Tag Archives: scorecard

Ranking Redux

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Everytown for Gun Safety is rank. And by that, we mean their state gun control law ranking system is rank(ed at the top of the silliness scale). Takeaways Everytown’s state law ranking system: Is arbitrary, lacking any criminological basis. Shows very little gun violence variability between states based on their gun laws. Omits the most violent district, which has stringent gun laws. Includes suicides, which are inappropriate in such an analysis. Echoing the Brady Campaign The moribund Brady Campaign (or whatever they are calling themselves this week) used to produce a state gun law scorecard every year. It was, in a word, a gun control wish list and nothing more. We keep their last scorecard criteria to reference their arbitrary scoring system for reference and a few laughs (whichever laws they were promoting that year tended get a higher score).

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Gifford’s Goof

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Just when you think people could not be more deceitful, they somehow manage. And by “deceitful” I mean Giffords Law Center and their rather ridiculous state-by-state scorecard on gun control policy, wherein they attempt to convince an unwary public that guns lead to mayhem (when in fact it is Giffords lawyers that lead intellectual mayhem). Major Takeaways “Strong” gun control is associated with higher rates of violent crime (homicides, assaults and rapes). They handily omitted Washing D.C., which has very high violent crime rates. They included suicides (which we know are not a gun issue). They don’t cite sources for their data. Their grading scheme for the “strength” of gun control laws is 100% opaque. The History of Scorecards, Branding and Giffords Law Center Gun control scorecards are nothing new. The formerly important Brady Center used to annually publish their bit of intellectual fraud in scorecard format. And, every year … Continue reading →

Brady Scorecard Scam

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I love it when ideologues prove the oppositions’ point. Every year the Brady Campaign – the aging gun control group with fading influence – publishes their scorecard of state gun control laws, listing which states have “strong” gun control and those with “weak” ones. Every year it makes me chuckle. The source of the humor is that a simple diagram shows the meaninglessness of their analysis. Every year I plot states by the Brady Campaign ratings against various forms of crime, and every year there is no covarience. None. It is a simple yet savory summary that gun control laws make no difference in crimes of violence. But this year I noticed something I had never noticed before. On the far left of the chart is California, state that the Brady Campaign believes has the strongest gun control laws. It ranks #1 according to Brady. On the right is #50, Arizona, the state with almost … Continue reading →