Monday, February 22, 2010

Louisiana's Ranking

Nola.com reports on the Brady ranking for Louisiana.

The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence issued its state rankings last week and identified Louisiana as among the states with the weakest gun laws in the nation.

Louisiana tied for second to last place in America, along with Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, Kentucky and Oklahoma -- earning just two points out of total of 100. Only Utah, with zero points, fared worse on the Brady index.

"Louisiana's elected leaders have done nothing in the past year to stop the flow of illegal guns within the state, failing to do common-sense things like closing the loophole that allows dangerous people to buy guns at gun shows without background checks," said Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Campaign, which advocates for legislation to close the gun show loophole at the national level.

But Louisiana earned a couple of points in the Brady ranking for rejecting legislation that would have forced colleges and universities to allow concealed and loaded guns on campus.

What's your opinion? Why would a state with such weak gun laws not also allow guns on campuses? Is it possible that the issue of guns on campuses is not as straightforward as the gun crowd says?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

5 comments:

  1. "Why would a state with such weak gun laws not also allow guns on campuses? Is it possible that the issue of guns on campuses is not as straightforward as the gun crowd says?"

    It's harder to repeal gun control legislation in a pro-gun state than it is in an anti-gun state.

    When it comes to gun legislation, it's easier to fill hearing chambers in a place like Chicago than it is in New Orleans.

    When people have very little red tape in their way when it comes to buying, owning, and carrying guns, they just don't get that interested in fighting for their rights until it comes to national level threats.

    On the other had, in a place like Chicago where you have to fight just to keep a gun in your home for self-defense, you can't afford to not be interested in fighting for your rights.

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  2. Why would a state with such weak gun laws not also allow guns on campuses? Is it possible that the issue of guns on campuses is not as straightforward as the gun crowd says?

    The problem is that you are using the Brady's scoring system to define weak gun laws. States allowing concealed carry score lower in the Brady ranking and it would thus be classified as a weak gun law. This is laughable considering that as a group, concealed carry holders are among the most law abiding segments. In my opinion this is why the Brady Campaign's arguments hold no merit.

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  3. Hmmm, let's see. Louisiana gets a failing grade. As did Ohio. As did 46 other states. That's right. Even states like Illinois, Massachusetts and Bloomberg paradise New York, states with with some of the strictest gun control in the country, all got F's under Brady. The only 2 states that did not fail, California and New Jersey, received C's.

    So the Brady scale is basically set up to ban all guns or you fail.

    This makes this kind of a non-story. You could right the same article about 48 of the 50 states.

    Yawn.

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  4. Also, FWM, did you notice that Utah gets a zero according to Brady (in this release), yet if you go look up Utah on the map (on their website) they get a four, not a zero.

    So, which is it? A four, or a zero. This is the one of the biggest problems I have with Brady. They can't get their OWN numbers straight, let alone real data from places like the CDC.

    I remember responding in a letter to the editor one time where a guy went on and on about the number of deaths due to guns, and he provided the CDC numbers for a particular year. He had used the wrong number multiple times throughout his opinion piece. I looked up the actual information, and realized he had used the wrong number (probably intentionally, because the wrong number was higher). My letter correcting his numbers was never printed, of course. Can't have the truth enter into it, can we?

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  5. So the Brady scale is basically set up to ban all guns or you fail.

    Well yeah, that's the Brady end game. Ban guns = success. Anything short of that = "lax gun laws"

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