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[Zxcv]

exitus, thanks for your work on this. I will use your rating if ALA does not come through. So as a final number (eliminating the pluses for my spreadsheet) you recommend this?

WY=0  
ID = 7
MT = 9
ND = 9
AK = 10
NH = 10
ME = 12
SD = 12
VT = 12
DE = 15  

So, normalizing on a basis of 10=best, 0=worst, we'd have

WY=10  
ID = 5.3
MT = 4
ND = 4
AK = 3.3
NH = 3.3
ME = 2
SD = 2
VT = 2
DE = 0  

[Kelton]

BTW I just thought of a good one - child care regulations. However I was unable to find any kind of state ranking based on the regulations and licensure, probably reflecting that that is hard to quantify. If anyone has any ideas let me know. This site points to the various state regulations, but nothing I can put in a spread sheet:
http://nrc.uchsc.edu/states.html

Child Care Regulations themselves are too complex of an issue, what I would do is the following:

Look in the classified ads section of a major newspaper in each state and see what if any notice or warning the newspaper is required to post regarding advertisements for unlicensed childcare and see if that gives you any leads to follow as to how to examine this issue.

More importantly, perhaps is an examination of Child Protective Services caseload and see if the state rewards those bureaucrats for having a large number of children in the system, or if it is a strict law- based and means tested.  I would look into parental rights issues and see how far the state respects the right of parents to raise their children.

Is there already data on the FSP state research page dealing with interference from Child Protective Services caseloads?
_______________________________


I am already heavily involved in a couple of research projects, one of which I call "Respect for Motherhood in the States".  I already have about 9 full pages of notes on the subjects of breastfeeding- public breastfeeding and breastfeeding ages,  licensing of doulas and midwives, and pregnancy issues.
 
The breastfeeding issue has already spun-off a public decency- laws research project which I would invite someone else to look into.

The preganancy issue has already spun-off an examination of contraceptive regulations, which I would also invite someone else to research.

The contraceptive regulations issue spun-off an interesting look into liquor importation laws (long story) Montana is notably against people ordering liquor through the mail and I have a newspaper clipping on the struggles of one man who drove to Napa Valley, California to stock-up on wine since he was tired of having to comply with a permit just to order a bottle of wine over the Internet.

But I'm already waist-deep into the issue on motherhood and I don't know how long it will be before I have something worth sharing on that one as its complexity only increases as I try to gather meaningful data.  

[Zxcv]

More importantly, perhaps is an examination of Child Protective Services caseload and see if the state rewards those bureaucrats for having a large number of children in the system, or if it is a strict law- based and means tested.  I would look into parental rights issues and see how far the state respects the right of parents to raise their children.

Is there already data on the FSP state research page dealing with interference from Child Protective Services caseloads?

I don't see anything.

Ahh, exitus, you've reminded me of yet another important issue. That is the unwarranted adoption of children by state protection agencies (I call them "state kidnapping agencies") to harvest federal block grants for adoption. Here is a quote from one site I found:

Different federal funding streams financing child welfare, Title IV-E, and Title IV-B result in the perverse incentive to remove children from their homes rather than preserve families.

http://www.aphsa.org/reauthor/executive.asp

I understand things got so bad in Massachusetts that more than one enraged father killed a social worker there for kidnapping his children.  

What would be interesting would be to find how much money, per capita, our states harvest of this funding stream, to give us an idea how abusive these states are in this area. My cursory google search did not yield anything but I may look some more. If you have any pointers that would be great!

[JasonPSorens]

There is a partially quantitative Child Protective Services report:

http://www.freestateproject.org/cps.htm

[Zxcv]

Thanks, Jason, I have added 2 more rows to the big spreadsheet, "KidsKidnapped" and "KidsSold". I kinda extrapolated the two missing values, using the other states combined to find a proportion of sorts. Good enough I suppose, for a variable that has to have a small weight.

Joe, wanna take a shot at quantizing that insurance information?  

I noticed the state data page has links to other interesting variables like obscenity, gambling and vaccination laws. Those will be worth adding too, if a way can be found to quantify them...

