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Brady Campaign grades the states
The Brady Campaign has issued its annual press releases announcing the grades it gives different states. So just as an experiment I checked out the States with the *lowest* homicide rates.
Maine, with the lowest rates in the country, draws a D-.
South Dakota, with the second-lowest homicide rate, draws a D.
New Hampshire, the third lowest, gets a D-
The Brady grading criteria give an interesting insight into the question "what do these folks want in the way of laws" (or perhaps more precisely, what are they willing to say they want). Included are, oh, one handgun a month, attorney general able to regulate guns, ballistic fingerprinting, parents punishable for gun access by children, cities able to sue gun mfrs, registration of all guns and permit requirements for handguns, bans on "saturday night specials," backround checks on private sales, bans on assault rifles and large magazines, waiting period for any gun sale, etc.. Oh, and no pre-emption law, so localities can impose regulations beyond this.
Even Massachusetts is regarded as imperfect: it gets an A-, getting dinged for (apparently) no rifle registration, and allowing CCW permits at police discretion.
Comments
Wyoming voters have more work to do ... with enough effort, the state can go from "F" to "F-".
Posted by: Kristopher at March 8, 2006 11:37 AM
Just goes to show you. As much as the Brady folks claim to care about public safety, it's not really public safety they care about: it' their agenda. If innocents must be sacrificed to accomplish the gun control agenda, so be it.
Posted by: me at March 8, 2006 04:09 PM
The Brady Campaign, and Sarah Brady in particular, have the blood of innocents on their hands.
Posted by: robert at March 8, 2006 05:00 PM
Oh, and no pre-emption law, so localities can impose regulations beyond this.
Wouldn't that mean localities could pass laws less strict than state and federal law?
[insert sound of crickets chirping here]
Also, has anyone studied whether there's a correlation between the Brady grades and a state's regulation of non-lethal/less-than-lethal devices (eg - pepper spray, tasers)? If so, it would certainly lend credence to the charge that the gun-control lobby is really the anti-self-defense lobby.
Posted by: Robert R. at March 13, 2006 06:12 PM