The "Idaho Paradox"
When permissive firearm regulations + high gun ownership = lower than average firearm violence.
Idaho, Bad. Washington, Good?
Everytown for Gun Safety describes Idaho has having the “worst gun laws in the country,” ranking it #50 among the US states for gun safety policies, while Giffords Law Center gives Idaho a failing (F) grade on its annual gun law scorecard. At the same time, Idaho earned the #11 spot on Ammo.com’s Gun Friendly State Ranking.
By comparison, Idaho’s neighbor Washington earned an A- from Giffords, is ranked as having the country’s 9th strongest gun laws, and was rated by Ammo.com as the 40th least gun-friendly state of the union.
Below, I summarize the features of firearm regulations in Idaho and Washington that earn these states their respective grades and rankings from various gun control and 2nd Amendment advocacy groups.1
Then, here’s a brief snapshot of some demographic and geographical differences and similarities between Idaho and Washington from recent Census data.
Firearm Violence: Idaho versus Washington
In Idaho 22 people were killed in non-defensive shootings in 2024, resulting in a state firearm homicide rate of 1.2 per 100,000. In Washington, there were 219 firearm homicides, which amounts to a rate of 2.8. From this, can we confidently predict that all residents of Idaho were less likely than all residents of Washington to be killed with a firearm in 2024? Absolutely not! Gun violence is concentrated in urbanized communities, so comparing state-level data obscures meaningful city-level variation at the locus of most firearm violence.
Here’s a chart reporting a decade’s worth of annual shootings in ten Idaho cities. In 2021, Boise, Pocatello, and Meridian each reported 4 firearm homicides. But Boise’s population (235,421) is almost twice the size of Meridian’s (134,801), and is roughly four times the size of Pocatello’s (58,064). Residents of these cities are all extremely unlikely to be victimized by firearm violence, but these city-level differences are more meaningful than state-level comparisons.
Community-level differences in firearm violence are more dramatic when comparing the most populous cities in Washington. Bellevue (pop. 151,574) averages around <1 firearm homicide annually, while Federal Way (pop: 97,701) averages about 5.
To compare what’s happening in cities within these states, we can use the firearm homicide rate per 100,000. I report this below for the largest cities in Idaho and Washington.
Notably, Idaho has few cities with over 100,000 residents and Washington’s largest city, Seattle, has over 750,000 residents compared to Boise, which has a little over 350,000. Below, we see that Seattle’s large size doesn’t correlate with it having the highest firearm homicide rate in the state. We also see that Idaho’s largest cities each have lower rates of firearm fatalities than each of Washington’s largest cities, with the exception of Bellevue, which is, “easily one of the wealthiest mid-sized cities in the nation.”
So, Idaho’s largest cities aren’t prone to more violence than peer cities in Washington. How do cities in both states compare to similarly-sized peers nationwide? Below, I report firearm fatalities (counts) for US cities with populations roughly equivalent to Boise, Tacoma, and Spokane.
Next, I compare smaller cities in Idaho and Washington.
Idaho’s small cities are in the middle of the pack compared to Washington’s. Importantly, both states are home to several smaller cities with “aspirational” firearm homicide rates of <4.0.
Next, I compare a sample of smaller cities in both states to nationwide peers.
Finally, I compare the smallest cities in Idaho and Washington to their nationwide peers. The included cities in Washington and Idaho aren’t systematically better or worse than their similarly-sized peers.
What are we hoping to accomplish?
What’s the point of identifying Idaho as having the “worst” gun laws in the country? Idahoans are at lower than average risk for intentional firearm violence victimization. What would prioritizing changing gun laws in Idaho accomplish? And if ranking Idaho the worst isn’t meant to spur us to act to change the state’s laws, what’s the point?
It doesn’t matter that the gun-loving people of Idaho practically never murder anyone with their firearms. What matters is that they are bad and wrong, while those of us in blue states with stricter gun laws are good and correct. For instance, I live in Illinois which is described by Everytown as having “among the strongest gun safety laws in the country and low levels of gun ownership.”
So yeah, let’s focus on demonizing Idaho, where fewer than two dozen people were murdered with a gun in the entirety of last year, instead of talking about the dozens of people murdered in my state of Illinois just this last weekend, including two 16-year olds in my community.
Ammo.com’s ranking methodology evaluates: 1) Current Gun Laws; 2) Current Purchase Laws; 3) Current CCW Guidelines; 4) Reciprocity between other states; 5) Sales Tax; 6) Current Governor’s voting history; 7) Stand Your Ground Laws