2010 the most unsafe states to live in.

[safeinOhio]

list of most dangerous

No. 1: NEVADA
Assault: 8
Burglary: 12
Murder: 13
Motor Vehicle Theft: 1
Rape: 8
Robbery: 1

No. 2: NEW MEXICO
Assault: 5
Burglary: 3
Murder: 6
Motor Vehicle Theft: 7
Rape: 2
Robbery: 23


No. 3: LOUISIANA
Assault: 4
Burglary: 9
Murder: 1
Motor Vehicle Theft: 14
Rape: 33
Robbery: 18

No. 4: SOUTH CAROLINA
Assault: 1
Burglary: 8
Murder: 7
Motor Vehicle Theft: 9
Rape: 13
Robbery: 16

No. 5: TENNESSEE
Assault: 2
Burglary: 5
Murder: 8
Motor Vehicle Theft: 15
Rape: 19
Robbery: 8

No. 6: FLORIDA
Assault: 6
Burglary: 7
Murder: 12
Motor Vehicle Theft: 13
Rape: 23
Robbery: 4

No. 7: DELAWARE
Assault: 7
Burglary: 18
Murder: 10
Motor Vehicle Theft: 19
Rape: 9
Robbery: 3

No. 8: MARYLAND
Assault: 10
Burglary: 23
Murder: 2
Motor Vehicle Theft: 4
Rape: 45
Robbery: 2

No. 9: ARIZONA
Assault: 21
Burglary: 15
Murder: 13
Motor Vehicle Theft: 2
Rape: 39
Robbery: 15

No. 10: ARKANSAS
Assault: 11
Burglary: 2
Murder: 18
Motor Vehicle Theft: 32
Rape: 4
Robbery: 28

No. 11: ALABAMA
Assault: 22
Burglary: 4
Murder: 5
Motor Vehicle Theft: 21
Rape: 16
Robbery: 11

No. 12: GEORGIA
Assault: 20
Burglary: 6
Murder: 8
Motor Vehicle Theft: 6
Rape: 42
Robbery: 7


No. 13: OKLAHOMA
Assault: 9
Burglary: 10
Murder: 16
Motor Vehicle Theft: 18
Rape: 10
Robbery: 26

No. 14: ALASKA
Assault: 3
Burglary: 39
Murder: 28
Motor Vehicle Theft: 29
Rape: 1
Robbery: 30


List does not seem to relate to liberal or restrictive gun law.

http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/04/05/most-dangerous-states-crime-rankings-for-2010/

[NewEngland4Obama]

1. Link?

[safeinOhio]

2. edited to ad link. n/t

[thunder rising]

3. I think rape is underrated. It's the worse form of assault, but very low on the list.

[notesdev]

8. the list is alphabetized... it starts with "r"... so yeah nt

[safeinOhio]

12. Look again.

Or what alphabet are you using?

[benEzra]

4. Yup. You'll also find very free and very restrictive states on the "safe" end as well.

Vermont and New Hampshire are consistently ranked among the safest states in the nation, and Maryland is consistently ranked as one of the most dangerous, even though Vermont and NH are among the least restrictive states in the nation and Maryland is among the most restrictive. Within the United States, there is almost no correlation between the rate of lawful gun ownership and violent crime.

[safeinOhio]

6. Like wise, Alaska one the

least restrictive states is always high on murders, while Wisconsin with the most restrictive is low.

[benEzra]

9. Re: Wisconsin, the Brady Campaign ranks WI just slightly stricter than Nevada

and less strict than Pennsylvania, Delaware, Michigan, North Carolina, Oregon, Virginia, Washington, Colorado, Iowa, Alabama, Ohio, and Maine, although the criteria the Brady Campaign used are somewhat arbitrary.

http://www.bradycampaign.org/stategunlaws/scorecard/WI
http://www.bradycampaign.org/xshare/pdf/scorecard/2008/2008_scorecard_rankings.pdf

Other than their no-carry-licensure policy, WI gun laws actually seem to be fairly reasonable by national standards (certainly more so than my own state of NC), and there are a couple of court cases working their way through the WI court system that may lead WI to adopt some sort of standardized carry licensure in the near future, I suspect.

[RSillsbee]

5. List does not seem to relate to liberal or restrictive gun law.

So if this has no bearing on gun policy why is it here in the Gun forum?

[safeinOhio]

7. Same reason this one is

El Paso, Texas where there are more guns than people. Pop:600,000. 10 months into 2010, 2 murders

[RSillsbee]

16. So, are you promoting more restrictive gun laws

or acknowledging that since gun laws don't affect criminals, they tend to have little actual bearing on crime?

[lawodevolution]

22. The stats on el paso are important because it shows that

Gun availability does not bring about high rates of violent crime. Pro gun control people want you to think that when guns are available, violence WILL happen, but that is obviously wrong. It is not the availability of guns in California or Alaska that causes high rates of violent crime.

