly heard that Massachusetts is leading the nation in ‘common sense’ gun control laws. Using the State’s own data, we are proving that is simply a false and dangerous narrative.”
Using the State’s own data, the report reflects an 111% increase in gun related homicides since 1998. Gun related suicides are down a few points, but that marginal success is outweighed by a huge increase in suicide by hanging/suffocation. Virtually no gains have been made in accidental gun deaths as those numbers were so minuscule already.
It is GOAL’s hope that the legislature will finally see what this so-called, gun control effort for what it really is, Wallace said, “an affront to our Second Amendment civil rights.”
“There is absolutely no way to justify what has been done to the Second Amendment Community in the name of ‘safety,’” Wallace observed. “One of the first things the legislature needs to address in the next legislative session is a complete revamp of the State’s gun laws in a manner that respects our community’s civil rights. Further, the political leadership needs to start addressing the human criminal element head on and the growing mental health crisis.”
