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The five states with the highest levels of gun ownership were: Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas and West Virginia. The five states with the lowest levels of gun ownership were: Hawaii, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Delaware.

If you counted illegal guns I'd bet that Mass, RI and NJ would outdo the "highest" states.

One factor would be hunting accidents outside the home - the five states listed with lowest gun ownership also have virtually no hunting. The southern states probably have gun seasons year-round for various game animals. But again, this would not pose a risk to young children at home.

Gun control advocates are famous for declaring children to be age 18 and younger, and always include all deaths from gangs fighting over turf. But since those deaths peak for youths 15-18, and probably are higher in the "low gun states" this data was probably deliberately taken out of this study to bias the results ("cook the books")

There may also be issues with how states rule on suicide. Perhaps southern states are more prone to call a gun death a suicide rather than accidental - perhaps those low-gun states call suicides accidental shootings to protect life insurance payouts. I would also guess the non-gun states might lead in deaths by overdose of drugs - which are often called accidental rather than suicide.

The NRA is correct -you need to see the data and the methodology of the study. Maybe Gun Rights group will insist on an inpartial observer - like that history professor who doctored the data on colonial gun ownership rates.

"But, one might be suspicious of a national study that ignored 40 of 50 states as the press release suggests," said Whitley.

This is an important point. When one looks at only the extremes of a distribution, one can often "find" a strong relationship... but if one looks at all the data, it becomes apparent that there is no relationship at all.

Besides, I can think of a number of potential differences between the low and high gun ownership states besides gun ownership. And several could be factors in responsible/irresponsible gun use/storage.

I'll try to get ahold of that study...

File this in the "no sh*t sherlock" category. States that have the highest number of cars also have the highest number of car accidents. Come to think of it, there is a higher rate of snowboarding accidents in Utah than there is in Florida.

As someone who works with statistics all day long, I cringe, laugh, and then cry when I read these bonehead studies...