[Kelton]

Assigning numerical values to the State Compulsory Auto Insurance. . .
Alaska = 2.0

Chalk- up another point for the statists,
Alaska Motor Vehicle Proof Of Insurance Requirements Change (September 30, 2002)
"Alaskans must start carrying proof of motor vehicle liability insurance in their automobile or on their person while driving or risk being charged with a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not more than $500 or a jail sentence of not more than 90 days, or both. The privilege to drive or registration of vehicles may also be suspended or revoked".
 
The report that Joe has brought to our attention from the Insurance Information Institute was issued in July of last year.  I did a cursory check online to see if there was news of any change in all 10 states and found only the above article.

[Kelton]

Here is another way of looking at state compulsory insurance laws; how justice is served when someone drives without insurance and thus another way to rank the states based upon the economic impact of restitution when the states interests supercede that of injured parties:


Let's create a scenario where you are driving in state X and suddenly, you are rear-ended by a driver of an pick-up truck.  The police immediately come to the scene and see that you appear to be in good condition except for the air- bag marks on your forehead.  The police get information from the other driver and begin writing a report. Your car looks totaled while the old pick-up of the guy who hit you looks like it may have lost some rusted chrome off the front bumper. Being the self-reliant kind of person that you are, you are legally self-insured up to $13,000 with a surety bond that acts as a deductible rider on your insurance policy and you begin hoping that this guy has good insurance, because the damage to your car is going to be at least $13,000.  The police come back and give you the bad news: the guy has no insurance.  He is a construction contractor on his way home from work, he said he forgot to send-in his last deductible payment but he was on his way to do it right now.  Now, let's say that this guy has a few points on his record and he is more than a little quarelsome and contentious with the judge and gets on the judge's bad side and incurs the maximum penalty.

Let me sum-up the scenario above as such: you incur losses of 13,000 in an accident because of this guy's negligence and he has no insurance.  This will come out of your pocket unless you can get something from him.  

If this scenario happened in New Hampshire, the state would work with you to get this guy to pay you, and that is pretty-much the extent of the state's involvement if he quickly works something out and starts making restitution to avoid losing his driving priveleges.


If this scenario happened in Idaho, the state would be there to take this guy to court to help you get some money, much like in New Hampshire, only not until after they had first extracted $75 from him as a first priority and forced him to file proof of insurance with the state.

If this scenario happened in Vermont, the state would do about the same as Idaho except demand $100 from the guy first.

If this scenario happened in Wyoming, the state would do about the same as in Vermont except demand a whopping $750 from the guy first.

If this scenario happened in Delaware, the state would do about the same as Wyoming except demand a mere $120 from the guy first.  One problem in no-fault Delaware is that you, as the harmed party would have to go to the state first to find out how much the state allows you to reclaim from the guy and not just your actual damages.

If this scenario happened in North Dakota, the state would first take $150 from the guy then take away his license and registration until the state determined that he was worthy to drive again by his filing his proof of insurance with the state and getting some insurance that is now even more unaffordable, forcing the guy to have to find another way to get to work in order to begin paying you off.  If you wanted to sue the guy, you would also have to do what North Dakota requires and you would not be able to sue under regular tort laws allowed in other states.


If this scenario happened in Maine, the state would first skim $500 from him and then punish him for 30 days by taking away his license and registration forcing him to have to get a ride with his buddies, but for only a month.
 

If this scenario happened in South Dakota, the state would make this punishment last for a whole year, hopefully he has a good network of responsible friends with wheels to help him get to jobsites for a whole year so he can pay you off.  They would also assess a fine, unknown how much, but having to pay to re-register his car is about the same as a fine.

If this scenario happened in Montana, the state which the insurance association, NAIC ranked as the 4th least profitable no-fault state in the nation due to an abundance of insurance fraud, there is a little hell to pay: not only would our beligerent little man get the full insults from the state that the other states asess, including a $250 fine,  he might forget about his primary responsibility to you the injured party as he sits in jail for 10 days.  The chance of this man getting insurance again, meeting all of his regular bills including his mortgage payment is getting smaller.  He is not thinking about your problems right now, in fact, having to pay you $13,000 is the least of his concerns right now as he sits next to a man named Howard in his stinking jail cell.

