Saying “We found zero evidence of any kind of protective effects,” a team of researchers released a report that found households that possessed a gun were 50% more like to have a homicide than homes without a weapon, the Associated Press reports.
The study is based on data from California on handgun ownership and other publicly-available information about emergency service calls and causes of death. California is the only state that provides this type of data to the public. Though the datasets have shortfalls–it only looks at handgun-caused deaths without looking at deaths by long gun, for example–they offer the largest population study possible.
It looked at 600,000 people who came to live with someone who owned a handgun, either through moving in with someone who owned a handgun or someone in the house came to possess a handgun. The study found that compared to a group that did not have guns in their homes, households with gun owners experienced 50% more firearms deaths than those that don’t.