Firearms and the South

I have not really stopped to consider the why. It just seemed natural to me. It still surprises me when I meet someone who does not shoot at least occasionally. I know that is silly, but it is my initial reaction.

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Ditto. I grew up in house w/o firearms because "in the old country" only soldiers had guns, and both were considered 'bad' by my parents. After joining the US Army I fell in with "the gun crowd" and have taken owning firearms for granted ever since. Upon discovering someone doesn't own at least one gun, I'm like, "Really? You're joking, right?" Kinda like telling me that they've never shopped at a supermarket - I know there are people out there like that, it just floors me every time I meet one.

that's why we have to eat possum, sardines, pigs feet, pork brains, souse and tree rats. There are even wild critters running around with leprosy and they're immune to bullets! Save yourself and turn back!

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Nice!

...and just what is wrong with a nice opossum, slow cooked in the crock pot?

...and pigs feet with souse emmm, emmm, dribble a little sardine juice over it, oooooweeeee....yum!

Folks up north eating roasts, prime rib and deer backstrap...what are they thinking!?!

...and just what is wrong with a nice opossum, slow cooked in the crock pot?

...and pigs feet with souse emmm, emmm, dribble a little sardine juice over it, oooooweeeee....yum!

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Nothing is wrong with it...it ranks right up there with chicken feet soup, fried salt pork and cornbread with cracklins...on a cold winter day.

Gus McRae has got the Scots Irish thing right too...FWIW. And don't forget the Germans.

Those folks made it a point, 100 years or so prior to the Revolution, to make hunting and self-sufficiency their business. Hunting was banned in Europe from the common people. In North America, there was game for all and plenty of German craftsmen to build fine rifles...better rifles than anywhere else in the world right here in 18th century America.

Those group of people we call Scots Irish are the folks who settled particulary Kentucky and thus the rest of the rural south...and then Texas from there. So indeed those folks have arguably the longest history of hunting and shooting of any of us.

Indiana, oddly enough, is one of the few states up here that was not settled east to west but rather south to north and thus 4/5 of the state (up to a line from Crown Point over to maybe Fort Wayne or so) are all pretty much folks moved up from Kentucky mixed in with us Irish Irish who came to build canals and railroads. That's why just about everwhere but the south, folks think we Hoosiers have southern accents.

The South is more agricultural and hunting and gun ownership is part of living in the rural areas. If your parents owned guns and hunted you are more likely to be a gun owner and hunter.
There is another reason for higher gun ownership in the South.
While not everyone in the North lives in cities there is a higher rate of people living in cities then in the South. Those in the cities are more reliant on the government for everything from water to protection. They are used to having others provide services for them. This extends to having others protect them. Those in the cities would never consider killing their own food but they have no problem buying meat others have killed. Many would have wish to arm themselves but they have no problem paying the police to protect them. Those in rural areas largely just want to be left in peace. Those in heavily urban areas want the government to be their Momma, Daddy and Santa all rolled into one. This doesn't matter if we are talking about NYC or Miami. The North however is more heavily urbanized that the South.
We often jokingly call many anti gun people or Obama supporters "Sheeple." I am not joking. That is exactly what they are.
Bear in mind that my comments are general observations. Yes, some in the North hunt, own guns and live in rural areas. Yes, some Libs and Obama supporters like guns.
Most of my comments however are accurate in regards to the groups and their behaviour.

IMO, the gun control sentiment rises as the number of first and second generation immigrants from countries with gun control rises.

I am not so sure that it's not the larger urban areas with far more liberal laws than in southern urban areas that can give that impression. When I was in NY there were many people who shot but it was rarely discussed. There were also many more longarm to handgun shooters given handgun permit issues.

Once I moved to Pennsylvania forget it. Everybody I have met shoots or has shot and most have at least a gun or two around the house. Every nice weathered weekend the ranges are full of families with parents having their kids shoot their 22's. It's great and much different from NY but NY is what everybody thinks of when they think of the north.

I agree the hunting while huge in many areas of PA it is not as much of the south because of the weather, but I do have skiiing.

I don't know at all that they are.

Jimmyrae

Don't forget the SNAKES!