If this scenario happened in Alaska, you had better just forget about trying to get any money from this guy at all.  He just lost his license, his vehicle registration, $500 and now he sits in jail for 90 days.  He is going to lose his clients, who are probably going to sue him for breaking his contracts with them.  His home is quickly going into foreclosure, and his family will be forced into a trailer on the edge of town, his wife is going to have to walk through the blizzards, leaving the children unattended so she can make it to her meeting to receive food stamps while the family waits for the man who used to provide for them to get out of jail.  


Also, from the stated mandatory minimum amount of insurance that insurance providers have to offer, the theoretical chance of being able to afford insurance, (assuming all other factors being equal) would be less with Bodily injury and & Pproperty damage minimums being  split 50,000/100,000/25,000 in Alaska.  In maine, the theoretical chance of people being able to afford insurance is the worst with the minimum policy you can purchase being BI & PD +UM, +UIM; 50/100/25.  All the other states that require insurance minimums are quite similar in affordability, based on insurance requirements.

[Zxcv]

If this were (unconstitutionally) implemented at the federal level, they'd pick Alaska's method, and throw in a felony conviction.  


Thanks for explaining the real-world consequences of these different government policies, exitus. Maybe I will bump the insurance weight up a bit!

I will change my sheet for that; in the meantime you can fix it in the spreadsheet I sent you, on the Raw Data sheet. Also please note MT and ME in the Gun variable now go to 9.7, according to Jason.

[freedomroad]

As to hunting laws, See this thread.
http://forum.freestateproject.org/index.php?board=5;action=display;threadid=1091
my subjective ratings (putting myself in the boots of a youngster of 8, 10 or 12 again)

WY = 10
VT = 10
MT = 9
AK = 8
ID = 7
ME = 5
ND = 3
NH = 2
SD = 1
DE = 0

I would lower ME and DE (if that is possible) because they do not allow hunting on Sunday.  Unless, you already did that.  Sunday is one of the two big hunting days so for some people that cuts their hunting time by almost 50%.  I would make DE last and ME second to last.

[Solitar]

Freedom Road,
You are correct. No Sunday hunting is a real hardship for folks who only have one day off -- Sunday.
Yet I bet that could easily be changed -- but then what do I know of how many non-hunting religious fanatics will scream that Sunday is sacred and ambush an otherwise slam dunk repeal.
I must look at that thread referred to above to see what else would be easy to change, versus what would be hard. Lowering ages would be real tough I bet -- much harder than allowing Sunday hunting.

Maybe lower Maine a notch or two.
If Delaware would only allow Sunday hunting and allow rifles, even 22's or a decent light deer rifle like a .243.

WY = 10
VT = 10
MT = 9
AK = 8
ID = 7
ME = 3
ND = 3
NH = 2
SD = 1
DE = 0

[DadELK68]

I'd like to see a breakdown of the states based on current estimates of the number of actual porcupines per square miles.

New England should come out strongly due to the heavy forestation.

This is actually a valid point when it comes to wanting privacy - out West where I grew up you'd have to own many acres if you wanted to have a little privacy on your own land. Here in NH we live on 3 acres and can barely see our neighbors, including the 4 houses which are within a hundred yards.

[JasonPSorens]

If anyone knows where to find out about laws on alcohol, gambling, and obscenity, that would be great.  I'm also interested in finding a cost of living index that could be applied objectively across states.

[Walk For Liberty]

I don't know how helpful this will be, since it's not a table, but:

http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/ngisc/reports/statutes.html

[Walk For Liberty]

This is also not quite what you're looking for, but it's interesting nonetheless.  It also covers other driving related laws.

http://www.hwysafety.org/safety_facts/state_laws/measure_up.htm

[Walk For Liberty]

Gives summaries of all the bills.

http://www.epi.umn.edu/enacted/

Seems it only goes back as far as legislation enacted in 1998-2000