Constitutional Law

Brady's grading system and "sensible gun laws"

Howard Nemerov's analysis is here. Brady Campaign grades States A-F on how their gun laws match Brady's ideal. Nemerov's statistical work suggests that (1) high Brady grades correlate to low gun ownership -- restrictive laws reduce the number of persons who can own guns and (2) they also correlate to higher violent crime and homicide rates. The highest rough quartile (averaging B+) had a violent crime rate of 610 and a homicide rate of 7.6 . The lowest quartile, average grade D-, had a violent crime rate of 320 and a homcide rate of 4.2.

So Brady's "commonsense" gun laws are associated with inhibited gun ownership and higher violent crime and murder rates.

Full post as published by Of Arms and the Law on July 05, 2008 (boomark / email).