something I discovered on a random google search...

[beerslurpy]

http://www.amconmag.com/2004_12_06/cover.html

Not sure I agree with it entirely, but I suspect the general idea that much of the red-blue difference is due to socio-economic factors that cant be addressed honestly because they deal with sensitive topics.

a salient quote:

The endless gun-control brouhaha, which on the surface appears to be a bitter battle between liberal and conservative whites, also features a cryptic racial angle. What blue-region white liberals actually want is for the government to disarm the dangerous urban minorities that threaten their children’s safety. Red-region white conservatives, insulated by distance from the Crips and the Bloods, don’t care that white liberals’ kids are in peril. Besides, in sparsely populated Republican areas, where police response times are slow and the chances of drilling an innocent bystander are slim, guns make more sense for self-defense than in the cities and suburbs.

White liberals, angered by white conservatives’ lack of racial solidarity with them, yet bereft of any vocabulary for expressing such a verboten concept, pretend that they need gun control to protect them from gun-crazy rural rednecks, such as the ones Michael Moore demonized in “Bowling for Columbine,†thus further enraging red-region Republicans.

 

[308win]

Could be. I have seen data that suggest that the red states have lower state/local taxes and get more money from fed govt than the federal taxex they pay thus exporting their cost of operation to the blue states. I suppose the red state residents view this as a smart strategy - welefare is welefare regardless of how it is painted.

 

[redneck2]

Long time ago on The Firing Line there was a debate about "how can any reasonable person not support 2A??

Well, if you live on the 40th floor in Chicago and the only time you see a 9mm is pointed at you and your wife while the "gentleman" is requesting everything you're carrying, you have no place to shoot, and if you shot one bullet it'd have 9 lawyers attached to it, I can see their point

doesn't mean I agree, but I can understand. It's totally different cultures. When I grew up on the farm, everybody had guns.....everybody. And they were loaded. And the kids had them. Heck, I used to grab the .22 and go out to shoot when I was 7 or 8.

Thing that seems the most odd is that at 8 years old (late 1950's), I could legally buy a rifle without any paperwork. You could get government surplus .45's with a clip out coupon from Popular Mechanics. Yet there were almost no gangs with guns. They used to make "zip" guns with pieces of pipe and sinkers clipped to rubber bands for firing pins.

So, have guns changed or has society changed??

 

[RealGun]

and if you shot one bullet it'd have 9 lawyers attached to it,

The chicken or the egg?

 

[2nd Amendment]

Long time ago on The Firing Line there was a debate about "how can any reasonable person not support 2A??

Well, if you live on the 40th floor in Chicago and the only time you see a 9mm is pointed at you and your wife while the "gentleman" is requesting everything you're carrying, you have no place to shoot, and if you shot one bullet it'd have 9 lawyers attached to it, I can see their point

This simply means the person is unreasonable for living under such circumstances. Applied at an even deeper point, it means such hive dwelling is in and of itself unreasonable for this, among many, reasons.

 

[2nd Amendment]

I have seen data that suggest that the red states have lower state/local taxes and get more money from fed govt than the federal taxex they pay thus exporting their cost of operation to the blue states.

The explanation for this misrepresentation the extremists present to support their unsupportable existence is that A) Red states have most of the military bases and test facilities. B) Many of the red states have huge percentages of their land areas owned by FedGov for one use or another not related to the military. Most blue states, having nothing to offer besides their massive populations, simply can't support such things.

 

[griz]

What blue-region white liberals actually want is for the government to disarm the dangerous urban minorities that threaten their children’s safety. Red-region white conservatives, insulated by distance from the Crips and the Bloods, don’t care that white liberals’ kids are in peril.

Maybe the reds do care that the liberals’ kids (all races of liberals) are in peril but have a philosophical belief that even the liberals should have the right to a firearm to defend their own kids.

Does anybody have a source for this idea that the reds are spending more federal dollars than the blues? Sounds fishy to me.

