@b05df304 @bf963759 How can you claim causation when it does not seem to be anything more than correlation?  There was a lot else going on during those gun bans, after all.  You may be right, but it's not convincing. 

 @b05df304 Although the emancipation proclamation didn’t end slavery in the north, the 13th amendment was proposed shortly thereafter and ratified in 1865.  I am not much of a historian, but I suspect that Lincoln did not have the authority to end slavery universally without that amendment.  In any case Lincoln was a major force behind getting it ratified (it failed once).

On racism and bigotry. Although there is overlap, I think that as a concept bigotry is a broader concept than racism.  A racist is always a bigot, but not every bigot is a racist.  Despite the fact that people (in your example) are considering a group white trash rednecks, and this sounds racist since there is the word “white” in there, it seems more like bigotry to me.  I guess if you allow the concept of racism to include prejudice against any “other” group based on any thing whatsoever, then every such person is a racist.  I don’t happen to agree.  The result can be the same, but I don’t think the prejudice comes from the same place, and racism’s consequences are generally more persistent.

I understand the idea of southerners being dismissed,  I have personal stories in my own southern family about such prejudice, in particular with poor farmer kids being dismissed by the townies as stupid and ignorant.  I still don’t consider it racism.  They weren’t prejudiced against because of their whiteness or some other physical characteristic beyond their control, but because they looked and acted like poor farmer kids.   When he joined the military, the uniform and training erased all differences in background, and that effect lasted after the service.  The  blacks of the same era did not get the same benefit, after their military service they were still considered “other” because of their skin color. 

 @b05df304 Sikh culture, religion and philosophy has many admirable attributes. 

 @b05df304 I won't argue about the southern pride thing, I don't know, but that seems to have a ring of truth in it.  but is this statement reasonable?:

"No surprise, as usual the racists are the ones trying to pretend they are the heros vilifying the good ones."

Ignoring the use of the word racist for a second, I would argue that you are running up against the difference in education backgrounds between the north and south.  When I first moved to the south, I was shocked to hear that most considered the civil war to be about states rights.  I had not heard that before despite my father being from the deep south.  I still think it's a bit of a cop out, since they wanted the right to continue a vile tradition, but that is the education that southerners receive, so I have to accept that background.  

 On the word racist, this doesn't seem accurate, this is more of a bigotry thing. To be clear, northern bigotry against southern battle flag culture.  To me racism and bigotry are the same kind of human ignorance, but usually not the same sort of vile associations, so  more precision might not cause as many fits. 

 @b05df304 @300ec228 @5dc57639  It’s the twitchy or not well suited which is the problem.  All 2a purists seem to have their heads buried in the sand on this point. Don’t tell me the solid and trained will take of the twitchy one.  They might but only after a lot of damage has occurred.