Guns & Ammo magazine's ranking of the best states for gun owners

gutshot II · Oct 8, 2017

I got my latest issue of Guns & Ammo on Friday. There is an article ranking all the states laws and rating their friendliness to gun possession. Ky is ranked #14. Last year we were ranked #11. The following states outrank us now:
AZ (scored 50 out of 50, the only state that did), AK, KS, OK, MT, UT, and WV. The criteria for the rankings were categories, Right to carry(shall issue vs. may issue vs. constitutional carry. We took a hit here, 8 out of 10), Black Rifle restrictions(10 out of 10), NFA restrictions(10 out of 10), Castle doctrine(10 out of 10), Miscellaneous( general gun friendliness, preemption, reciprocity, gun culture etc. 9 out of 10 for KY).

KY laws haven't gotten any worse, it just that so many other states are passing better, less restrictive gun laws and we aren't. The lack of a constitutional carry law was a big hit, but some other things hurt us, too. All of the states above us have strong airport laws, as well as college campus carry and some of them, K-12 school carry The states that passed us are MO, ND, FL & ND. ND moved from 15 to 7. If we keep this up, we will soon be ranked with Delaware, Rhode Island and Minnesota, unless they pass us up, too.

BB62 · Oct 9, 2017

Linky?

gutshot II · Oct 9, 2017

BB62 said:
Linky?

Linky? It is a hard copy magazine that is delivered to my USPS mail box, located by the side of the road, in front of my house. You remember those don't you? There may be a Gun & Ammo website, but I don't know about free access to the articles. Seems like a good way to lose all of your subscribers, to me. Try going to G-O-O-G-L-E.com and type in G-U-N-S-&-A-M-M-O into the search box at the top of the page, then hit "enter". Then wait to see what happens. Good luck.

Ohio was # 29, if that is what you are interested in. You got a big hit for your weak "castle doctrine".

color of law · Oct 9, 2017

gutshot II said:
........

Ohio was # 29, if that is what you are interested in. You got a big hit for your weak "castle doctrine".

And that really stinks.

1911LVR · Oct 9, 2017

gutshot II said:
AZ (scored 50 out of 50, the only state that did)

So........the higher the better?

gutshot II · Oct 10, 2017

color of law said:
And that really stinks.

What stinks? The fact that your "castle doctrine" is weak or that you are ranked #29? Or both?

color of law · Oct 10, 2017

gutshot II said:
What stinks? The fact that your "castle doctrine" is weak or that you are ranked #29? Or both?

Castle doctrine. For the ranking I can't comment. Is the first position in the ranking the best or worst position?

gutshot II · Oct 10, 2017

color of law said:
Castle doctrine. For the ranking I can't comment. Is the first position in the ranking the best or worst position?

#1 is usually better than anything else, but that's a value judgement. As I plainly stated, AZ had a perfect score and was the only one that did so. They, of course, were #1 because of that singular perfect score. I thought that alone was explanation enough, but it appears that I placed too much decision making responsibility on some of our members. I didn't mention who was #50, but it was NY. I'll let you decide, from what you know about those two state, which is "best" and which "worst" (once again, a value judgement).

Usually, we aspire for #1 status and so it was with this ranking. I don't know of any football fans wearing a big foam finger saying "we're #47". "We're #1, we're #1" is a familiar chant at all sporting events that I have ever attended or watched and, I think, is what everybody is trying to attain. #50? Not so much. I always aim high. I am certain that soon, at least one of our members (Nightmare, perhaps), will be along to point out that 50 is "numerically higher" than 1 and threfore shoud be more valuable, but rankings, and normal human beings, don't see things that way.

1911LVR · Oct 10, 2017

I understand AZ scored 50 out of 50. In my mind that meant 50 was best, dwindling down to 1 (worst). Hence my confusion.

color of law · Oct 10, 2017

gutshot II said:
#1 is usually better than anything else, but that's a value judgement. As I plainly stated, AZ had a perfect score and was the only one that did so. They, of course, were #1 because of that singular perfect score. I thought that alone was explanation enough, but it appears that I placed too much decision making responsibility on some of our members. I didn't mention who was #50, but it was NY. I'll let you decide, from what you know about those two state, which is "best" and which "worst" (once again, a value judgement).

Usually, we aspire for #1 status and so it was with this ranking. I don't know of any football fans wearing a big foam finger saying "we're #47". "We're #1, we're #1" is a familiar chant at all sporting events that I have ever attended or watched and, I think, is what everybody is trying to attain. #50? Not so much. I always aim high. I am certain that soon, at least one of our members (Nightmare, perhaps), will be along to point out that 50 is "numerically higher" than 1 and threfore shoud be more valuable, but rankings, and normal human beings, don't see things that way.

The ladder of success starts with the first step. The highest step (step 50) is the pinnacle of success. And lets not forget, he who dies with the most toys wins.

Grapeshot · Oct 10, 2017

color of law said:
The ladder of success starts with the first step. The highest step (step 50) is the pinnacle of success. And lets not forget, he who dies with the most toys wins.

Then there must be a step 51, where the winner lives and the others become food for the flies.

color of law · Oct 10, 2017

Grapeshot said:
Then there must be a step 51, where the winner lives and the others become food for the flies.

FOOD FOR FLIES!!!!!! I must accumulate more toys.....

gutshot II · Oct 10, 2017

1911LVR said:
I understand AZ scored 50 out of 50. In my mind that meant 50 was best, dwindling down to 1 (worst). Hence my confusion.

You sir, are confusing apples and oranges. The 50 points was a raw score. There were 5 areas to score each state on(mentioned in my OP)and the scoring in each section was 0-10 (10 being the highest and best), so the highest possible raw score for each state was 50 (5X10). Once all the states had been scored by this method, the raw scores were ranked in numerical order. AZ was the only state to achieve a raw score of 50 (perfect) and thus became the top ranked state, #1 in the rankings(the purpose of the rankings was to determine the MOST GUN FRIENDLY state), so the most gun friendly state got the #1 position(not the #50 position{last place}). I hope this will clear up any confusion with numbers and rankings that is still present. I now see that having a possible raw score of 50 and having 50 states was too tough for many of our numerically challenged members to reconcile.

I see now that I made a terrible mistake in posting this as I did. You see, Washington D.C was actually include in the rankings and was ranked #51. I decided to leave that out, because I was positive that someone here (or more likely, several people) would feel compelled to point out that DC is not a state and should not be included in the rankings with the bona fide "states". In order to avoid that foolishness, I decided to just pretended that DC was not there. This introduced a high probability that our membership would not be able to handle the "double 50" uncertainty principle. I now realize that this was far too complex a mathmatical challenge to post here.

If anyone else has a problem with math and needs further, remedial instruction on scoring and rankings, I suggest you just go buy the damned magazine.

OC for ME · Oct 11, 2017

Given the data provided in the OP, a score of 47 seems pretty good to me. Missouri has permit-less CC, now, and lags far behind other states, in many specific categories, that scored lower including, KY. The 2015 version of the rankings are on line. http://www.gunsandammo.com/network-topics/culture-politics-network/best-states-for-gun-owners-2015/

RSMo 571.107 is the statute that lists places a permit does not grant access while CC.

... No concealed carry permit ... shall authorize any person to carry concealed firearms into: ...

http://www.moga.mo.gov/mostatutes/chapters/chapText571.html

571.107 has not been updated to reflect current RSMo 571.030.

Guns & Ammo magazine's ranking of the best states for gun owners

gutshot II

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gutshot II

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gutshot II

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OC for ME

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