I'm not easily impressed

When I AM impressed, I'm full-bore pedal-to-the-metal impressed ....

There’s never been an America, but rather several Americas—each a distinct nation. There are eleven nations today. Each looks at violence, as well as everything else, in its own way. 

... as I am here, by this article in "Tufts Magazine" (Tuft University Fall 2013 .. dated, but still vital) by Colan Windard

Tufts Magazine / fall 2013:

If you understand the United States as a patchwork of separate nations, each with its own origins and prevailing values, you would hardly expect attitudes toward violence to be uniformly distributed. You would instead be prepared to discover that some parts of the country experience more violence, have a greater tolerance for violent solutions to conflict, and are more protective of the instruments of violence than other parts of the country. That is exactly what the data on violence reveal about the modern United States. 

the author has divided the Continental United States into several regions, which exhibit common sociological perspectives.

To these regional definitions, the author as suggested meme-like societal priorities (for want of a better word, which I'm sure will occur to me as soon as I hit "PUBLISH").

This is a research project which somewhat parallel's John Lott's research, as it derives data from the county level rather than obey "state line" research parameters:

 Most scholarly research on violence has collected data at the state level, rather than the county level (where the boundaries of the eleven nations are delineated). Still, the trends are clear. The same handful of nations show up again and again at the top and the bottom of state-level figures on deadly violence, capital punishment, and promotion of gun ownership.

Perhaps the most striking aspect of this report is that the author doesn't make an effort to stigmatize populations based on their Second Amendment stance.  Instead, he has some information to offer, and he offers it without a minimum of comment (other than to explain what we're looking at).

Oh, go read it all for yourself.