(WSMV - Nashville) According to Gabrielle Giffords' Law Center, Tennessee isn't making the grade on gun safety laws. However, the state has slightly improved its rating since last year.
Each year, Gifford's Law Center releases their Annual Gun Law Scorecard, grading each state on the strength of their gun laws.
Tennessee received a "D-" rating this year "due to its lack of comprehensive gun safety measures."
However, the state has improved marginally since last year when it received an "F" rating.
The state is also ranked #24 out of 50 states in terms of gun law strength but sits at #14 when it comes to the number of gun-related deaths per capita.
Gifford Law Center says Tennessee's gun laws are strong when it comes to domestic violence, creating a procedure last year that requires offenders to relinquish their guns after an offense.
They also say Tennessee has partially strong laws when it comes to child-access prevention and conceal-carry permitting.
However, they say the state could improve gun laws in three key areas, including, stronger background checks, extreme-risk protection orders and making military-style weaponry illegal or more difficult to obtain.
“Every day in our country, nearly 100 Americans die from gun violence. While this crisis is impacting families in every community in every state, we know its toll disproportionately hits states with weaker gun laws the hardest,” said Robyn Thomas, executive director of Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “Year after year, our research shows that states that get serious about passing stronger gun violence prevention laws have a much better chance of reducing the number of deaths linked to firearms. This scorecard should be a wake-up call to the half of the nation that has failing grades that they are on notice. The Gun Law Scorecard should inspire elected leaders, activists, and concerned citizens to take action.”
Gabrielle Giffords, a former U.S. Representative from Arizona, was critically wounded in an assassination attempt in Tuscon on Jan. 8, 2011, just a week into her third term.
Giffords survived the shooting and has spent the better part of the last decade advocating for stricter gun-safety laws.
The law center maintains that their data shows states with the strongest gun laws have lower gun death rates than states that make no changes.
According to the study, the states with the most comprehensive gun laws and lowest gun-death rates are:
- Massachusetts
- Rhode Island
- New York
- Hawaii
- Connecticut
- New Jersey
- California
- Washington
The states with highest gun-death rates (and weakest gun laws) in the nation are:
- Alaska
- Alabama
- Louisiana
- Mississippi
- Oklahoma
- Montana
- Missouri
- New Mexico
- Arkansas
- South Carolina