A Sea of Red

The Bradys are touting new state rankings for 2010, which includes convenient red/blue maps showing how badly they are losing most everywhere. Of course, we’re already well into 2011, but I’m not really going to blame those folks for phoning it in given the last time I looked at their Form 990s.

But I do I think we can do better. It’s like losing weight. Shed a few points here, a few points there. I look forward to turning Pennsylvania from blue to red over the next few years. Just looking over our score sheet, I think we could lose 3 points easily this session. That would at least move us south of Michigan on the Brady list. Pennsylvania has a grand total of 26 out of 100 points. Most of that we get from the ban on private transfer for handguns. The rest mostly comes from state dealer requirements.

What’s interesting is that Brady is hardly scoring carry laws anymore at all. In fact, if you take a look, they tend to rank current agenda items higher than issues they’ve already largely lost on.

21 thoughts on “A Sea of Red”

  1. I assumed that my state’s score of 4 was due to open carry being banned (the attempt to get it passed failed in committee earlier this year; the hearing was rescheduled for right after a huge snowstorm, and flurries are cause for Walmart to run out of eggs, bread, and milk), but after looking at the detailed score sheet, open carry wasn’t even listed.

    Our only points were from parking lot bans and college campus bans (and I think the former is being addressed presently).

  2. I don’t want to hear anymore about how bad WI’s gun laws are just because there’s no concealed carry. WI scored an 8 out of 100. lol. And you can buy anything you want and open carry anything you want without a permit.

  3. “What’s interesting is that Brady is hardly scoring carry laws anymore at all. In fact, if you take a look, they tend to rank current agenda items higher than issues they’ve already largely lost on.”

    I did notice that there was no score for “Guns in Bars!!!111OMGeleventy!” on their score sheet. Unfortunately I can’t figure out what the previous year questions were. I suspect a serious movement of the goalposts here. I’d like to compare the previous several years’ questions side by side to see how they are moving them.

  4. They don’t score guns in bars because a lot of their showcase states allow it. When permits are only restricted to cronies, politicians don’t care to pass a lot of restrictions.

  5. I find it interesting that they avoided ranking the District of Colombia. I suspect that’s because doing so would reveal their true goals.

  6. OTOH, the Brady Bunch would still be giving most states lousy rankings even if we had UK-type gun control. For them, there is never enough persecution of gun owners.

  7. I assume someone will be saving a copy of this one?

    Cause Wyoming I think just lost 4 points this year and Montana is set to lose 2 as soon as the governor signs the Permitless Carry bill.

    Maybe someone better with the computer than I could make their chart into an updatable format and keep a running total of changes since their recording date.

    Heck, something like the “CC law” gif of the states but showing the Brady numbers decreasing this year per the current set of goalposts.

    You know, to help Joan et al keep track of their losses.

  8. Actually, if we (by that I mean someone other than me) could get the scoring criteria they have used over the past and do side by side gif comparisons of the numbers continuing to decrease by each set of standards they have chosen to the present day.

    It’d look like the AI learning scene in Wargames, no matter what standards they try they can’t win.

  9. I was dismayed to see Texas at 6 points, but it looks like we will probably get it down to 4 this session as the Employee Parking lot bill is moving along. Unfortunately it looks like Campus carry won’t end up passing so that is another 2 that we won’t get to shave off this time around.

  10. We were at 2 last time they had this, due to our colleges bucking preemption. Now we’re at 0, having earned a two point demerit for permitless carry.

  11. New Administration and Board at UA now Heather. I am finally finishing up the paperwork for Wayne Ross and will approach them with the stick and carrot this summer.

    I wonder if the state university just changes their policy without the legislature acting if it will still count for 2 points in Brady land?

    There’s only, what, one private university in the state and I’m big on private property rights vis a vis carry so that’ll be on somebody else.

  12. I think I need to move from the People’s Republic of California (score of 80) to where my family lives in Arizona (score of 0).

    It would be refreshing!

  13. I think Ohio should be a 4 instead of a 9. They gave us 5 points for having a mandatory lost and stolen reporting law. I know nothing about such a law but will ask OFCC.

  14. Utah scored 0/100.

    We were given a two-point demerit for “no permit required for CCW,” which is news to me; we had such a bill die out in committee during the most recent legislative session.

    In the meantime, Utah has one of the ten lowest homicide rates in the country.

  15. “We were given a two-point demerit for “no permit required for CCW,” which is news to me; we had such a bill die out in committee during the most recent legislative session.”

    So you cheated!

  16. Since it’s possible to get a negative score, that’s what we should all be striving for. How sweet would it be to live in a state with a -2 Brady score?

  17. Matthew – sounds awesome, I’d been wondering what was going on with that. Keep me posted!

  18. I was surprised that VA wasn’t red (16 points), but when I looked I realized that almost half of that was for regulations on FFL’s (and I think most of those just duplicate federal requirements, anyway). Another 3 points for the “one gun a month” law that we really need to get rid of. Then nothing until you get to the “child access prevention” (whatever they mean by that) and the “colleges/employers not forced to allow guns” section.

    A couple of places for improvement, but mostly low priority. And at least we’re working on getting the Constitutional Carry “demerit”, even if it will have to wait for next year.

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