Brady gun control group releases study documenting their irrelevance

By Ken Hanson, Esq.

On February 18, 2010, Handgun Control Inc. (now known as "The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence") released their annual "State Scorecards", grading states on how closely a state agrees with the gun ban movement's agenda.

"As the nation's largest, non-partisan, grassroots organization leading the fight to prevent gun violence, the Brady Campaign, with its dedicated network of Million Mom March Chapters, works to enact and enforce sensible gun laws, regulations and public policies."

The scores issued by Brady underscore several items:

1. "The nation's largest" gun control group must be pretty tiny, as measured by the complete lack of successful results in accomplishing their core mission.
2. "Sensible gun laws" is code for "to the extent you agree with Brady's interpretation that gun bans are sensible."
3. There is one thing Ohio gun owners and Brady agrees on: Gun laws need much improvement in the Buckeye State.

A quick review of the 50 state comparisons shows that Ohio ranked 22nd out of 50 states. Ohio earned this upper echelon ranking with a grade of 11 out of 100 possible points on Brady's scorecard.

Think about that a minute...Ohio is in the 56th percentile by agreeing with just 11% of Brady's agenda.

Stated another way, 28 states agree with 10% or less of Brady's agenda and 38 states agree with 20% or less of Brady's agenda. And with the upcoming (likely) Supreme Court decision in the McDonald case, some of those remaining 12 states are about to suffer a Constitutional kick in the pants that will drop their grade in Brady's eyes.

Imagine I am a sales person trying to sell you a product or service, and my sales pitch is "In a sample of 76% of our possible client base, we were successful an average of less than 10% of the time." Would your reaction be "Wow, you must be the nation's largest group selling a sensible product?"

Or would it be "Who are you again, and why are you here?"

Honestly, if my group's success rate was on that level, I'd be embarrassed to answer a question about the effectiveness of our group, let alone issue press releases documenting our complete irrelevance to our core mission.

So thank you, Jim, Sarah and Paul, for making our efforts to discredit you that much easier. Also, thank you for documenting that Ohio is still considered among the "good half" of states when it comes to gun control. It will make it easier to rally our volunteers and focus our legislators on the large quantity of work that lies ahead of us as we seek to improve life for Ohio's gun owners.

Ken Hanson is a gun rights attorney in Ohio, and a candidate for the National Rifle Association's (NRA) Board of Directors. He serves as the Legislative Chair for Buckeye Firearms Association. He is the attorney of record for Buckeye Firearms Foundation, which filed friend-of-the-court briefs in the Heller and McDonald Supreme Court cases. In 2008, the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) awarded him with its Defender of Justice Award. He is the author of The Ohio Guide to Firearm Laws, a certified firearms instructor and holds a Type 01 Federal Firearms License.

Additional Information:
Time Again For Brady Campaign To Discredit Itself