No correlation between gun control laws and violent crime rates

The ostensible purpose of gun control laws is to prevent violent crimes such as murder and manslaughter. Therefore, looking at violent crime data, we’d expect to see a correlation between the strength of a state’s gun control laws and that state’s amount of violent crime. To test this, I used violent crime data for each state from the FBI for the year 2007 divided by Census Bureau figures on each state’s population to get that state’s violent crime per capita, while using gun law scores from the Brady Campaign’s annual report. I had to leave off the District of Columbia, known for draconian gun laws and sky-high crime rates, due to the lack of a corresponding Brady score. But enough talk, here’s the data:

Yep, there’s basically no correlation between gun control laws and violent crime. The top five most violent states per capita, as well as seven of of the top ten most violent states, have lax gun laws. However, the five least violent states have weak laws as well, with eight of the bottom ten states placing poorly on the Brady Campaign’s scorecard.

Strict gun control states are similarly scattered all over the place. California, number one on the Brady scorecard, is number 13 for violent crime, and other states with strong gun laws such as Delaware, Maryland, Michigan, and Illinois are at numbers 6, 9, 10, and 11 for violent crime, respectively. At the same time,  several other states with strong gun laws such as Hawaii, Connecticut, and Rhode Island are quite low on violent crime, clocking in at numbers 39, 41, and 45, respectively.

We can safely see from this data that the power of state coercion isn’t going to stop people who want to shoot each other from doing so. The next time you get into an argument with a gun-fearing SWPL, you’ll have the facts on your side.

Some other observations:

New York, which is number 6 on the scorecard, is the 24th most violent state, while trigger-happy Vermont, tied at 27, is the 49th most violent. Seceding was probably the smartest thing those mountain-dwelling lefties ever did.

I noted that the least violent states on the table are known for being, to put it subtly, white-bread. This observation probably won’t shock any denizens of the Steveosphere, but it’s still verboten to mention these things in public society. In order to prove my assertion, though, I’ll need another fancy table and another cool graph, so interested readers will have to wait.