A new study from the Center for American Progress concludes that stronger gun laws are associated with fewer gun deaths. The New York Times reports:

With guns emerging as a major flash point in the presidential race and campaigns nationwide, gun-control advocates are spending tens of millions of dollars on a central message: Stronger firearms laws can reduce gun violence.

Although the National Rifle Association has long rejected that assertion, a growing body of evidence from academics, advocacy groups and others supports the link between gun restrictions and a reduction in violence.

The latest analysis comes out Wednesday from the Center for American Progress, a leading liberal group that supports toughened gun control. It concludes that gun fatalities in states with weaker laws are more than three times as high as in those states with tougher restrictions, including background checks or permits.

. . .

The group, which did a more limited study on the issue three and a half years ago, used 10 gun-crime and violence indicators for each state, including homicides, suicides and accidental shootings, and weighed them against how restrictive a state’s gun laws are.

The findings indicated a “strong” correlation between stricter gun laws and lower rates of violence, said Chelsea Parsons, one of the report’s authors.

States with relatively tough gun laws, including Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey and New York, generally had much lower rates of gun violence, while those with looser gun laws — including Alaska, Louisiana and Mississippi — had higher rates, the study found.

While the center is unabashedly in favor of tougher gun measures, Daniel Webster, an expert on gun violence at Johns Hopkins University, who reviewed the findings, said its methods were scientifically sound and expanded on previous research on the issue.

Read the full story from the Times here, and the full report from the Center for American Progress here.