On Thursday, five police officers were killed near the end of a peaceful protest in Dallas, making it the deadliest single event for police officers in America since 9/11.

In the wake of that shooting, The Washington Post reports on a study out last year from American Journal of Public Health that shows that in states with more guns, more police officers are killed in the line of duty.

The authors of the study gathered information on officer deaths from the FBI. Using this, and "the mean household firearm ownership for each state from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System," and correcting to a number of factors, they showed that "LEO [Law Enforcement Official] homicide rates were 3 times higher in states with high firearm ownership compared with states with low firearm ownership."

The study concludes that high levels of public gun ownership constitutes a "risk for occupational mortality for LEOs in the United States."

If states want to reduce officer deaths, the study finds that they should "could consider methods for reducing firearm ownership."

According to CNN, over a million people in Texas have handgun permits.

-- Lizzy Acker

503-221-8052

lacker@oregonian.com, @lizzzyacker