Thursday, February 5, 2009

Brady Rankings Are Out

Seems the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Ownership has listed its annual ranking of the several states according to their gun laws. How did Wyoming fare this year?

Not very good. We wound up with a lousy 9 out of possible 100. As far as I'm concerned, we could do better. We need to strive to be like our friends in OK, KY, and LA. These states all have a combined score of 6, 2 each.

What does this mean? Well, it means that according to the hoplophobes from the Brady Bunch, our gun laws are so weak that anyone can walk into a gun store and walk out with a Sherman tank. Only in OK, KY, and LA can you get really premium hardware like an Abrams MBT.

Lets take this a step further. The violent crime rate for WY is 239.3 per 100k. For California, the #1 ranked Brady state, the rate was 522.6. Murder in WY was 3.1 (up from 1.7 in '06) compared to CA with a murder rate of 6.2 (which was down slightly 6.8 in '06). CA has double the murder rate for WY, yet they have a veritable wish list of laws the Brady Bunch drool over, like an "assault weapons ban", waiting periods, license to buy, and "may issue" of concealed weapons permits, among others.

Wyoming had a whopping 16 murders in 2007, with 7 committed with firearms (2 by handgun, 2 by rifle, 2 by shotgun, and 1 committed by a firearm of undetermined type). The remaining 9 were committed with knives, other types of weapons (not listed by the FBI) or hands/fists/feet etc. California had 2249 murders, with 1605 committed with firearms (1305 were handguns, 51 were rifles, 74 were by shotgun, and 106 were by firearms of undetermined type. The remaining 600 and change were knives/cutting instruments/hands/fists/feet, etc.

Where would you rather live?

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