Brady Campaign Dishonest, Stupid or Both...

The always-at-it Brady Campaign is at-it once more. Their latest screeching and lying is in order to prevent the government from blocking their legal agenda and to prevent residents of Washington D.C. from being able to defend themselves. Fortunately they are kind enough to send me email alerts whenever they feel like plying their wares. With regard to the latter they write

In an attempt to curry favor and win NRA support for her planned run for Governor of Texas, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison unveiled S. 1082, a bill to repeal Washington D.C. gun crime laws.

This makes absolutely no sense. Dallas, the Senator's hometown, has the highest crime rate among the nation's largest cities for the seventh consecutive year and some of the most liberal gun laws. If she wants to do something about crime she should look in her own state and support efforts to keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

Let's have a look at those crime stats, shall we? FBI data on crime in major metropolitan areas can be found here. Crime rates for major cities are found by picking their respective states and soforth. From the data, I compiled these results per 100,000 population:

*denotes gun-control utopia
 
 

Boston*
Chicago*
Dallas
New York*
Wash. DC*
Seattle
 
Murder
10.0
22.3
16.3
7.3
46.2
4.5
 
Rape
61.5
N/A
54.7
21.1
45.9
26.2
 
Robbery
422.2
639.0
670.1
340.4
653.4
271.1
 
Agv. Assault
665.7
856.6
677.1
429.2
850.1
403.1

So in absence of the Brady Campaign providing me with another source of data, I don't see how Dallas has the highest crime rate among the major cities of the U.S. Dallas is easily beat in each category above by at least one gun-control utopia. Dallas has significantly lower rates of murder and aggravated assault than both Chicago and Washington, D.C., cities which essentially ban handguns.

My current home of Seattle kicks all their butts in every crime category and we have even more liberal gun laws than Dallas. Note how Seattle also crushes Boston, a city of the same population and with much more restrictive gun laws. And yet I won't claim that it's the gun laws that lead to the discrepancy, although it could be, but I can't prove it.

Sarah Brady, your so-called "common sense" does not trump cause and effect. Cause and effect, Sarah, your bogus inference that liberal gun laws lead to more crime fails any remedial test of causality.