"For example, Wyoming had the highest firearm ownership rate and zero LEO homicides, whereas the District of Columbia had the lowest firearm ownership rate and was in the highest quintile for homicide rates.."
Population density. Wyoming is a large state with ~600,000 people. DC is a small city (80 sq miles) with about the same population as wyoming, but crammed into a much smaller space.
.. Consider all these states combined: wyoming, both dakotas, idaho, montana, vermont, maine, new hampshire, iowa. Those 9 states comprise about 25% of the area of the continental USA.
Consider New York City metro area including newark NJ, in comparison a little finger smudge on a US map, has more people living with it that all of those states combined - 15 million to maybe 10 million.
Toss in alaska & the land mass becomes about a third of the USA, & NYC still has about 5 million more people.
The states with the lowest rates of gun ownership tended to be high-population places such as New York, while the highest rates of gun ownership were in low-population places such as Wyomi
Higher levels of private firearm ownership likely increased the frequency with which officers faced potentially life-threatening situations on the job," the study says. High rates of officer homicides appeared to be caused "by more frequently encountering situations where privately owned firearms were present," it says.
Law enforcement officers "working in states with higher levels of gun ownership faced a greater likelihood of being shot and killed on the job compared with their peers in states with lower gun ownership," the study concludes. The relationship was strong enough that every 10 percent increase in gun ownership correlated with 10 more officer deaths over the study period.
"If we're interested in protecting police officers, we need to look at what's killing them, and what's killing them is guns," said the study's lead author,
Numbers such as these are one reason many law enforcement groups have been the staunchest supporters of stricter gun control measures.
The International Association of Chiefs of Police, for instance, supports a reinstatement of the federal ban on assault weapons, broadening background checks and creating a national gun offender registry. The Major Cities Chiefs Association, representing police chiefs in the country's largest cities and metro areas, support similar proposals.
By contrast sheriff's groups, which tend to represent law enforcement officers from more rural areas where gun violence is less of a problem, tend to be more skeptical of stricter gun control measures.
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