These are the 10 US states with the weakest gun laws in 2017

Daniel BrownApr 23, 2018, 23:58 IST

Officials investigate the scene where a police officer was shot in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans, Tuesday, Jan. 26, 2016.Associated Press

The US experienced another mass shooting on Sunday when a man entered a Waffle House in Nashville, Tennessee and opened fire, killing four people before a bystander heroically disarmed him.

In terms of strict state gun laws, Tennessee falls in the middle of the pack, according to the Giffords Law Center's Annual Gun Law Scorecard. In 2017, the Giffords Law Center ranked the state as having the 26th least strict gun laws in the US.

The Giffords Gun Law Scorecard's methodology is based on nine different broad categories of laws, such as background checks, gun sales, and who can have a gun.

"We assign points to different policies ... and they're somewhat graduated based on the strength of the policy," Laura Cutilletta, legal director at the Giffords Law Center, told Business Insider.

"We also take away points if a state has something particularly dangerous, like letting guns in bars," Cutilletta said, adding that they then "add everything up, and we assign grades based on the points total."

"Probably the most important part is we compare that to death rate in every state," Cutilletta said, "and we find that there is a strong correlation between states with stronger gun laws and having lower gun death rates."

Here are the 10 states with the weakest gun laws in 2017:

See These are the 10 US states with the weakest gun laws in 2017 >>

10. Vermont

Gun death rate: 11 per 100,000 (36th lowest in the US).

Cutilletta noted that Vermont might move up in the rankings, given that they just passed a number of stricter gun laws in 2018 already.

9. Kentucky

Gun death rate: 17.5 per 100,000 (13th highest in the US).

8. Louisiana

Gun death rate: 21.2 per 100,000 (3rd highest in the US).

7. Alaska

Gun death rate: 23 per 100,000 (highest in the US).

6. Wyoming

Gun death rate: 17.5 per 100,000 (11th highest in the US).

5. Idaho

Gun death rate: 14.6 per 100,000 (19th highest in the US).

4. Arizona

Gun death rate: 15.2 per 100,000 (16th highest in the US).

3. Missouri

Gun death rate: 18.8 per 100,000 (7th highest in the US).

2. Kansas

Gun death rate: 13.3 per 100,000 (23rd highest in the US).

1. Mississippi

Gun death rate: 19.8 per 100,000 (4th highest in the US).

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