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 SETTLERSIt'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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