El Paso has one of the lowest murder rates in the world for 2010 in a city larger than 250,000 and we don't even have gun registration, or limits on magazines, wait times or gun purchase limits and there are very few places on earth with more civilian owned guns per capita. My argument is that we need to force our politicians to focus on the underlying cause of violence and not try to mask the symptom with gun control.

[jazzhound]

10. Interesting that in a list of 15 states you left out the final

state ----- California.

No. 15: CALIFORNIA
Assault: 18
Burglary: 25
Murder: 16
Motor Vehicle Theft: 3
Rape: 41
Robbery: 5

[safeinOhio]

11. Interesting that California,

with it's very tuff gun laws is 15th most dangerous, while Alaska, one of the most, if not the most least restrictive is 14th most dangerous. Alaska also has about the highest murder rate on the list.

[X_Digger]

19. Alaska is actually below average..

Here are the raw murder and non-negligent homicide rates, sorted..

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 24.0
PUERTO RICO 22.5
LOUISIANA 11.8
NEW MEXICO 8.7
MARYLAND 7.7
TENNESSEE 7.3
ALABAMA 6.9
MISSOURI 6.4
MISSISSIPPI 6.4

ALASKA 3.1

From: http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_05.html

[jazzhound]

24. Nice sidestep. (well ----- not really)

Interesting that California, with it's very tuff gun laws is 15th most dangerous...........

Precisely why the conspicuous omission of California from your list is so curious. Blue state........more restrictive gun laws........one of the more dangerous states. Doesn't exactly conform to the pro-"control" narrative now, does it?

How exactly did you manage to "overlook" the fact that California was on the list?

[safeinOhio]

25. I'll admit I also left out

numbers 16 thru 50. Don't know how I overlooked those too.

[jazzhound]

26. More of your weak tea.

Dangerous states 1 -- 15 appear on the page of your link. You had to TRY to omit California from the list.

But keep on dancing in the vain hope that someone will buy your story.

[Euromutt]

13. I'm not sure I quite like the methodology, though I admit I don't how to improve it

According to CQ Press, the six categories are compared to the national reported crime rates and then indexed (with each of the crimes carrying equal weight) to create a summary score and ranking.

Emphasis in bold mine.

You can't realistically give equal weight to these categories. Having your car stolen just isn't on a par with having your home broken into, which in turn isn't on a par with being raped, which in turn isn't on a par with being murdered. I understand why you can't do better, since trying to assign different weights to different crimes is necessarily going to be subjective, and therefore not very helpful to the reader who may assign different weights. But then again, neither is arbitrarily assigning them equal weight.

As a result, we can attribute Arizona and California's inclusion into the 15 Worst to a large extent to the motor vehicle theft rankings (Arizona being 2nd worst, and California 3rd). But--based on crimes rankings alone--would you rather live in Arizona (in the top ten only for MV theft) or Alabama (in the top ten for burglary and murder)? Supposedly, Arizona is more unsafe, but I'd rather have my car stolen than my house broken into, let alone be murdered.

The problem, ultimately, with this summary of this survey is that it attempts to present as statistically significant the results of a comparison that sets a goal that really cannot produce a decent result on the basis of comparative statistics. The most reasonable response to this listing is "yeah, and?"

[PavePusher]

14. The other problem is linking auto theft to "safety".

The vast majority of auto thefts do not immediately endanger the owner.

[safeinOhio]

15. I'd like to see it

for just murder and armed robberies, for our interest in gun violence. Perhaps removing suicide from murder. Might also add armed rape or attempted armed rape.

There would be many factors to regional gun violence. You'd think less restrictions would be tied to less violence looking at Vermont. Then, the opposite if you look at Alaska. Well written laws, good courts and enforcement may trump gun laws in the long run. For my personal safety, I'd just like to less guns in the hands of criminals with protections for law abiding citizens to own and carry handguns. Guns do not commit crimes, criminals do. As a gun owner, I have no problem with purchase permits. I have lived in a state that required them and hand no problem buying or owning a handgun in that state. Shall issue laws have worked well. It looks like unrestricted carry laws work well in Vermont and not so well in Alaska.

[X_Digger]

20. The FBI's tables have 'violent crime' which is a better measure..

Here are the top fifteen, sorted by violent crime rate-

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA1 1,345.9
NEVADA 702.2
SOUTH CAROLINA 670.8
TENNESSEE 667.7
DELAWARE 636.6
ALASKA 633.0
LOUISIANA 620.0
NEW MEXICO 619.0
FLORIDA 612.5
MARYLAND 589.9
ARKANSAS 517.7
OKLAHOMA 501.1
ILLINOIS 497.2
MICHIGAN4 497.0

[cleanhippie]

17. You have proven the point that it made here on a daily basis...

That more guns (lax laws) or less guns (strict laws) have really no affect on crimes rates. This proves that GUNS are really not the problem, its....wait for it.....PEOPLE!!!!! People are the problem......


