Is the South Gun-Friendly?

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I have lived in the 'south' for 5 years, both in TN and GA. 10 years if you count NC.

Yes, the South is gun-friendly... in general. Get too close to a big city, like Atlanta, Raleigh or Nashville and you'll start entering into sheeple and liberal territory. Get about 15-20 miles outside of the city and attitudes change considerably. Since most of the south is still rural, it's gun-friendly. Here in ATL I would probabably have the cops called on me in 10 minutes if I legally carried openly... 40 miles away nobody would even care. The closer to the crime, the more scared whiners you have around.

But yeah... the South generally has that mentality of "Leave me alone and I'll leave you alone." I like it. I don't plan on leaving.
 
I find the majority of Mississippi to be very gun friendly. The only possible exception would be the city of Jackson which is currently completely run by Democrats( Mayor and City Counsil).
 
South friendly to gun lovers

Zen21Tao, please be advised that in the south dam*yankee is one word.
don
 
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Id say the south is pretty gun friendly. FL CCW laws pretty good except you have the big cities such as Miami who are on bloomers clown squard, and the Democrats which are taking large chunks.

Also people forgot to mention the Midwest is pretty gun friendly excluding IL. Excluding Vermont where no permit is required for carry, Missouris carry laws are pretty damn good. In MO its just about impossible to be arrested for carrying unless you go inside a school or Federal building packing which is already against the law. Even if you carry inside the police station all they can do is ask you to leave or write you a ticket. the No guns signs in this state are simply a joke, that have no meaning behind them. Also permits from any state are good in MO. Even a California one.

However I dont like the Permit to purchase that you must get for each handgun you buy. Its left over Jim Crowe law that other states such as MN, NC, NB use. However there is almost certain chance that next session the Permit to Aquire, purchase will be going away, or at least for permit holders.

KS and Nebraska are both getting CCW as of next year. Odd both oare conservative states pro gun, but conceal carry has taken so long. WI does not have a permit program, while its illegal to carry conceal in WI its LEGAL to open carry in WI.

IL is anti gun because of Chitcago. If you took away Chitcago IL would be a pro gun state, and would most likely have some kind of carry program. But Chitago holds the most votes, and also steals and cheats in elections.
 
Now, it does state that it is a defense to prosecution if the actor's possession was pursuant to registration pursaunt to the NFA.

Seems to me that we do have NFA restrictions. Am I all wet?
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As several others have pointed out, TEXAS has no restrictions. FEDS DO.


TEXAS does not care as long as you abide by the FEDERAL laws.

There are many states that do not allow NFA weapons even if you follow the Federal guidelines.

Google "Bardwell NFA" if you want to get a list of which state allows what. There is no rhyme or reason.
Some allow machineguns but not suppressors, etc. It's a bizarre world, but Texas is OK with them all.
 
Generally speaking, yes very much so.

I have heard NC referred to as "the California of the South" on more than one occasion though, so take that for what it's worth. The whole nest of universities in the Piedmont is good for economy of the state, but also a source of "we be more enlightened than you" nonsense as well.
 
I travel around the Southeast on business and can carry everywhere except SC (have to put the firearm in my console). I've got FL and GA permits.

GA is pretty gun friendly except for the CCW issue that has been mentioned. State law says the permit SHALL be issued no later than 60 days - when in reality it's taking 4 to 6 months. If you have a FL permit (reciprocity with GA) it is not valid in GA if you have a GA drivers license - you must have a GA CCW. So basically I was 'disarmed' for the first 4 months I was here even though I had a valid FL permit. The probate courts have also been refusing to issue temporary licenses but that's come under heavy fire and my county (Henry) just got spanked and the judge has agreed to issue temporaries.

The issue with the probates is that they claim they have to wait on the FBI fingerprint cards to come back and will not issue until they do. I find it funny (and sad) that I got a Form 4 approved for a SMG in 27 days (door to door) and it took me 117 days to get a GA permit.

