Brady brief in McDonald v. Chicago

I just finished a quick reading of the Brady brief in McDonald v. Chicago. The short answer as to the question, “What are they up to?” is:

This Court should conclude that regulations of firearms are not subject to strict scrutiny, but instead are subject to a deferential, reasonableness standard of review.

They have apparently concluded McDonald et. al. will win and are trying to minimize the damage to their goals.

What I find most interesting is this:

The policy implications of such a ruling could be devastating, given the demonstrated success of reasonable state and federal gun laws in reducing the use of guns in crime and saving lives. Reasonable gun laws such as licensing for gun dealers and owners, registration, background checks, and safe storage laws have been associated with reduced risk of gun deaths and criminal access to guns.

Contrast that with this:

I am not arguing here that higher rates of gun ownership cause higher rates of crime, violent crime, or homicide. Such causation is difficult to show because so many other factors bear on the incidence of crime. For instance, simple cross-national comparisons of gun availability and crime do not control for the degree to which various countries impose legal restrictions on firearms. It also is difficult to sort out whether high levels of gun ownership lead to high crime rates or whether high crime rates lead to high levels of gun ownership.

Dennis A. Henigan
Vice President for Law and Policy at the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and Founder of its Legal Action Project.
Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths That Paralyze American Gun Policy, page 107.

On one hand the Brady Campaign claims the thousands of restrictions on gun ownership have “demonstrated success” but they also claim they don’t, or perhaps can’t, know if high gun ownership rates cause crime. And of course their “demonstrated success” stories are highly contested. Even the CDC says, “Evidence was insufficient to determine the effectiveness of any of these laws.”

As usual, it’s half truths that give them traction.

Update: Sebastian points out more half-truths that are far more substantive than my find.

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