Guns and Racism... No Connection. None Whatsoever.

Via skippy... 

"racism linked to gun ownership" 

Whodathunkit? [All emphasis added] 

A new study of symbolic racism among white American voters yielded strong links between latent biases toward blacks and increased favor of gun ownership and oppositions toward gun control.

Wow, that's is a "stop-the-press" moment... that the small-penis-compensation-device-loving crowd would also be jealous of the stereotypical big black jungle dick?

Published in the journal PLoS One, the study used voter data of white Americans that, after accounting for political ideology, income, and education, still revealed startling connections between racism and gun ownership. For every one point increase in symbolic racism — measured on a five-point scale — the chance someone had a gun in the home rose by 50 percent, and the chance the respondent supported policies that allowed people to carry concealed guns rose by 28 percent.

This would certainly explain the South. As BadTux and others have pointed out, the Southern social norms have traditionally included slavery -- which is racism in it's purest form -- and violence to keeps the slaves from rebelling. When one couples that with the still-extant desire to secede and rebuild the Confederacy, it's obvious that disarming the rednecks isn't going to happen.

"We were initially surprised that no one had studied this issue before,” said study co-author Dr. Dermot Lynott, from Lancaster University, in a statement. “However, the U.S. government cut research funding for gun-related research over decade and a half ago, so research in this area has been somewhat suppressed." 

Well, yes, the funding was cut at the demand of the National Feckin Rifle Association, since they didn't want folks to realize that the gun nuts were also racist bastards (among their many other un-American failings). God forbid anyone should think that guns.. oh, I don't know, kill people?!?

Gun control debates are set against a bleak backdrop of school shootings, homicides, suicides, and gun violence in a country that routinely tops the list for most gun-related deaths in a given year. A study performed earlier this year found that the more guns a U.S. state owns directly relates to an increased homicide rate. Covering 30 years from 1981 to 2010, and controlling for a laundry list of variables, it is the largest and most comprehensive study to date examining homicide’s relationship to gun ownership. 

Part of the answer is simply freedom. Americans whose family is steeped in the traditions of southern conservatism tend to enjoy exercising their second amendment Constitutional right. Another is irrationality, or an ignorance of the facts. Gun ownership often proceeds under the assumption that one will be attacked. So people buy guns fearing someone else will use one on them, despite the supposed closeness of people inhabiting gun-heavy regions. 

And if there is anywhere on Earth that epitomizes “irrationality” and “ignorance,” it is the disease-ridden Trashcanistan hellhole home of our Bible-thumpin’, hooker-humpin’, sister-marryin’, rifle-rack-in-the-pickmup wingnut “breathren” below the Mason-Dixie line.  

This whole concept of "home defense" lead Mrs. Lanza in Newtown to buy a poopload of weapons to protect herself. How did THAT work out for ya, Mrs. L?

The present study also found associations in their data between opposition to gun controls and conservatism, anti-government sentiment, party identification, and being from a southern state. Even controlling for these factors, the team found racism associated with gun control opposition and gun ownership. 

Yeah, I’d say that pretty much covers it.

 

To be fair, though, it's not just the Southern racists that are frickin lunatics. Here in Maine, we've had small-penis-compensators like David Marsters, who advocated the assassination of our President; Steve Collins, who advocated the assassination of our President; we have the Maine Tea Party Patriots -- the ones who support Fat-Ass Paul LePage, he of more chins than a Chinatown phone book; the National Socialist American Labor Party, a buncha neo-Nazi twats and Volksfront, representing the racist skinhead crowd. Every one of these assholes keeps agitating for unfettered access to firearms... especially assault rifles.

 

Since they're such firm believers in guns...

 

They oughta be shot.