GeorgiaCarry.Org Member Barre Bollinger was intrigued by the Brady Center’s state ratings. A score of 100 is their highest possible score.
Here is what Barre had to say. “I ran some numbers today on a sample of the 1st ten safest states vs. their Brady Score. Brady scores are from their own site. Violent crime stats came from a U.S. Census Bureau 2004 report, and include number of murders, forcible rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults per 100,000 population.”
But that’s unpossible, you say? It would seem that while the Brady Bunch consider a state safe if it has severe gun restrictions, crime is actually more rampant in those same states with severe gun restrictions making them, in reality, less safe. I guess it depends on what you consider the word “safe” to mean: (1) frequent crime against the law-abiding civilians that are afforded no gun ownership, or (2) infrequent crime against the law-abiding civilians that are afforded gun ownership.
But how is it that these criminals can even commit a crime with a gun since the states have made it illegal to have a gun? Can these vile criminals not read and understand their state’s laws? Do they not realize that by using a gun during a crime they’re committing a crime?
Note that not even one of the ten safest states has a Brady score over 12 out of 100, with the scores ranging down as low as a 2!
Please keep this chart to use whenever the Brady ratings come back up, especially in the liberal media. Brady’s top state is California, but California (552 per 100,000) ranks number 41 by Barre’s safety measure, which ranks states based on the frequency of violent crime (with a lower frequency resulting in a higher rating).
9 responses so far ↓
1 Choy // Jun 20, 2008 at 5:07 am
Interesting, but not terribly useful. It doesn’t mean all that much without the ten least safe states to compare it to. If the Brady Score was high on those then it would show some signifigance that would be obvious. Without that, people can just put it off as coincidence.
And where is the link to Bollinger’s original post? I’d really wanted to see how the numbers change across all 50 states and I couldn’t find the original chart to see if the data was there.
2 Joe // Jun 20, 2008 at 9:17 am
The highest rating states in the Brady State Scorecard Rankings:
1-California, 2-New Jersey, 3-Connecticut, 4-Mass., 5-Maryland, 6-New York, 7-Rhode Island, 8-Hawaii, 9-Illinois, 10- Pennsylvania
It is tough to find this information on the Brady site, but dig a little and you can find it.
3 Shamalama // Jun 20, 2008 at 9:49 am
California, Brady rank 1, Violent crime rank 10
New Jersey, Brady rank 2, Violent crime rank 26
Connecticut, Brady rank 3, Violent crime rank 34
Mass., Brady rank 4, Violent crime rank 18
Maryland, Brady rank 5, Violent crime rank 3
New York, Brady rank 6, Violent crime rank 21
Rhode Island, Brady rank 7, Violent crime rank 40
Hawaii, Brady rank 8, Violent crime rank 39
Illinois, Brady rank 9, Violent crime rank 11
Pennsylvania, Brady rank 10, Violent crime rank 23
Please note that I am NOT critical of GeorgiaCarry.Org member Barre Bollinger’s analysis, but what I found interesting is that the average violent crime rate of Brady’s Top 10 is statistically equal to Brady’s Bottom 10, both in ranking as well as violent crimes per 100,000 people. While I’m not “going out on a limb” and saying that Brady’s Top States are more violent, I will state that Brady’s gun control has absolutely no effect on violent crime.
But what is significant is the disparity between what Brady considers to be a safe state and what the actual crime stats show. The 10 safest states according to crime stats are all in the bottom half of what Brady considers to be safe states. Of the 10 most violent states according to crime statistics, all are within Brady’s top half of what they consider to be safe states, with California being the 10th worst in crime yet #1 according to Brady and Maryland being the 3rd worst in crime yet #5 according to Brady.
