HoodaThunk?

Recently, the Brady Campaign released their annual report on states’ rankings where their gun regulation is concerned. The details of the report are contained within “State Report Cards” that rank a given state by such things as whether they require state-level licensing of firearms dealers, offer local officials the ability to deny permit applications based on arbitrary and subjective criteria, and many more favorites of the various anti-gun organizations. (Find out how your state ranked here.)

The NRA-ILA reviewed the rankings and have found - again - an interesting correlation: The higher the ranking given by the Brady Campaign (meaning the more restrictive the state is in protecting their citizen’s 2nd Amendment rights) the higher the rate of violent crime.

• California, the state that has the most gun control and received Brady’s highest score (79), has violent crime and murder rates that are 14% and 23% higher, respectively, compared to the rest of the country.
• Brady didn’t bother giving a score to Washington, D.C., which has more gun control than California and even higher crime rates.
• Most of the 38 states that Brady gave 20 or fewer points to, have total violent crime, murder, and robbery rates that are below the national rates.
• For states that have total violent crime, murder, and robbery rates that are below the national rates, Brady gave average scores of 19, 19, and 14, respectively.
• For the 10 states with the lowest total violent crime, murder, and robbery rates, Brady gave average scores of 12, 12, and 9, respectively.

Where the possibility that a prospective target will be armed is higher, crooks (like most of us) err to the side of caution and attack less frequently. Where a given home has a higher likelihood of containing an armed homeowner, burglars tend to take a pass on trying their luck. When they know they can drive an hour or two and gt into a place where the law tilts the playing field in their favor by making law-abiding citizens disarm, they’ll drive there rather than risk getting shot and/or killed somewhere where the laws leave the guns in the lawful hands. And, more directly, when law-abiding citizens have the means to effectively defend themselves, they are the victims of violence less often than if they do not. It is a plainly logical projection that more restrictive guns laws will mean higher crime in any society where people exist who do not care about following the law. The Brady report merely proves it.

Virginia, I note, has a ranking of 18. That sounded pretty low to me until I looked at the state rankings table (PDF) and found that we’re actually closer to the top scorer of California (79) than the bottom scorers of Kentucky and Oklahoma (2). Still, I’m happy we’re where we are and, from the looks of recent legislative action here, we’re going to stay that way.