I wish more southern states had open carry - not that I would open carry but it makes it less of an issue if your jacket blows open.

Virginia is one of the better southern states - majority of counties are NFA friendly, open carry, reasonable CCW processing times, and it also has the VCDL which does a tremendous job of fighting for CCW rights and increasing awareness.
 
Very Interesting Discussion...

Several of you pointed out (correctly) that my original thread starter focused entirely on carry issues. That appears to be a blind spot of mine, most likely due to the fact that I'm new to the gun-owning world and have yet to extend to other activities (e.g., hunting, etc.).

You guys have given me a lot to think about....
 
Thanks To Sheriff Mike Hale

Greeting's All-

Jefferson County, AL (too include Birmingham) still has the least expensive
gun license fee that I know of; $7.50 per year~! Just fill out the application,
undergo a background check, have three character references and $7.50
and you are on your way~!:cool: :D
 
The south of today ain't the south of a generation ago. I think the issue is where in the south you intend to locate. Any metro area (Hotlanta, Charlotte, Nashville, Dallas, etc) will be like a northern or midwestern metro area. . . . . just eat up with blissninnies. Get out into the sticks and things differ. Yeah, NC has a number of restrictions on CCH which are not a lot different than other states but that is not to say the state is unfriendly toward guns. Down east NC is heavily into firearms as hunting is fairly common. Raleigh-Durham is the Berkley of the south. You want a screwball idea? RDU has it in spaded. Local sheriff's control the purchase permit and CCH machinery. You may get a little flack there but not from a town in the sticks (and there is a lot of sticks in NC). As far a politics goes, NC is about as liberal as a state can get. Combined tax rates are higher than in MA. NC's idiot governor is rated as the second worse governor in the US. Braced between Grey Davis of California and Jim McGreevey of Noo Joisey. Some company. NC has a completely out of control illegal immigrant situation courtesy of the same idiot governor. My experience is with NC and once you get a CCH license the restrictions don't seem to be that bad. Would I write the laws differently? Yup! But would I get rid of what NC has just because it ain't perfect? Nope!
 
I grew up in the South, and I never thought of the culture as particularly gun- or self-defense-friendly. I remember having to show ID and sign for purchasing ammunition, and all the "respectable" southerners I knew were anti's. They really looked down their noses at my "redneck" hunting hobby! When my grandfather wanted to buy a .22 pistol, he had to do it through the sherrif, get a background check, and fill out a bunch of paperwork. (I think that law has changed now, but I still can't go to Tennessee and buy a long gun. They won't sell anything to a Californian.)
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Aristocratic cultures (read Gone With the Wind for details) are almost invariably hostile to individual self-defense, especially when the aristocrats have a designated ethnic underclass to kick around. Wouldn't want any of those black people shooting Klansmen, after all. As many here know, that was the motivation for the earliest anti-gun laws.
 
The South isn't ideal, but it is a far cry from blue states like California and Noo Yoak, but it is a lot closer to the being able to keep and bear arms.
Some Southern States are different than others. For instance, Texas doesn't allow open carry but you can carry in restaraunts that sell alchololic beverages (as long is it is not over 51% business). In Virginia you can open carry, but you can't carry in any business that sells alcoholic beverages.

A lot more people in the South (true blue Southerners, not yankee/liberal transplants) are typically VERY gun friendly. Confederate Crackers, middle class farmers and Cavaliers of all classes outnumbered and outgunned held the Federal invader at bay for 4 long years because there were a physical outdoor farming and hunting culture that knew how to ride a horse, live off the land and handle a gun, knife and sword. Even black people (at least in the more rural parts) share a more common agrarian and hunting culture with white people. Even slaves, despite laws banning them from bearing arms, were often permitted to use guns for hunting and even defending the farm and plantation. I remember reading once that Jefferson Davis and his brother Joseph Davis (both wealthy planters in Mississippi) armed their slaves to help fend off a group of outlaws that were threatening the plantation water supply. Laws banning slaves from bearing arms, like laws against reading and writing weren't always ridgedly enforced or passed except during time periods when fears of slave revolts real or imagined came about created by abolitionist terror threats or news of bloody slave revolts in the Carribbean such Haiti.
 
