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Examining the New Brady Scorecard

After a two-year hiatus, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence released their latest, most detailed effort to score states on their gun control laws. It includes state-by-state scoring on numerous criteria (e.g., one handgun purchase per month, ballistic fingerprinting, requiring a permit to purchase a gun, no shall-issue right-to-carry (RTC) law, and workplace and college bans).¹

Their accompanying press release noted Brady’s continuing dissatisfaction with state legislatures to enact what Brady considers “common sense gun restrictions”:

Washington, D.C. – Officials in most states have done little to keep criminals and other dangerous people from easily obtaining guns, according to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. The new redesigned scorecards are being released today for all 50 states.

Two-thirds of all states score less than 20 points out of 100. Almost half of all states score 10 points or less out of 100. 

“We make it too easy for dangerous people to get dangerous weapons. Our gun laws are so weak that, in most states, there are few or no laws to prevent gun violence,” says Paul Helmke, President of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. “This is true at the federal level as well. We need effective gun laws to curb gun violence and illegal gun trafficking.”²

Missing Washington, D.C.

Most of the earlier Brady report cards ignored Washington, D.C., which consistently had the highest violent crime rate of state. (It is included here because it has a larger population than Wyoming and has enough autonomy to enact its own gun control laws, like any state.) Brady’s 2007 Scorecard contains detailed criteria for determining a state’s score.³ Using their criteria, Washington, D.C. would have scored around 83 (out of 100), higher than any state, due to the fact that it has the strictest gun laws in the country. It deserves note that in 2006, Brady’s closest representative of their gun control ideal had 3.2 times the violent crime rate and a 5.1 times higher murder rate than that for the entire the country.⁴

Figures or Facts?

Brady included a handy one-page synopsis which listed states by their final score.⁵ Brady’s highest score was 79, given to California, based on its strict licensing and background check requirement for all firearm purchases, one gun per month purchasing restriction, “assault weapons” ban, microstamping on all semi-automatic handguns, and restrictive concealed carry laws. Only five states scored higher than 50.

The first hint that Brady’s new scorecard may more effectively identify a state’s criminal-friendly environment is in which criteria Brady consider to be “common sense gun restrictions”. For example, states earn two points if they did not enact what Brady calls a “Shoot First Law” (commonly called Stand Your Ground), which Brady interprets to mean that law-abiding citizens can use deadly force “as the first resort” when confronted by criminal attackers. But there are no corresponding points for states whose laws punish criminals who use deadly force in public, something that clearly would signal a state’s intention to reduce gun violence.⁶

Further evidence of the pro-criminal bias appears when comparing Brady scores to FBI violent crime rates. Including D.C., nine of the top 10 states were non-RTC. Brady’s “Top 10” averaged a violent crime rate of 528.4 and a Brady score of 56. Brady’s “Bottom 10”, all RTC states, averaged a violent crime rate of 379.4––39.3% lower than the “Top 10” rate––and a Brady score of 4. More interesting is that Brady’s “Top 10” had an average murder rate of 7.2, while their “Bottom 10” averaged 5.0.⁷

Some might argue that the non-RTC states might have had even worse crime rates without their restrictive gun laws. Between 2001 and 2006, the national violent crime rate dropped 6.1%. During that same time period, RTC states saw a 6.6% rate decrease, while non-RTC states saw a 5.0% drop. Between 2004 and 2006, the U.S. saw a 2.2% increase in the violent crime rate, but RTC states saw a 1.9% increase while non-RTC states experienced a 3.1% increase. Finally, in 2004, non-RTC states averaged a 26.5% higher violent crime rate than RTC states. This differential increased to 27.3% by the end of 2006, meaning that non-RTC states became relatively more violent than RTC states. Considering these facts, it is hard to conclude that further gun control laws would created any positive effect.⁸

Conclusion

The Brady Campaign is unhappy with the state of the union. In their eyes, we are becoming worse off and only a plethora of new “common sense gun restrictions” will save the country. But they fail to tell you that the only people benefiting in states most closely following their lead is the violent criminal, not the law-abiding citizen. Exactly whose side is Brady on?

About the Author

Howard Nemerov is a columnist for Texas State Rifle Association’s TSRA Sportsman and “unofficial” investigative analyst for NRA News. He can be reached at HNemerov [at sign] Netvista.net.

Endnotes

2007 Brady Campaign State Scorecard, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, downloaded February 1, 2008. http://www.stategunlaws.org/xshare/pdf/scorecard/2007/2007_state_scorecard.pdf

² New Brady Scorecard Shows Most States Lack Common Sense Gun Restrictions, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, January 31, 2008. http://www.bradycampaign.org/media/release.php?release=962

³ 2007 Brady Campaign State Scorecard, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

⁴ Table 5: Crime in the United States by State, 2006, Federal Bureau of Investigation. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2006/data/table_05.html Compiled into spreadsheet; email request for Excel workbook.

⁵ 2007 Brady Campaign State Scorecard Rankings, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, downloaded February 1, 2008. http://www.stategunlaws.org/xshare/pdf/scorecard/2007/2007_scorecard_rankings.pdf

⁶ 2007 Brady Campaign State Scorecard, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

⁷ Table 5: Crime in the United States by State, 2006, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Compiled into spreadsheet; email request for Excel workbook.

⁸ Compiled into spreadsheets from FBI Uniform Crime data for years 2001-2006. Email request for Excel workbook.

>>> "Howard Nemerov" <hnemerov@netvista.net> 02/07/08 10:37 PM >>>

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