The Brady group gives each state a points grade based on the gun control laws of said state. This PDF link shows the most recent results. Some examples include California with 81 points, Hawaii with 50, Michigan with 25, Utah with 0 and Arizona with 0. The more gun control (and the more onerous it is) the higher the score you get. The theory is that those states with higher points are safer with regards to firearm related violent crime.
What happens when you compare them to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR)?
Right to Keep and Bear Arms is a DKos group of second amendment supporters who have progressive and liberal values. We don't think that being a liberal means one has to be anti-gun. Some of us are extreme in our second amendment views (no licensing, no restrictions on small arms) and some of us are more moderate (licensing, restrictions on small arms.) Moderate or extreme or somewhere in between, we hold one common belief: more gun control equals lost elections. We don't want a repeat of 1994. We are an inclusive group: if you see the Second Amendment as safeguarding our right to keep and bear arms individually, then come join us in our conversation. If you are against the right to keep and bear arms, come join our conversation. We look forward to seeing you, as long as you engage in a civil discussion.
link
That is quite a long article and I can only do so many paragraphs for fair use. I'm going to leave out the hard core math and background (which is included at the link above) and concentrate on the results. For those of you who want to see the PDF for data and calculated parameters, here ya go.
Restrictive firearms laws (as measured by a jurisdiction’s Brady Score) appear to be associated with higher overall violent crime rates (rape excluded), not lower. The linkage is strong (just outside 5% statistical significance) for overall violent crime. Less significant linkage was observed for violent crime (rape excluded) firearm fraction and firearm violent crime (rape excluded) rate.
The author explains why he excluded rape earlier in the article.
Restrictive firearms laws appear to be associated with higher rates of murder and non-negligent murder and a higher percentage of murders committed using firearms. The linkage is weak for both overall murder rate and firearm murder fraction. There is essentially no observable linkage between firearm murder rate and restrictive firearms laws.
This goes against today's Brady-style common wisdom. What else was found?
Essentially no linkage was found between overall aggravated assault rate and restrictive firearms laws. There does appear to be a link between restrictive firearms laws and a lower rate of aggravated assaults committed using firearms and a lower fraction of firearms usage during aggravated assaults. However, this is suggestive of restrictive firearms laws causing a substitution of weapons vice an overall depression on a jurisdiction’s rate of aggravated assault.
From the looks of things, the more guns = more crime (or perhaps more appropriately put more gun control = less crime) meme doesn't play out very well when looked at on a state by state basis.
What do you think?