Guns & Ammo magazine opens its rankings on best and worst states for gun rights in 2013 with a snarky quip that makes a blunt point: Apparently, the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to the District of Columbia, since it’s not a state.
The capital city scored zero for all categories of carrying freedoms.
Guns & Ammo rated five areas for its 2013 report: open-carry and concealed-weapons laws, modern sporting rifle laws, machine-gun and short-barrel-rifle laws, stand-your-ground and similar defense laws, and the general political and cultural atmosphere for gun rights.
The ratings scale went from zero to 10. The states with the greatest Second Amendment freedoms scored 10, with the potential for a perfect score of 50. No state scored 50, the magazine found. But two — Arizona and Vermont — came close, with 49 points. Other top Second Amendment states were, in order, Alaska, Utah, Kentucky, Wyoming, Alabama, Kansas, Missouri and New Hampshire. All touted 47 or more points.
Worst offenders — the District of Columbia and New York, with a score of seven. That’s followed by New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, Hawaii, Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Rhode Island and Delaware, with points ranging from seven to 34, the magazine finds.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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