WASHINGTON, Aug. 14 (UPI) -- Law enforcement officers across the nation are more likely to be killed in the line of duty in states that have a higher rate of gun ownership, a new study found.
The study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, found officers in these states are three times more likely to be gunned down than in states where private gun ownership is less common.
"We found that officers aren't being killed in states with high violent-crime rates. While violent crime rates didn't track closely to officer homicide rates, it was public gun ownership that had the strongest relationship," said David Swedler, research assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health and the study's lead author.
The study is sure to raise some eyebrows, most notably with the National Rifle Association, which has long stood behind its maxim of "guns don't kill people, people kill people," and amid the striking number of police shootings of unarmed Americans in the past months.
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For the study, Swedler and his colleagues reviewed FBI Uniformed Crime Reporting data for information about law enforcement homicides from 1996 to 2010 and crosschecked it with data about gun ownership from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, a survey conducted annually by state health departments.
The results: Of the 782 homicides of police officers over the study period, 716 were committed using private guns and 515 of them with private handguns.
In essence, what this means is the top gun-owning states -- including Montana, Alaska, Arkansas, Alabama and Mississippi -- had the highest rates of officer homicides. At the same time, states ranked at the bottom for gun ownership -- such as Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island -- have fewer officer homicides.
Swedler said the rates are calculated by per capita because large states have more killings and more guns simply because they have more people.
The study showed that officers responding to domestic violence calls are the highest at risk.
"Statewide firearm ownership is definitely a risk factor for police officers," Swedler said. "Higher private gun ownership increases the frequency with which officers encounter life-threatening situations. If we care about the safety of those officers, then we need to think about them when considering state gun laws."