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I have heard that a lot of the gun restrictions in the South began as a result of freed slaves arming themselves, and their former masters being afraid.
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Wouldn't want any of those black people shooting Klansmen, after all. As many here know, that was the motivation for the earliest anti-gun laws.
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I think the concern was more than an individual black shooting his former master or defending himself against the KKK (I'll ignore for the moment the fact that the KKK were originally the good guys). I think there was a fear of a race war. South Carolina was something like 60% slaves, and there was a foreign State where the blacks had killed all the whites (I forget the name of the State but I remember reading about it in the Congressional record ... Haiti?). Also there was the idea that blacks were more violent than whites and so the gun laws were intended, not to keep the black man down so the KKK could beat him up, but to keep violent crime down and maintain the peace.

At any rate, the South has the blacks, and the South is the pro-gun region.
 
(I'll ignore for the moment the fact that the KKK were originally the good guys)
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Oh boy:eek: That is going to open a huge can of worms hugh. But you are...damnright. The modern white trash tatoo wearing Klan that spews nothing but hate and violence irrationally is a FAR FAR cry from the original Klan of the reconstruction era which are far more complex than liberal abolitionist/republican/so-called civil rights historians and politicians pidgeon hole them to be. The corruption and violence in the South after the war committed by Union armies, Union leagers, ex slave riots caused by carpetbaggers and the theft of Southern property and land had to be resisted and Southernern gentlemen responded as best they could with lofty goals of preserving the peace. Did they do things wrong at times, sure. Were there men with ulterior motives who used the Klan for their own corrupt influences, sure. Sorta like the Sons of Liberty of the first American War for Independence.

Anyway, back on the topic of guns.
YES THE SOUTH IS, for the most part, VERY GUN FRIENDLY (not as much as it used to be or as much as it was 200 years ago but better than many other parts of America)
 
Hugh and Doug -- given the rather... inciting nature of your comments, would you please be so kind as to provide a reference for them? Online or dead-tree doesn't matter, just so we have a place to check for ourselves.

Thank you. :)

To the membership at large -- kindly take further discussion of the KKK angle over to armedpolitesociety.com and remain on topic of the modern-day South's gun laws here.
 
In general most states outside of CA, MA, NY, NJ, and CT are very pro-gun.
You need to add HI, IL, MD, and RI to that list.
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You might want to take CT off your list. CCW, peacable journey, limited no carry zones (schools and fed buildings), no silly anti-CCW signs on business, etc. You do need a permit to purchase pistols, but that permit is also good for CCW, unlike IL's useless FOID.:rolleyes: With the permit no waiting period for any purchase, there are no mag capacity limits either. I lived in Tejas for 5.5 years and although firearms were more generally accepted, there were also much more restrictions on carry location within the cities, (Houston and Dallas). Most people I knew back then, just kept them concealed and all was good, but a lot of buildings had no CCW signs on the doors. I have yet to see a no CCW sign in CT.
 
Hugh and Doug -- given the rather... inciting nature of your comments, would you please be so kind as to provide a reference for them? Online or dead-tree doesn't matter, just so we have a place to check for ourselves.
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Be glad to:

When in the Course of Human Events by Charles Adams http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0847697223/lewrockwell/

North against South: An American Illiad 1848-1877 by Ludwell Johnson
http://www.amazon.com/North-against...ef=sr_1_1/102-1086800-7802529?ie=UTF8&s=books

The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, his agenda and Uneccessary War by Thomas DiLorenzo
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0761536418/lewrockwell/

These books have a lot of good info on Reconstruction and the corruption in their second halves, including a more in context look at the Reconstruction era KKK

Black Confederates by Charles K. Barrow et al
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1565549376/lewrockwell/
Illustrates that understanding of black and slave life in the Old South wasn't near as simple as modern PC college professors proclaim it to be.