 

[fedlaw]

Several observations about growing up in Chicago 50 years ago:
1) Riverview, the big northside amusement park, had a shooting gallery. My Mother, who was very anti-gun, would always give me money to try to win a kewpie, etc. My kids find it hard to believe that there were guns, and that they weren't bolted down. Anyone could have turned around and shot into the crowds, but no one ever did (or even thought about it).
2) Our local Kiddieland, two blocks away, had a similar, although smaller set-up.
3) Our neighbor taught all of the kids on the block gun safety and how to shoot. This was in his back yard.
4) Another neighbor had a farm in Wisconsin,where he taught the local kids how to drive, how to operate farm machinery and how to hunt.
5) My high school had a rifle range in the basement.
6) The Chicago Park District operated the Lincoln Park Gun Club where, as a teenager, I learned to shoot skeet.
7) The bowling alley, several blocks away, had a pistol range in the basement and a wonderful gun shop next door. The salemen in the shop were very nice to us even though we were kids. They answered our questions and when we were old enough, sold us our first guns.
7) When I was in law school and the 'new' Illinois constitution was being debated, we were told that the home-rule exception to the right to bear arms provision was put in to satisfy then Mayor Daley's desire to disarm certain racial groups.

 

[Cool Hand Luke 22:36]

What blue-region white liberals actually want is for the government to disarm the dangerous urban minorities that threaten their children’s safety.

Remove the word "white" from the sentence above and you have a closer approximation of the truth. Blacks in urban areas also are heavily in favor of gun control.

The is a strong racial underone to the white urban liberal's mania for gun control. Black urban liberals just see it as a common sense measure for self preservation. They both don't see any need to own guns themselves in urban areas where the police response time is usually under 5 minutes.

 

[Guy B. Meredith]

Re: "Black urban liberals just see it as a common sense measure for self preservation. They both don't see any need to own guns themselves in urban areas where the police response time is usually under 5 minutes."

The problem with the concept in the sentence above is that the 5 minute LEO response has not prevented the very crime they fear. Despite the quick response liberal warrens are rife with gang shootings, muggings, rapes, etc., etc., etc. Reality does not fit the theory.

I work with many professional blacks and many are very anti gun. I mentioned the BlackManWithAGun website to a sales manager and saleslady and I thought they were going to dirty their pants right there on the spot.

 

[bogie]

They both don't see any need to own guns themselves in urban areas where the police response time is usually under 5 minutes.

Ah, but you may be five minutes from the donut shop, but I wouldn't bet they'll show up in five minutes. Every time I called the cops while living in either central or southern downtown St. Louis, response time was 20+ minutes. One was for a shots-fired call.

1. They don't understand guns.

2. They _have_ to live in a constant state of "it can't happen to me" denial, or they'll go crazy.

It was really interesting a year or so ago, when I was in my favorite pub, and someone asked me to accompany them to their car. I asked why... They didn't want to get mugged. When I told 'em that I didn't have a gun on me, and the mugger would be getting two victims for the price of one, and I had no intention of accompanying them, I got the _strangest_ look...

 

[308win]

Does anybody have a source for this idea that the reds are spending more federal dollars than the blues? Sounds fishy to me.

Griz

Check my original post and click on the link (it's underscored). If you don't know how to do that send me a PM and I will send you instructions.

 

[2nd Amendment]

And right below his original post I supplied the explanation for it. As with almost all leftist claims, if you dig a little it's not that hard to understand their Spin.

 

[308win]

As with almost all leftist claims, if you dig a little it's not that hard to understand their Spin.

I an not sure what makes the source leftist spin unless anything not direcly from Lush Rumbaugh's mouth is leftist. :banghead:

 

[jefnvk]

What works for a family living miles from the next person in the country is not going to work for 100,000 people in a square mile in a city. That's the problem. When people realize that not everyone has the same problems, maybe we can make some headway.

 

[joab]

I an not sure what makes the source leftist spin unless anything not direcly from Lush Rumbaugh's mouth is leftist

Actually clicking on any of those links provided by the source you supplied pretty much supports the left leaning anti red/right/conservative point of view.
Just reading the highlights provided tells me that reds are hypocritical freeloaders
Except this one which shows some flaws in the methodology of the findings and further downs proclaims that he is tired of trying to get people to vote for Kerry

 

[308win]

Actually clicking on any of those links provided by the source you supplied pretty much supports the left leaning anti red/right/conservative point of view.

