Study: States With Loose Gun Laws Have Higher Rates Of Gun Violence

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27. The Map Reflects the traditional difference between the North and South when it comes to crime

It was know by the 1600s, that the American South and the American North had different attitude to how society should be organized, how much violence should be permitted, how much support for the poor, and how much taxes should be paid.

In many ways, the US has always been two Countries with a huge overlap.

The Puritans of New England, when they establish a new town, first built a Church. Now a Puritan Church was more then a place for religious people to meet, it was a place EVERYONE was expected to meet when community meetings took place (including people NOT of the Puritan Faith). The Puritans forced people to pay high taxes, so that the towns could have good central meeting places, the poor was taken care of. People as early late as the 1800s noted that a frontier town founded by New Englanders continued this Puritan tradition, the towns were well organized, the poor were taken care of, fire departments were formed, Churches were built and maintained (and used as meeting places). If someone was hurt, the town would turn out.

The South, had a different start and different outlook, again notice first in the 1600s, and was still seen in new frontier towns founded in the 1800s. Unlike the Puritans when came over to build a better home for themselves and their children (the City on the Hill Concept), the South was settled by Second sons of the Nobility of England who wanted to make a quick buck. Thus violence to Native America was common, violence against other people of the colony was common. These second sons wanted to make money as quickly as possible and did not care how, thus slavery appeared to them. The chief problem with slavery is how do you keep a man (or woman) a slave, when the frontier was less then a week's walk away? (Escaped slaves forming "Maroon" colonies were a problem till the Civil War). The answer was simple, violence and even death if a slave even gave someone the impression he or she was thinking of running away. Whippings were common, including be whipped to death. The Slave owners even demanded that the Sheriff's of the Colony form "Sheriff's Patrols" to guard certain intersections for escaped slaves. Every free White male of the South had to do this Patrol at least once a month. When on Patrol, the members of the Patrol had the right to detain anyone who came by and even kill any African American (free or slave) if they thought is was "needed" (and if they did kill an African American, the county paid the owner of the slave the value of the slave, if the African American was a Freeman, he and his family was out of luck).

While the Puritans were the dominate church in New England and to the area later settled by New Englanders (Including Ontario and most of areas on both sides of the Great Lakes), the Church of England was the Church of the South, but then only as a state Church (more a place where someone went to make sure certain papers were signed and recorded and where you went if you were poor and needed welfare). In many ways, do to how the Church of England in the South was run prior to the Revolution, it was more Un-churched then the rest of the Country (in fact it was the Southern States that "Freed" the State Church by embracing Separation of Church and State right after the Revolution, less to do with wanting Church and State Separate, then to get out of paying welfare, which every state had but run via the State Church in Colonial America, Puritan Massachusetts did not separate its Church and State till 1837, through again it was a State cost cutting move, Cutting the State Budget by Cutting Welfare which was run through the Churches, but then claiming you doing it for Separation of State and Church).

Yes, religious leaders in the South Justified Slavery, but that was after such churches were "Freed" from the State and had to rely on donation from their members (and following the attitude the South had to the State, i.e. paying the least for State and Church Services).

As you can see, the South had less a sense of Community (Nothing, but business for the urban centers they did have, churches and other activities were given almost no support, unlike the North, where churches and other community activities became the center of most of the towns founded by New Englanders).

Now, the south did develop a habit of males having a lot of friends, most of whom were people who often were in the same Patrol Shifts. Thus upstaging each other in intimidation of Slaves became common, Worse, looking weak became something to fear. All of this lead to a high level of violence in the days before the Civil War.

Side note: Another factor was who became the poor whites of the North and South. In the North most people, both poor and rich, came from Southern England, at a time period where it was shifting to sheep from framing. Thus you had a pool of people use to having to wait for a crop to come in, and thus also felt comfortable waiting to file an action with a judge when someone did you harm. Comfortable having a judge and Jury hear the case and make a decision.

