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Kristallnacht

StopYourbull has issue with my linking the German disarmament of the Jews with Kristallnacht. Arguments copied from various other talk pages in order to gain consensus here.

General background for argument, backed by sources below.

• Announcement of diarmament made on Nov 8, 1938, the night before Kristallnacht.
• Announcement made with justification of disarmament being the killing of von Rath, the same justification used for the Kristallnacht pogroms
• Announcement made BY Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorf, who has been attributed as the general architect of the Ghetoos, and Pogroms against jews, and specifically as one of the ones directing the Kristallnact pogroms, and instructing the police/SA etc not to interfere.

One of the telegrams directing the events of Kristallnacht (and remember, this is immediately after the actual disarmament and announcement that the Jews would be disarmed to the public)

This FS must be lodged by the quickest route. first It will take place in a very short time in Germany actions against Jews, especially against their synagogues. You are not to interfere. However, in consultation with the Ordnungspolizei to ensure that looting and other special incidents can be prevented. second Provided that in synagogues important archive material, this shall be achieved through immediate action . third It is preparing the arrest of about 20-30000 Jews in the kingdom. It should be selected primarily wealthy Jews. Further arrangements were made ​​in the course of the night. 4th Are in the upcoming actions Jews in possession of weapons are found, the most severe measures must be carried out. To the overall actions taken are available troops of the SS and SS General Appropriate measures is the leadership of the actions by the State Police to ensure in any case. II Gestapo Mueller - FS This is secret

• contemporary NYT article, discussing a) The death of von Rath, early pogroms in Kassel (breaking of synagog and shop windows), and "simultanious announcement of disarming of the jews.
  • (paywall) http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9404EFDD1331E03ABC4153DFB7678383629EDE&scp=2&sq=Helldorf&st=p
  • (blacklisted site, but has a photocopy of above article) www dot freerepublic dot com/focus/f-chat/2128749/posts

• book on Kristallnacht, specifically using the NYT article, and discussing Kassel as one of the earlier reports of Kristallnacht Pogroms, and the disarmament. http://books.google.com/books?id=ZXm3Klg95s0C&pg=PA176&lpg=PA176&dq=NAZIS+ASK+REPRISAL+IN+ATTACK+ON+ENVOY+kristallnacht&source=bl&ots=9EoOB4nK3J&sig=Fi5lAlI78Vx3xemjB48CFZtzn74&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5uknUdWsCaWUiQLN6IGIDQ&ved=0CEYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=NAZIS%20ASK%20REPRISAL%20IN%20ATTACK%20ON%20ENVOY%20kristallnacht&f=false

• 3 contemporary german newspaper articles (again, all 3 on the actual day of Kristallnacht, announcing that the Jews were disarmed) (based on the wording below, plus the NYT wording, I'd say both were pretty much reprints of the actual announcement or press release) "waffen" is weapons. "Bewaffnete Juden" is "armed jews", "entwaffnet" is "disarmed". Judenwaffen is "Jew-weapons"
  • Razzia auf Judenwaffen, DER ANGRIFF, Nov. 9, 1938, at 14. 150.
  • Bewaffnete Juden, FRÄNKISCHE TAGESZEITUNG, Nov. 9, 1938, at 2. 151.
  • Berlins Juden wurden entwaffnet, BERLINER MORGENPOST, Nov. 9, 1938.
  • Translation excerpt of one of the articles
    • "In view of the Jewish assassination attempt in the German Embassy in Paris, Berlin’s Police President made known publicly the provisional results so far achieved, of a general disarming of Berlin’s Jews by the police, which has been carried out in recent weeks. The Police President, in order to maintain public security and order in the national capital, and prompted by a few individual incidents, felt compelled to disarm Berlin’s Jewish population"

