Massachusetts Gun Violence Up Despite Tougher Laws on Firearms

Despite it's relatively strong gun laws, Massachusetts has seen a rise in the number of firearm-related injuries over the past decade, according to the Boston Globe.

In particular, murders involving guns have gone up (188 percent), but so have aggravated assaults (26.7 percent), armed robberies (20.7 percent) using guns. The leap in these types of crime has occurred even as Massachusetts tightened its gun laws in 1998, including a ban on semiautomatic assault weapons, tougher licensing requirements and stricter rules on how guns are stored. 

Some are attributing the rise to the high number of guns brought in from out of state, especially from New Hampshire and Maine, which don't require a permit to buy a gun. 

"Those states alone accounted for nearly one-third of the 669 crime guns traced to states outside of Massachusetts," the Globe writes.  

But despite the rise in gun-related injuries, Massachusetts still had the second-lowest rate of firearm deaths in the country. Twice as many happen in New Hampshire and three times as many happen in Maine, according to the Globe report. 

In January, two men robbed three women at gunpoint in Brookline. While there have been other recent armed street robberies, guns were not the weapons used.