The Tax Foundation is the source for the information on the blog site; I don't find anything about the Tax Foundation that indicates a political bias.

As for the blog references below the Tax Foundation information who have used the information but aren't sources, I imagine that anyone is free to use the information as they see fit which is pretty obvious when one reads the cited blog sites as there are right and left view points.

The argument that military bases don't generate tax revenue doesn't hold water as these bases are viewed as economic engines by the states and local entities lucky enough to have them sited in their state/county/city. One the other hand, the argument that federal land such as national forests don't generate much in the way of taxable revenue is valid. There is a county - Pope - in Illinois that is (or at least was 20 years ago) about 95% federal land and as I recall it was the poorest county in the state in terms of local tax revenues, employment/job growth, spending per student etc.

I believe the red states as a group have generally lower state and local tax rates and in a couple of cases don't have state income taxes. If they weren't receiving more federal money than they generate they would either be changing their spending or raising taxes or both to maintain the same levels of services and infrastructure.

 

[joab]

I believe the red states as a group have generally lower state and local tax rates and in a couple of cases don't have state income taxes. If they weren't receiving more federal money than they generate they would either be changing their spending or raising taxes or both to maintain the same levels of services and infrastructure.

Fla's lack of income tax is made up by the sales and user taxes they levy. I can' speak for other non income tax states

 

[griz]

Thanks 308. Sorry I missed the link the first time around.

It looks like instead of proving the red states are freeloaders, it merely shows that the blue states are richer than the red ones. The linked chart of top and bottom ten states regarding dollars returned shows a slight corelation to red/blue, but it shows a 100 percent coralation to poor/rich. Why that would surprize anybody is beyond me. The tax code is BASED on rich people paying more, why would you expect the cost of government to be evenly distributed among states with highly differnt average incomes.

I thought the most interesting thing was the states ranged from a low of about 80 cents, to a high of just over two dollars "returned" for each dollar of tax revenue, but DC was at a whopping SIX dollars!

And the last thing, a couple traditionally democratic states (Arkansas, West Virginia) that have recently went Republican in the presidential election are listed as red states, apparently to make the authors numbers come out better. Calling them red for that reason is actually pretty funny.

 

[308win]

Fla's lack of income tax is made up by the sales and user taxes they levy. I can' speak for other non income tax states

Florida is in a unique position as they can finance a lot of government with sales, lodging, car rental and other types of taxes which are paid by the tourists and more power to them if they have the option to do so. Here in Ohio we have one of the worst tax/business environments in the country - which hasn't been helped by the RINO's who have controlled the state for the last 16 years (and the Democrats who controlled the state for the eight years before didn't help much either) - and Ohio isn't the first state one thinks of when tourist mecca is mentioned.

 

[308win]

It looks like instead of proving the red states are freeloaders, it merely shows that the blue states are richer than the red ones.

If you read the entire study on the Tax Foundation site it also presents information that shows that state and local tax rates are generally lower in the red states - which was my original point that I may not have presented as clearly as I should have.

 

[griz]

I did look at what there was of the report. It did say "full report coming soon", but I saw no reference to state taxes. Maybe I do need instructions. I also couldn't find which factors they included as returned dollars, which is what I was suspicious about in the first place. But it appears they are comparing total federal dollars in to dollars out, so my guess that they were excluding some spending and counting others probably isn't true.

 

[Standing Wolf]

What blue-region white liberals actually want is for the government to disarm the dangerous urban minorities that threaten their children’s safety.

Realistically speaking:

1. Leftists are scared silly to admit they're afraid of young non-white urban males with firearms. Of course, young non-white urban males are among the last people in the nation who'd ever submit to leftist extremist so-called "gun control" laws, but leftists like to believe laws prevent crime in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

2. An enormously disproportionate amount of violent crime in the United States is committed by young non-white urban males. It's a taboo subject among leftists.

 

[another okie]

If you remove the racial terms from the original post and substitute PC code words it's pretty much what Howard Dean said about gun control during his campaign.

 

[carp killer]

2. An enormously disproportionate amount of violent crime in the United States is committed by young non-white urban males. It's a taboo subject among leftists.

Then why don't the urban white leftists just get to the point and say they don't want urban people of color to own guns? Hypocrites.