An article from our sister DE wiki, making the connection as well. http://de.wikipedia.org/Entwaffnung_der_deutschen_Juden Gaijin42 (talk) 15:06, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Also this additional telegram directing the events of Kristallnacht All Jewish stores are destroyed immediately by SA men in uniform. After the destruction has raise a SA guard, has to ensure that any valuables are stolen. The press is to be used. Jewish synagogues are immediately on fire, Jewish symbols are secure. The fire department may not intervene. There are only protect homes Aryan German, however, the Jews out, because Aryans will move in the next few days there. The Fuhrer wishes that the police does not intervene. All Jews are disarmed. With resistance immediately shoot to the ground. Gaijin42 (talk) 15:35, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Gaijin42. What issue does Stopyourbull have from a policy perspective? There is a very clear historical connection and the fact that the German Wiki makes reference to it is also material. I don't think we should engage in revisionist histories here. Facts are facts, this is notable, rs, and relevant. He better have a fantastic and very objective reason to attempt to exclude. I'd like to read his thinking. -Justanonymous (talk) 15:41, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

We should also put this into historical perpective. There is a very longstanding history of tyrannies disarming societies. Plato and Aristotle made reference to this, In feudal Japan only Samurais could keep katana style weapons and it was punishable by death for anybody else to have them, In Mideival Europe only nobles, royals chartered knights and the king's armies could have swords and weapons like that legally, In recent there are all kinds of examples Khmer, Phillipines, Rhwanda etc. There is plenty of room for a very comprehensive view into all of this. It's real history and we should not try to make it opaque because it benefits one narrative that might be going on here. -Justanonymous (talk) 16:11, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

''I have a response. Please don't make any edits until I get a chance to reply.--StopYourBull (talk) 17:04, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

German sources, google translate does a decent job. Search for "entwaffnen" in german, or "disarm" in english.

• http://www.radiobremen.de/wissen/geschichte/reichspogromnacht104.html
• http://www.ashkenazhouse.org/kndefger.htm
• http://www.google.com/search?q=kristallnacht+entwaffen&oq=kristallnacht+entwaffen&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#q=kristallnacht+entwaffnen&hl=en&source=lnms&tbm=bks&sa=X&ei=l_4oUfSsO5KBqQHEqIHABA&ved=0CA8Q_AUoAg&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&bvm=bv.42768644,d.aWM&fp=b4c9caf1fbe8b1df&biw=1920&bih=889

Another NYT article, after Kristallnacht. See page 52, One of the first legal measures issued was an order by Heinrich Himmler, commander of all German police, forbidding Jews to possess any weapons whatever and imposing a penalty of twenty years confinement in a concentration camp upon every Jew found in possession of a weapon hereafter http://books.google.com/books?id=4LnoQgC4GKQC&pg=PA50&lpg=PA50&dq=%22Nazis+Smash,+Loot+and+Burn+Jewish+Shops+and+Temples&source=bl&ots=EqNgMo7Ryb&sig=FkSpRQIjoY8Ob3Q5rqfSbvU4Zn4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ywApUY3eMYTLrQGAioGYAw&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22first%20legal%20measures%20issued%20%22&f=false

My first concern is that this relies on innuendo implying that gun confiscation was a cause or precursor to the holocaust. This is wrong: gun ownership was just another right that the Nazis stripped from the Jews. At the same time, the Nazis were also expelling foreign Jews from Germany (at least) and moving Jews into ghettos to provide more and better housing for Aryans (as they professed). Hitler finally determined that he needed a better "solution" for the "Jewish problem" and the horror that was the final solution was unleashed.

Gun control has almost nothing to do with this, and, as I said in one edit, the allies were as guilty of confiscating weapons and running concentration camps during WWII as anyone. Japanese citizens on the west coasts of both the US and Canada were stripped of their possessions and livelihood, and forced to live in camps. In New York City, German and Italian Americans had their weapons--including knives and baseball bats--taken away.