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And the Jackalopes.......

dont forget that the army recruits far more diligently in the south as well

We've always had them more or less because we've always needed them. Although I think reality is often different, Southerners like to think of themselves as independent and self-reliant and guns are a way to exercise that attitude.

That and we like loud, shiny objects...like trucks...bass boats...etc.

It really is a urban vs rural thing. There was a blizzard in New England sometime around the turn of the century (1890's-early 1900's I'm not exactly sure). The folks in the countryside fared well because of they had stocked up on food & wood. There were a lot of deaths in New York City because people there tended to rely on mass transit, being able to buy food on a day to day basis etc. Rural people are just more of the mindset that they have to take care of themselves.

Hoplophobia is a far less common disease in the south.

Here in Minnesota is more a city vs rural thing. Plus there are way too many liberals and communists up here. I don't know why but there's no open season on them here either.

Hoplophobia is a far less common disease in the south.

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I suppose that makes me a hoplophiliac! (one's never too old to learn)

...nah, I ain't skeered of rabbits at all!!!

I think generally it comes down to more rural and more urban settings. The West, South, and Southwest are generally filled with more open spaces so they have a more conservative approach to firearms. I suspect that in places like Pennsylvania, New York, and even here in Illinois guns are much more a part of daily life then in areas surrounding a big city.

Im originally from Michigan, the people that hunt, and own firearms up there are staggering. Unfortunately at the moment I am in illinois, and we have all the idiots in the northeast corner. but in the rest of the state there are many many gun owners, the farther south you go the more there are.

...and herein lies the lesson...

Golden 006 said:

Why are firearms more popular in the South?

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A better question might be- "Why are people so naive as to believe such malarkey?"

It never ceases to amaze me when some southerner starts to go off about how great it is down there.... I'm sure it is (I've been many times), but it's pretty great up here too (ever been here?... MN for the record).... and yeah, there's lots of guns up here....

As has been said, it's partly the more rural background. Farming and Ranching.... but it's not just that. Japanese people were often farmers for alot longer and for a period of Japanese history, Japan was one the most well armed countries on Earth....

It has to do with this. Southerners are a collection of four main groups. The descendants of English and French second and third class nobility and lower classes (from South England, and various parts of France), who quickly picked up firearms for defensive use because of the owning of slaves, because of the need to hunt, and because of the need to defend themselves from Indians.

Scots-Irish. Who, when this country was getting founded came from a war-torn, nasty place, prone to blood fueds, and a very serious sense of personal rights, personal honor, and personal ownership. I didn't really mention the Native Indians. Well, there weren't many, but much of their stuff rubbed onto the Scots-Irish (many Scots-Irish are also part Indian). At the same time, they also often fought the Natives, and those wars also seriously influenced making guns integral to their culture. In many ways, the best thing the Scots-Irish gave us all was the "get off my land!" instinct Americans of all ethnicities seem to have developed to some degree or another.

Germans. These were largely the builders of our best weapons early on. (interesting the name Sturm-Ruger as a US arms company). But, they also had a similar situation to the Scots-Irish. The Germany (and Germans) of today are a very different people than the ones who weren't that far (in memory) from the 30 Year's War, and still were having religious, social, and regional conflicts (they weren't even one country yet). Though they were more often settling in the North, the Southern settling ones tended to be very much like the Scots-Irish in mentality.

The last group are the Black Slaves. And their descendants, Black Americans. The only group not allowed to arm themselves. Modern blacks are either not very well armed, largely as a heritage of that (similar to many Eastern Europeans who were in a similar way when they get here). Or they are armed, as a counter to the past, and the oppression from that era (or just to protect themselves).

That's a short and haphazard explanation. (I could write a book on this subject).... but I think it kinda explains it.

Not sure, maybe just the way we were raised. Everyone I know is at least a hunter, even the girls. I know that during the civil war the south had better marksmen than the north as stated by John Sedgwick:

What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? What will you do when they open fire along the whole line? I am ashamed of you. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance.

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In that moment a bullet exited his left eye, and he fell over dead.

YUP Us Yanks don't have any guns. So when Obama comes to take them they wil only hit the Rebs.