On the other hand, the South, tended to be settled from people of North England, the highlands of Scotland and Protestants from Ireland (We are talking 1700s here, some the Catholic Irish migrated to the US in the 1700s but the numbers were quite small, the big move by the Catholic Irish was after the famine of the 1830s). These populations, Northern England, Highlands of Scotland and from Protestant Ireland also tended to come from herding communities, with a long history of stealing other people's cattle and watching for such attempted thieving themselves. Given that cattle and be moved miles within days, it was customary for such herding communities NOT to wait for justice through a court system, but to stop the thieving as it was occurring. This tradition was brought with these groups to the American South and increase the level of Violence, a Level already high do to the need to keep the Slaves in line.

Now, after the Civil War, this tradition of violence did NOT go away, dueling died out, or more accurately, formal duels that were published in the papers as duels died out by the 1880s (most were died out during reconstruction, when bans on dueling were enforced), but people would still show up for fights when called out by someone else. A Study done in the 1990s showed that Rural White Southern Males were much more ready to fight in a given situation then were other white males from the same collage. This tendency was less seen in Urban areas, but mostly due to the influx of people from the North making such urban areas more North in attitude.

One of the comment about the 1960s was that the Murder rate in most Northern Cities started to exceed the National Murder Rate for the First time in history, even called it a huge urban crime rate. The problem was, a lot of Middle Class whites left the inner city, and took they low murder rate with them. African Americans from the South moved to those old urban areas and brought with them the High Southern Murder Rate (Just because African Americans had been the victim of such murder rates did not mean they did not absorb them when they lived in the south). This dual move, meant the South could maintain its high rural murder rate (Often higher then any inner city murder rate), but inner cities became known as murder centers, not the rural south

African Americans raised in the South appears to have absorb the Southern tendency to violence. Most such African Americans moved North in the 1940s and 1950s, by the 1960s most African Americans who were going to make that move, had done so and with it you saw a steady increase in urban violence.

Then, as that immigration ended and the children of the people who had moved north prior to 1960 came of age (and later their Grandchildren and great grand children) you saw a steady DECLINE in the urban and African American Murder rate. The reason was simple, bring in the north each generation slowly absorbed the dominant culture in their area, but that culture was that of the NORTH, not the South. Thus as you get more and more generation away from the Rural South, African American murder rates slowly drops.

My point here is the South is noted for its high crime rate, its high murder rate, and its refusal to pay for anything that can reduce it. Given a free choice the South will prefer to NOT to enforce any law, and leave people kill each other in the open street if the rest of the world would leave them (and it would NOT drive to many businesses away).

Thus the map shows the traditional split in the US, between the North and the South, Between New England (and its sister states directly south of the Great Lakes and California) and the American South and its sisters states (which include Southern California before LA boomed starting about 1900, thus LA, in many ways, still a Southern City, but has strong liberal tendencies due to the Movie Industry AND aerospace industry (Both like areas that are livable but have as little rain as possible, but still have something you can call grass in the front yard). LA is thus a confusing mixture of both cultures, something that happens in other places in the US, but not to the extend in an URBAN area as in LA.

Side note: New York City was tied in with the South from the Revolution to the Civil War, it is where the South went to get mortgages on its slaves so they can have money to buy more land and slaves. Thus New York City has strong Southern Ties. much like LA. The Middle States really starts with Philadelphia, to a limited degree New Jersey and Maryland. Works around Pittsburgh (Which, in many ways a New England, Middle and Southern City, but also its own given its coal and steel history). Then along the Ohio to Missouri, then it tends to mingle with New England's movement West. The South influences this Middle State movement, but it was balanced by New England movement. The overlapping becomes to extreme once you hit Denver and the Rockies and thus almost impossible to separate, but then the Rockies do NOT have the high murder rate of the South or New Mexico and Arizona. Just a comment on the overlap of these three movement west, and how they show up, over 150 years after most of the area I just mentioned was settled,