'Sensible Gun Laws' not saving lives

Friday night, a 15-year-old mini-thug in Baltimore, Maryland, shot and murdered his parents and two younger brothers.

A 15-year-old boy fatally shot his parents and two younger brothers as they slept, then spent more than 12 hours with friends before returning home and calling 911 to report that his father was dead, police said Sunday.

On Saturday, five women were shot and murdered in a Chicago-area shopping mall, in what police believe was a robbery attempt.

A gunman fatally shot five women in a robbery at a store in a suburban Chicago strip mall before fleeing Saturday, prompting police to sweep through neighboring shops as terrified customers watched. The victims, including at least one employee, were killed at a Lane Bryant clothing store at the Brookside Marketplace, police Chief Mike O'Connell said.

The citizen disarmament advocates will undoubtedly put on their blood-dancing shoes and point to these atrocities as "justification" to disarm Americans. What they probably will not care to talk about is the fact that on the Brady Bunch's newly released "score cards," ranking the states on the degree to which citizens are disarmed, Illinois scored quite "well," and Maryland scored even "better."

Illinois, for example, was ranked ninth among the fifty states (meaning Illinois' gun laws are the ninth most restrictive in the country). That would put IL in the 82nd percentile. One area in which Illinois scored particularly "well" is concealed carry legislation:

States can earn up to 10 points by making it harder to carry “Guns In Public Places” (except for trained law enforcement and security) and by allowing localities to “Preserve Local Control” over municipal gun laws. This includes keeping guns out of workplaces and college campuses, not forcing law enforcement to issue concealed handgun permits on demand, not permitting
“shoot first” expansions in self-defense laws, and not preventing municipalities from passing their own gun laws. Illinois scored all 10 points in this category.

The reason, of course, that "Illinois scored all 10 points in this category" (that emphasis was the Brady Bunch's, by the way) is that not only does Illinois "not forc[e] law enforcement to issue concealed handgun permits on demand," Illinois bans outright the carrying, either openly or concealed, of firearms in public. In other words, Illinois achieves a high state-mandated defenselessness score. I certainly hope the families of the victims appreciate that.

Maryland, by the way, makes it to the Bradys' top three in restrictive gun laws, putting it in the 94th percentile.

Kentucky and Oklahoma, tied for "last" in the Brady Bunch ranking, are sounding better, and safer, all the time.