And since lawful ownership and carry of a legal firearm cannot be shown to cause more violent crime, I will continue to arm myself when I’m in the public – concealed or open doesn’t matter, I’m going to continue to carry to defend myself and my loves ones from those that would kill me over a $20 bill.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ
4 Peter // Jun 20, 2008 at 11:11 am
Sorry I don’t have time to look it up, but could someone use numbers that are meaningful? Shamalama’s list is not using the same numbers as Barre’s:
Shama- California, Brady rank 1, Violent crime rank 10
Barre- Kentucky as “Crime rank” 10
Shama- Maryland, Brady rank 5, Violent crime rank 3
Barre- Vermont as “Crime rank” 3
What would really be interesting to look at is the top 10 Brady ranks AND scores, and the actual crime rank that matches what Barre used, along with the crimes/100k.
Sorry Joe and Shamalama, but your numbers don’t help when they aren’t using the same scale that Barre originally used.
5 Richard // Jun 20, 2008 at 11:41 am
I would be very interested in statistics on “hot burglaries” with the residents home versus “cold burglaries” with the residents not home. In England, over 50% of burglaries are hot, whereas in the US, 10% are hot; in England burglars know they will not be shot by residents. It would be interesting to see “percent hot” in pro-gun states versus anti-gun states and especially DC. Statistics by state on carjacking as a percent of car thefts would also reveal the (unhealthy) influence of gun control on criminal behavior. So would holdups versus thefts. In each case, the denominator represents “crimes without victims present” and the numerator represents “similar crimes WITH victims present”. Most of us on the pro-gun side would expect gun control to put more crimes in the numerator. That is, gun control lessens criminals’ anxiety.
6 Shamalama // Jun 20, 2008 at 11:55 am
OK, here’s the data I pulled in Microsoft Excel 2003 format:
http://www.commonfolkusingcommonsense.com/files/brady-crime-stats.xls
Came from:
- http://www.stategunlaws.org/xshare/pdf/scorecard/2007/2007_scorecard_rankings.pdf
- http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/rank21.html
7 JoeFromSidney // Jun 20, 2008 at 8:38 pm
I copied the Brady Rank and the Crime Rank to a second sheet; I then used Excel to plot Crime Rank vs. Brady Rank. The data were scattered all over the plot. No trend either way. No correlation between the two series. It would be nice to show that there was an inverse correlation between Brady and Crime, but it’s not there.
8 RobertG in Arizona // Jun 21, 2008 at 10:25 am
The Brady Bunch will lie about anything to further their agenda. The studies on Gun Control V Crimes are numerous and none that I am aware show that Gun Control reduces violent crime. John Lott’s studys are the best known I do believe. The studies are here in the States, Britain and New Zealand. Mexico has very strict gun control and a far higher murder rate than we. Lithuania and Russia too.
Mexico’s murder rate is 17.5.
Russia murder rate 30.6.
Lithuania’s murder rate of 11.7.
Finland has few gun control laws a murder rate of 2.9.
Israel’s murder rate is only 1.4 excluding terrorism.
US? 7.0 Not bad for a large, multi-racial, multi-cultural free people.
Chicago has very strict gun laws and a very high murder rate. Phoenix with few laws does much better even factoring the Mexican drug war going on.
I have had two family members murdered. One in 1971 and one in 1996. Both were beaten to death during a robbery. Both may have lived if they were carrying at the time. So I always carry.
9 AJMD // Jun 22, 2008 at 12:49 pm
See Kates’ and Suter’s articles from the medical/legal journal literature on our “favorite links” page at http://www.dsgl.org/links.htm – search the text of “Guns and Public Health” for the phrase “overt mendacity” and read the paragraphs which follow. THIS is from a law review journal, and 1/3 of the 80+ pages consists of references and documentation. Print copies and insert them neatly into the “gun control” books at your local library or have your kids do so in their school library, so the little twerps who are given the assignment of doing reports on how great “gun control” is get some truth to balance the propaganda. Also refer them to R.J. Rummel’s “genocide” website; “GENOCIDE is the proud legacy of gun control.”
Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws – http://www.dsgl.org
“First do no harm” – gun control LAWS lead to far more innocent deaths than ‘easy access’ ever could.