The D.C. Navy Yard shooting comes just after a major report on gun ownership in the United States confirmed the link between firearm homicide rates and the number of people who own guns. According to the study in the American Journal of Public Health, for each 1 percent increase in gun ownership, the rate of people murdered by firearms increased by 0.9 percent. The researchers found “states with higher rates of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides.”