What US state has the strictest gun laws, and what are they? Which US state has the most lenient gun laws and what are they?

Scott Dismukes May 30, 2020
Student of the effectiveness and intent of gun control laws

California, Illinois, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Jersey are pretty tough with their gun laws.

Arizona, Vermont, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma and all the 16 states that permit Constitutional Carry are pretty lenient.

Every state mentioned has variations in their laws…. Some are more lenient towards hunting rifles but not towards pistols and so on.

When it comes to gun violence, however, the word “state” isn't nearly granular enough. It’s way too broad. Even “city” is too broad.

These are the top 10 cities for murder by rate in the country for cities over 100K population (2017 data): List of United States cities by crime rate - Wikipedia



Just look at the rate of murders per 100K people - 66 in St Louis, and down to 24 in Chicago. In Dallas and Houston it’s down to 12 and 11.5 respectively. In the nearby Dallas suburb of Plano it’s 5. In El Paso it’s under 3.

Chicago has the highest actual murder count in the country. Chicago Crime, Murder & Mayhem | Illustrating Chicago Values | HeyJackass!



If it has the highest count in the country, why isn’t it higher on the list? The answer is population. They have 2.7 million mostly law abiding people, and a few really bad neighborhoods where the vast bulk of the murders occur. Those 2.7 million good people dilute the effects of the few bad neighborhoods. You;ll notice St Louis is #1 and has only 310K people - not much population to dilute the murders.

By State, the one with the toughest gun laws is California. Yet they have Stockton, Oakland, San Bernardino, Bakersfield and Fresno in the top 50 of the highest murder-rate cities. Texas with perhaps the 8th loosest gun laws in the country hits the list with Houston at 38th, and Dallas at 35th for murder rate.

So with lax laws Texas only places 2 cities in the worst 50, California with tough laws places 5. Texas has about 2/3 the population of California, so it’s not just a population difference at work.

What about the flip side, then - where are the safest cities related to murder rates?

Texas has Fort Worth at #57 (the cutoff for “safer” is 50), San Antonio at 55, Plano at 69, Arlington at 71, Laredo at 76, then Irving, Austin, and El Paso. 8 of the lowest murder rate cities.

California has Sacramento at 59, LA at 63, San Francisco at 66, Sana Ana at 67, Riverside, San Jose, Anaheim, Fremont, Chula Vista, and Irvine. 10 cities.

Arizona with the #1 loosest gun laws has 2 in the top 50 for murder rate, but the first doesn’t appear until #44, then there is #50. On the “safe side” Arizona places 5 in the safer 50, 3 in the top 10 safest.

Notice how interspersed they all are - it’s like the laws of the state actually are having no effect on how many murders are committed. It would appear you just shuffled the cards randomly. There is no correlation between state laws and murder rates.

So clearly it’s not gun laws that makes the difference. If they did, then California and Illinois should be the safest places in the country. Maryland and New Jersey should be right up there with them. But Maryland has Baltimore (#2). New Jersey has Newark (#9).

What DOES drive up murder counts is where they are actually happening - down to the neighborhoods. Chicago has about 15 small neighborhoods that are responsible for the bulk of their crime and murders.



The common features are ethnicity, poverty, abundance of gangs and illegal drugs, and of course illegally obtained guns.

Any cop will tell you where the rough parts of town are. They can likely tell you by name the 5–10 guys, if they could keep them off the streets, would cut the crime rate of the city in half.

Gun laws don’t stop criminals from getting guns. Heavy penalties for drug trafficking don’t stop the same criminals from getting thousands of Fentanyl or opioid pills or kilos of heroin. They have heroin, opioids, fentanyl, guns, and are trying to buy or sell them to/from other gangs. Are we seriously surprised gunshots ring out?

These are people whose entire culture, lifestyle and moral ethic is to DISOBEY THE LAW. So why does it make a bit of difference how many or how tough the laws are that they break?

The picture is very clear. Gun laws have no effect on those whose entire existence is centered around disobeying laws.