In this section of the article, the British have also been labelled as "totalitarian," but the rebels could just as easily be labelled such, given their treatment of Loyalists during and following the American Revolution. This included banishment, forfeiture of property to local rebel politicos, and seizure of guns if the citizen would not pledge allegiance to the cause. It has even been convincingly argued that the Second Amendment to the US Constitution was only ratified after Patrick Henry made sure that it read such that militias were under state control, thus ensuring that state militias could operate to enforce slavery and not be fettered by any federal control.

I do not like to believe that the Allies, the British, or the US rebels were "tyrants," but their actions were the same as the Nazis as they pertain to gun confiscation.What makes the Nazis tyrants was the Holocaust and, as Abraham Foxman states, it was their genocide machine. Arms confiscation is just another tool of war, or maintaining an ordered state--right or wrong--that, as JustAnonymous points out, has always occurred and been practiced by all involved. Ignoring this is just making a value judgement that "we" are somehow better than "they."

-

My second concern--and it is a big one--is that this entire section equates gun confiscation with gun control. This is wrong. If I was hard nosed about this, I would want to remove the entire section for this reason. It is a spurious argument against gun control that runs to extremes and involves a lot of arm waving about the "thin edge of the wedge," "the "slippery slope," or other such unprovables. The article is about gun control and not gun confiscation. A true and fair discussion of gun control would not include a section devoted entirely to gun confiscation, while mislabelling it, and conflating it with gun control. Every modern nation has gun control to some degree. The Japanese may be all alone in outlawing guns, but it works for them in their small land and within the peculiarities of their culture. The argument here is whether more gun control leads to a more or less safe and healthy society, not whether gun confiscation leads to tyranny or is a hallmark of tyranny. To put it bluntly: this is just bollocks.

Being a reasonable man, I am content with leaving it in as long as it doesn't become too much of a vehicle for pushing POV, and at some point, we should make a statement about it dealing with gun confiscation only. If you want to add more of the "Nazis were into gun control" line of reasoning, then to balance it I would have to add all of the stuff about the Allies and the US Patriots, etc., with the appropriate references, of course.

I do believe we are making headway in retrieving this article from the POV pushing swamp it was mired in six months ago. The work of Michaplot particularly, in organizing and making sense of the first section "Impact on mortality and injury," in a very fair and balanced way, deserves note.

On a different but associated topic, I assume that you, (Gaijin), JustAnonymous, Miguel Escopeta, North8000, and Yaf (ret) are members of the Firearms project. I would like to get together to discuss all of the articles dealing with firearms politics and the seeming dysfunctional redundancy that exists. In short, a look at these articles shows that they most certainly can be combined into fewer but better articles, they can be more readily managed if some of them are merged, and that they shouldn't just be a means to divide, separate, and devolve into an alternate way to push your POV when another article deals with the same topic in a more balanced fashion. Please consider this and reply.

While I am here, Gaijin, I'm not sure about what you have added to the von Helldorf page, as he was head of police in Berlin and the NYT article deals with Kristallnacht occurring in Kassel which is about 400 km to the west. Should we point this out?----StopYourBull (talk) 20:56, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

To me the article of Gun control is about just that. It's not a health article or an article of whether less guns equate to less violence. It's quite simply an article about the entire spectrum on the practice of Gun control. Confiscation can be a part of gun control at one extreme, it all depends on what degree of control is desired by a government or population. A tyrant wants complete control of all weapons and as such might make "laws" outlawing guns and "laws" requiring confiscation. THat's the far end of the spectrum spectrum. On the other end, as soon as a society attempts to put any restraint on any firearm, it's engaged in gun control even if the restraint is trivial and from there the spectrum progresses to absolute illegality. Some societies might be quite peacable without guns while others might descend into anarchy without guns - the converse might be true of other societies. In a Misplaced Pages article we must describe the practice of gun control, not what the democrats might envision it or how republicans might envision it or how the Swiss see it. We must describe the entire spectrum of gun control from the first law that limits society from having cannons to the extreme where gun confiscations are a part of outlawing guns entirely. Crime, propensity for authoritarianism etc can all be byproducts. I'm very happy to talk about how to rationalize our articles to make it better. -Justanonymous (talk) 21:21, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

