Not quite sure what to make of this, but the Medical College of Wisconsin released a study that gun suicide and homicide rates were about 25% lower in states that did local background checks as opposed to state or federal checks.

It does strike me from the map that a) there are not that many local check states and b) A good number of them are states that I would think are lower crime/suicide states anyways (Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska) although they did also include New York and New Jersey, which I would think had higher crime rates.

Another issue is that some of the highest per capita suicide rates (that happen to be in Federal check states) are states with higher than average gun ownership to begin with, (States I am looking at are ID – 55.3 % ownership, Montana – 57.7%, and Wyoming – 59.7%. Ownership stats from the Washington Post, possible questionable, but should give a decent comparison) which would seem to reduce the effect that background checks could possible have, as a majority of households have firearms available.

The article also calls for closing the Sale of Private Property Loophole, which I oppose.

The above observations are initial impressions, open to comment and correction if anyone wants to run numbers deeper than I did.