Story highlights Gun-related injures go down by 20% during NRA conventions, new research shows

The NRA calls the findings "absurd" and says the numbers "simply don't add up"

(CNN) During National Rifle Association annual conventions, when about 80,000 gun owners spend a few days focused on seminars, events and meetings, America seems to be safer, new research suggests.

More specifically, the rate of firearm-related injuries when NRA members gather en masse falls by 20% nationwide, according to a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine

When a state hosted a convention, and presumably a higher percentage of local gun enthusiasts attended, gun-related injuries in that state fell 50%, said Dr. Anupam Jena, the study's senior author and an associate professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School.

The Harvard-led researchers looked at the number of hospitalizations and emergency room visits tied to firearm injuries during convention dates and the three weeks before and after conventions. To reach their conclusions, they combed through nearly 76 million medical insurance claims filed by privately insured patients between 2007 and 2015.

Injury reductions were most significant among men from the South and the West, where gun ownership -- and likely NRA membership -- is greater.

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