• I agree that there is too much redundancy in the firearms project articles and that some can be combined.
• Nobody is arguing that gun confiscation was the primary driver or method or cause of the Holocaust. But you seem to be trying to deny that it was used in a tool of that effort at all. Frankly with the sources provided, I think this is beyond questioning that it was A specifically identified and implemented tool that the Nazi's used in order to make the holocaust easier to accomplish.
  • Yes the Jews eventually had all of their possessions stripped of them, as did the Japanese intern camps etc. But We have several primary sources, specifically saying that the guns should be confiscated as an individual item. laws being passed, commentary by the Nazis that the gun confiscation was helping their cause, primary sources from Jews saying that their arms were stripped so they could not defend themselves, German citizens saying that they were specifically told the Jews were disarmed, as well as reliable secondary sources (both contemporary and modern) commenting on this. It is not like they took everything without special notice to the guns, and we are calling it out here.
  • A notable occurrence of the above is specifically associated with Kristallnacht, by MANY of reliable sources.
• Regarding the helldorf article, You seem to be arguing that the article from the NYT, which directly quotes and mentions Helldorf confiscating guns, on Kristallnacht, mentioning the pogroms in response to the assassination which "justified" Kristallnacht, is not sufficient sourcing, and to do so would be WP:SYNTH. Kassel is mentioned in the article. Are you trying to argue that Kristalnacht only occured in Kassel and not in Berlin? this baffles me. Also, please see the SECOND NYT article, also directly mentioning the gun confiscation, in the context of the mass riots Germany wide. I will escalate this to RS/N etc if you insist.
• Gun confiscation/prohibition is a subset of gun control. Discussing one end of the spectrum seems perfectly appropriate? Nobody here (in the article edits) is equating the current gun control efforts (which btw DO include confiscation) to these historical events. That such events can be used by one side or the other in their arguments is irrelevant to us. It is verifiable. It is notable. It is on topic. If you wish to clarify in the article that the section is discussing the more extensive side of gun control, that is fine. Gaijin42 (talk) 22:23, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Thank you both for your replies, and, because I have an engagement tonight, I will reply to you on Sunday. Have a good evening--StopYourBull (talk) 22:50, 23 February 2013 (UTC)

Gun confiscation by the Nazis is a red herring, as far as it concerns gun control. Arms confiscation is standard operating procedure during times of war and has been practiced by all, and not just the ones that have shown themselves to be tyrannical or authoritarian. It is not a defining characteristic of Nazi tyranny, as "our side" did it as well. What defines the Nazi's tyranny was their genocide machine, as Foxman states. The elemental mechanics of the Holocaust, unfortunately, are probably the same as any military logistics during war. It is the extremes the Nazis carried it to in terms of violence, the degradation of human life, and the criminal adherence to an abominable mindset that are the definition of Nazi tyranny.

I agree that gun confiscation is the extreme of the spectrum for gun control, but, with the exception of Japan and as a measure of war, complete confiscation of guns from a group of people does not occur, to my knowledge. The question for this article, then, is why would so much space be taken up with this rarity, twisting and turning and trying to link "gun control" to the great horrors of the 20th century when in fact it is not a specific defining characteristic of these horrors? Halbrook seems to be the progenitor of this particular line of thinking about gun control, and even he has backed away from this approach (he declared he was writing a book on it but it is ten years later and he hasn't). I also note that many gun afficianado web sites (to their credit) take pains to state that the fake 1935 Hitler quotation is in fact fake.

