Owning Guns Puts People in Your Home at Greater Risk of Being Killed, New Study Shows

Millions of Americans may have asked themselves these questions, or versions of them—especially in the wake of horrific mass shootings like those in Buffalo and Uvalde. Record-breaking spikes in gun sales over the last two years, alongside surveys indicating that self-protection continues to be the dominant reason for buying guns, underscore a widely-held belief that a gun in the home has security benefits.

A new study from my research team, recently published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, shows no such benefits. We found the opposite: people living in homes with guns face substantially higher risks of being fatally assaulted.