Recently, there was a terrible event in Lewiston, Maine, where someone hurt a lot of people with a gun. The police are looking for the person responsible. Senator Angus King, who works for Maine, mentioned that Maine usually has a lot of people who own guns, but the crime with guns is usually low.
To check if this is true, we looked at information from different sources like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the RAND Corporation, and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF).
It turns out that it’s true. In Maine, about 48% of adults live in homes with at least one gun. This is the 16th highest among all the states. Also, when we look at how many people die from guns in Maine, it’s not as high as in other states. According to the CDC’s data from 2021, Maine had a rate of 12.6 deaths per 100,000 people, which is the 14th lowest in the country.
There’s only one state, Vermont, that has more people with guns and even fewer deaths from guns than Maine. So, what Senator King said is correct.