Go figure.

[X_Digger]

18. I question their numbers..

First, they leave out DC- which tops the murder, motor vehicle theft, violent crime, aggravated assault, and robbery categories by rate. Yeah, I know it's not a state, but it's part of the US.

Second, I can't make their math add up.

If you simply add the rates per 100,000 population together to get a 'score'- (data on rates from http://www2.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2009/data/table_05.html )- the list is quite different. And I agree with the above posters who note that not weighting different categories of crime makes this list pretty useless.

Heck, if you just add up the rankings, with lower being worse, it still doesn't come out the same.

eta: found their methodology, but it's still shaky, at best- http://os.cqpress.com/rankings/2010/Crime_State_Rankings_2010_Methodology.pdf

[X_Digger]

21. more on the methodology..

Because they're calculating the reported rate - national rate to determine a score for each category of crime, then adding them together to get a total score..

A state with perfectly average amount of crime would have a score of 0, making it the bottom of the list. ("safest")

I still haven't figured out what they do with states whose rates of crimes are lower than the average (whether they carry over the negative percentage.)

[Kennah]

23. The concepts of "unsafe" and "dangerous" are very nebulous terms

Top Ten for Murder

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA - 24
PUERTO RICO - 22.5
LOUISIANA - 11.8
NEW MEXICO - 8.7
MARYLAND - 7.7
TENNESSEE - 7.3
ALABAMA - 6.9
MISSOURI - 6.4
MISSISSIPPI - 6.4
SOUTH CAROLINA - 6.3

Top Ten for Rape

ALASKA - 73.3
SOUTH DAKOTA - 54.8
NEW MEXICO - 52.6
ARKANSAS - 47.3
MICHIGAN - 45.3
COLORADO - 44.6
OKLAHOMA - 41.5
KANSAS - 38.9
NEVADA - 38.6
DELAWARE - 38.2

Top Ten for Robbery

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA - 731.9
NEVADA - 227.8
MARYLAND - 210.7
DELAWARE - 188.8
ILLINOIS - 177.6
CALIFORNIA - 173.4
FLORIDA - 166.7
OHIO - 154.1
PUERTO RICO - 153.6
TEXAS - 153.5

Top Ten for Aggravated Assault

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA - 565
SOUTH CAROLINA - 503.4
TENNESSEE - 475.5
NEW MEXICO - 464.7
ALASKA - 462.7
LOUISIANA - 442
NEVADA - 429.8
FLORIDA - 410.6
DELAWARE - 405
ARKANSAS - 374.8

I find this one incredibly misleading, but I included it nevertheless.

Top Ten for Violent Crime

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA - 1345.9 (#1 in murder, #40 in rape, #1 in robbery, #1 in agg. Assault)
NEVADA - 702.2 (#15 in murder, #9 in rape, #2 in robbery, #7 in agg. Assault)
SOUTH CAROLINA - 670.8 (#10 in murder, #13 in rape, #19 in robbery, #2 in agg. Assault)
TENNESSEE - 667.7 (#6 in murder, #25 in rape, #11 in robbery, #3 in agg. Assault)
DELAWARE - 636.6 (#24 in murder, #10 in rape, #4 in robbery, #9 in agg. Assault)
ALASKA - 633 (#33 in murder, #1 in rape, #28 in robbery, #5 in agg. Assault)
LOUISIANA - 620 (#3 in murder, #27 in rape, #15 in robbery, #6 in agg. Assault)
NEW MEXICO - 619 (#4 in murder, #3 in rape, #29 in robbery, #4 in agg. Assault)
FLORIDA - 612.5 (#17 in murder, #32 in rape, #7 in robbery, #8 in agg. Assault)
MARYLAND - 589.9 (#5 in murder, #45 in rape, #3 in robbery, #12 in agg. Assault)

[SteveM]

27. I think most people seem to agree that the # of guns doesn't mean much...

As you concede down-thread when comparing Vermont and Alaska. But who is making the argument that, to put it simply, "more guns = less crime?" Sure, there are some, but it doesn't mean that most folks in this thread make that contention. I just don't see any measure which would materially restrict the criminal from obtaining firearms, even draconian gun prohibition laws. Rather, we should be addressing the problem of how to restrict the violent criminal, period. Just recently, two punks, miffed at being kicked off the performance bill of a local Austin, Texas, nightclub (they were an hour late), stood in Red River Street and emptied their guns into the nightclub, hitting several patrons. Their sentences? 20 years in prison.

Shoulda been 40 or more. Those punks will be out in perhaps 10 years, complete with juice and street cred -- with (again) illegally obtained guns.