A fellow southerner sent me this Washington Post article about how southerners view the Presidency of Barack Obama.
While he was jokingly incredulous about the actual existence of the article’s main protagonist, it roughly encapsulates the feelings of the white south. A range of emotions, from blaming general (but not specific) racism, to a general belief that Obama doesn’t “understand” the south.
So, to change the site up a bit, I’ve decided that my post-length comments are probably better placed in the “main feed.” This accomplishes two of my personal goals: 1) Further the evolutionary propogation of ideas that come from me; and 2) Satisfies my desire to make the site as close to fivethirtyeight.com as possible by having “author response posts”.
To start this off, I’m going to post a response to Brian’s “Are there more guns in the South?“ Basically, I ran some stats on his hypotheses, and I think that what I found is worthy of “front billing.”
A "typical" gun owner
After Obama won the election, gun sales increased as much as 50%. Many people who I discussed this with live in Chicago, where handguns are banned, and where experience shooting a gun is in short supply. When it came out that I grew up shooting guns (and quite a good shot, might I add), I immediately heard people say “Of course you’ve shot a gun, everyone in the South owns a gun.”
Ah, how I love a testable thesis! Click to read more…
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