California continues to blaze legislative trails in saving lives, rising to a high of 81 points on the 2011 Brady State Scorecard rankings of state gun laws. California’s universal background check system, retention of purchase records, limiting handgun purchases to one a month, and an assault clip ban are just some of the laws that provide a road map to preventing gun violence.

Opposite California are Arizona, Alaska, and Utah with 0 points each. In fact, a Brady Campaign analysis of crime gun trace data finds that the 31 states with few or no gun laws export 9 times the crime guns as the six states with the strongest gun laws. (On right)

For the 5^th year in a row, the Brady Campaign has issued a 100-point scorecard ranking all 50 states on the basis of laws that can prevent gun violence, such as background checks on all gun sales, permit-to-purchase requirements, limiting handgun purchases to one a month, and retention of sales records. The scorecard ranks states for laws that were in enacted by the end of 2011.

» Click here to read the national press release
» Click here to download state rankings
» Click here to download full state scorecard
» Click here for descriptions of all the scoring criteon

Legal Community Against Violence's publication, "Regulating Guns in America" and the LCAV.org website served as the primary sources for this analysis.

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The Brady Campaign along with its Million Mom March and Brady Chapters, law enforcement, state and national allies advocate for strong state gun legislation to keep dangerous weapons out of the hands of dangerous people.

We advise and counsel advocates, state legislators and statewide elected officials on effective strategies to pass strong gun legislation and defeat attempts to weaken state gun laws.

We offer expert advice on legislative strategy and share best practices from other states. We produce and disseminate our annual Brady State Scorecard that rates each state on the strength of its gun laws. Please click on the state map above to find out your state laws.

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