States: Gun Laws and Crime across the United States

As stated in a previous blog post (Bad Pro-Gun arguments) gun stats allow for a lot of convenient cherry picking. In reality, the stats are bit more muddled and difficult to draw a conclusion from. While there is clear pattern of lower gun deaths in states with stricter gun laws, overall murder/non-negligent manslaughter rates, burglary, robbery, forcible rape and motor vehicle theft. For example, Louisiana is one of the states with the most lax gun restrictions and also leads in terms of murder/non-negligent manslaughter. Aside from this, there isn’t much of a discernible pattern. The states with the highest rates of forcible rape (South Dakota, Alaska and Colorado) have among the loosest gun restrictions (something to keep in mind given the fact that opponents of gun control often cite the availability of guns as effective deterrents of this crime). Nevertheless, there is no overall discernible patter as an in most cases, the states with the loosest gun restrictions (the lowest Brady Scoring) often have the best and worst rates. The scatter plots below use Brady Scoring as a measure of gun law strength and FBI/UCR crime stats.

Gun Laws vs Murder/Non-Negligent Manslaughter