Three Months in the Southern States by Col. Arthur J. Freemantle http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0803268750/lewrockwell/
a look from the time period from an outsider at the South and it's way of life both within and without the army. (He even recalls an incident at the Battle of Gettysburg of a Confederate black man or slave armed and escorting Union prisoners to the rear. Something he figured would make an abolitionist faint.)

Our Fathers Fields by James Everett Kibler http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1570032149/lewrockwell/
LONG book, but I recall Kibler mentioning in his research a slave (s) that frequently went hunting with rifles on the Hardy plantation.

Cracker Culture: Celtic Ways of the Old South by Grady McWhiney http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0817304584/lewrockwell/
Overgeneralized in some ways, but it does illustrate a very gunfriendly culture of old

Confederate Crackers and Cavalieres by Grady McWhiney http://www.amazon.com/Confederate-C...ef=sr_1_1/102-1086800-7802529?ie=UTF8&s=books
Good article in named the very title of the book that discusses the said two different classes in the South and what they had in common.

Plain Folk of the Old South by Frank Owsley http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0807110639/lewrockwell/
Also discusses the various classes of the South and their agrarian background.

Joseph Davis: Pioneer Patriarch by Janet Sharp Hermann http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-E-Davi...ef=sr_1_1/102-1086800-7802529?ie=UTF8&s=books
This book recalls the story I related of Jefferson Davis and his brother arming their slaves.

The Southern Tradition at Bay: A History of Postbellum Thought by Richard Weaver
http://www.amazon.com/Joseph-E-Davi...ef=sr_1_1/102-1086800-7802529?ie=UTF8&s=books
A fountain of information and thought about the South old and new including a more in depth look at the classes and aristocracy of the Old South.


I could keep going, but my time is short and I suppose everyone else's here is too. And as Kaylee noted, we do want to stay on topic.

I don't want to get off topic either Kaylee, but I, and I guess Hugh Damnright too don't care for flippant comments based on political correctness (whether intended to be ugly or just from honest ignorance, I used to believe some of the comments made above too) made about our own people and history. I have no wish to defend things done wrong or say that the South didn't and doesn't have it's vices but Southerners, and indeed anyone that has any appreciation of their culture whatever it may be, take their history and heritage very seriously, personal and are proud of it.

Back on topic.
YES the South, even now, is gun friendly for the most part (althought as some have noted that is, unfortunately changing)
 
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Guns have always been a big part of South heritage. That is, at least until all the dam* yankees started come down.
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Gun control (mostly to keep "dem damn darkies" from arming themselves) is also a part of southern heritage.

The south (and Texas) has a reputation for being real gun friendly and is more gun friendly than the northeast, however the west is where its at ... Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah ... thats where your gun rights are going to go the farthest (mostly because we don't have the baggage from Reconstruction ... which is when most southern gun control came about). However to their credit they have gotten rid of a bunch of gun control laws (like Missouri's stupid law where you had to get references to buy a gun).


Of course Californians have made their own home into a hole and now are "escaping" their own mess, yet bringing it with them to other western states :banghead:
 
If you look at our CULTURE, yes, we are gun-friendly.

If you look at our LAWS, no, you may say we are not.

Guns are more accepted down here and are a big part of life. But when it comes to the endless morass of laws we consider a part of our government, it seems gun-laws are chokingly restrictive.

The culture also changes drastically when you get anywhere near an urban area.
 
i live in kentucky and i think it is one of the most gun friendly states:neener:
in kentucky open carry is legal [although i havent tried it in cities]

you can carry aloaded gun in your glovebox without a ccdw permit:what:

and if you have your permit you dont have to undergo a background check everytime you buy a gun just show the permit and your out the door:D :D

I dont think i have seen hardly any gunbusters signs :p
 
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