Sunday, November 10, 2013

Up in arms...

Up in arms...  Friend and reader Simon M. passed along an interesting article by Colin Woodard in Tufts Magazine (published by Tufts University).  The sub-head is:
THE BATTLE LINES OF TODAY’S DEBATES OVER GUN CONTROL, STAND-YOUR-GROUND LAWS, AND OTHER VIOLENCE-RELATED ISSUES WERE DRAWN CENTURIES AGO BY AMERICA’S EARLY SETTLERS
It's an interesting premise, attractive for it's simplifying potential, and the accompanying map (at right) has it's own fascinations.  But I don't think it stands up under even a cursory critical examination.

If the premise was accurate, you'd expect to find relatively homogenous gun laws within each of the areas delineated on his map – the elected officials in those areas should reflect the views of their respective electorates.  I found no such thing; instead, the best correlate to gun laws seems to be population density (which matches my own subjective experience). 

The Guardian (a U.K. paper!) had the single easiest source of information I found, in a very nice interactive graphic.  Some other good sources, with much more detail, are here, here, and here.  I don't know a good way to visualize data as  complex as these, but it's clear on browsing through it all that there isn't any “shape” to the data that resembles Woodard's map...

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