It's good to be 'in the red'

With another threat to our Second Amendment rights now radiating from Florida, it's worth mentioning that the Brady Campaign to Disarm Law-Abiding Citizens (a.k.a. the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence) came out with its latest state scorecards last month.

Brady uses a laughably arbitrary scoring scheme and a 100-point scale to rank states based on firearms-related laws, awarding zero to four stars. The not-so-surprising result?

"California continues to blaze legislative trails in saving lives, rising to a high of 81 points on the 2011 Brady State Scorecard rankings of state gun laws. California's universal background check system, retention of purchase records, limiting handgun purchases to one a month, and an assault clip ban are just some of the laws that provide a road map to preventing gun violence."

The Golden State's relentless assault on the U.S. Constitution earned it four stars and a bright-green designation on Brady's map (above). Most of the three-star states are clustered in the Northeast -- New Jersey (72 points), Massachusetts (65), New York (62) and Connecticut (58) -- and get a light-green stain.

Florida (3), by the way, is among 31 states honored in red on Brady's map for scoring fewer than ten points and earning zero stars. And three states have my personal admiration for scoring zero points: Alaska, Arizona and Utah. Well done, People.

I'm pleased to say that The Great State of Ohio has made progress, by Brady's measure, since the last time the subject came up on KintlaLake Blog. With a score of seven points (down from 11), we're now a zero-star state.

No, we're not perfect yet, but it's good to be in the red.