ALI VELSHI (CO-HOST): The NRA keeps on saying that more guns keep people more safe --

STEPHANIE RUHLE (CO-HOST): No, they don't.

VELSHI: -- And study after study empirically proves it's just not true. A key point of the NRA's plans to “make our schools and communities safe” is simple: more guns. Does that actually hold up? For fact's sake, let's take a look.

In 2003, a study on -- building on research from the 1990s showed a 41 percent higher chance of homicide in homes with guns versus homes without guns. Fact. It found a 244 percent spike in suicides when compared to gun-free homes. This data isn't alone, but I want you to always remember this one: many -- most gun deaths in America are suicides. Nobody else in the world has numbers like American suicide deaths because of the number of guns we have. We'll come back to that another time.

A more recent analysis, in 2015, based on more than a dozen different studies -- and there has been a lot of research, while the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] doesn't do it, lots of people do. It found that people with access to guns at home were almost twice as likely to be murdered compared to those without guns in their home.

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The NRA argues the states with looser concealed carry laws are safer than those without. Again, not true. A new study from the National Bureau of Economic Research looked at states that adopted “Right to Carry” concealed handgun laws, RTC, “Right to Carry.” It found violent crime was 13 to 15 percent higher 10 years after the Right to Carry laws were adopted than the projections would have been if the laws had not been passed. And a 1998 survey of shootings in three cities found that for every time a homeowner used a gun for self defense or some other legally-justified shooting, there were four unintentional shootings. All the data shows that more guns do not mean more safety.

RUHLE: OK, for fact's sake, we left out one thing.

VELSHI: What's that?

RUHLE: You talked all about the empirical evidence, the studies done. Imagine how many studies that would be done if the government were supporting those studies?

VELSHI: That's right.

RUHLE: We've seen virtually no or significantly limited research funded or done by the U.S. government in years.

VELSHI: Certainly discouraged by Congress in particular.