As I stated earlier, I am content with leaving this section as it is, for now, including von Helldorf's statement, but pushing gun control onto other, more specific, Nazi actions, such as Kristallnacht, is just starting the inevitable spiral to balance it. That Kristallnacht in Kassel occurred at the same time as von Heldorf announcing he had disarmed Jews in Berlin is not not the same as an announcement that Jews in Kassel had been disarmed and then Kristallnacht occurred in Kassel. Leaving the WP reader with any implied linkage is wrong. The section should include some kind of statement about this being the extreme of gun control. I would prefer to see this section give a fairer treatment of confiscation with a discussion of how it is used during wars, rebellions, and uprisings, both good and bad, and that it is, in fact, rare to have complete banning of guns as a national law.

As far as violations of WP policy or guidelines are concerned, I would believe that the entire section leans toward WP:NPOV and WP:SOAP and easily strays off course, or is already off course, in invoking Nazis and what was Soviet Russia. I tend to see WP as an actual encyclopaedia and, as our teachers told us early on, you go to the encyclopaedia first, get an idea of what the topic is about, what the main concepts and arguments are, and then to go to more specific references to get in-depth information about the topic. If I was a student in Portugal (an amazing number of Portugese people are fluent in English) and I looked up Gun control in English WP, I think I would be put off by this section, to say the least. It has been given far too much weight, it invokes Nazis, and it stretches to make idiosyncratic connections with authoritarian regimes that are also present in regimes traditionally viewed as not being authoritarian. At the very least, everyone fluent in "Internet" is probably well aware of Godwin's Law, and this is a prime example.

In summary, as far as I am concerned, we can leave von Heldorf's announcement in, not include Kristallnacht or any other specific Nazi atrocities here, and make some statement about this being an extreme of gun control and how it is usually used. Eventually I would like to see this as having the title corrected and with a fairer discussion of extremes of gun control (without the Nazi references).

For the von Helldorf Article, Gaijin, I would like that it be explained that yes, von Heldorf's announcement and the Kristallnacht occurrence at Kassel occurred at the same time, but that that does not imply that guns were confiscated at Kassel before Kristallnacht took place there (they may have been, but for that there is no proof). I leave it at that.

For discussion of the redundancy in Firearms articles, I will try to ask specific people I am aware of who are interested in improving these articles (notably the people I mentioned earlier) and start the ball rolling. I'm not much of an authority on Firearms, per se, but I can certainly be the spoiler and provide input.--StopYourBull (talk) 21:20, 24 February 2013 (UTC)

Arbitrary break for ease of editing

Lets set aside the larger "authoritarians/nazis" issue, and just focus on the specific edits. Specifically, Kristallnacht, the von Helldorf article etc. Kassel is irrelevant. The ENTIRE ARTICLE is about Kristallnacht. That they chose to mention some events that happened in Kassel says nothing about what happened elsewhere. Are you sayingthat Kristalnacht took place in not in Berlin , but only Kassel? Do you think it took place on a time other than Nov 8-11, 1938? I don't think so. the entire article is discussing what is happening as a result of the killing of von Rath which is UNIVERSALLY acknowledged as the starting point of Kristallnacht.

I will leave aside completely the argument over if gun confiscation was an overall method of the Holocaust. The sources below offer irrefutable proof (at least to the standard required by WP:V, WP:N etc) that gun control WAS a specifically identified and implemented part of the Kristallnacht pogroms.

• There are two contemporary NYT aticles about Kristallnacht (one from the 8th, one from the 10th). Neither of them use the word "Kristallnacht". This is not surprising, as the moniker was not created until later. Both of them specifically mention gun confiscation.
• We have two telegrams from Nazi officials directing the actions of Kristallnacht. Both of them specifically mention that thew Jews were disarmed.
• Goebbels Diary, on Nov 10th :(google translation) "Helldorff can completely disarm the Jews in Berlin . Which will also still can be prepared for lots of other stuff"
• Several books (all discussing the Holocaust, none written from a gun control/gun rights perspective)
  • here (page 38) is a book on Kristallnacht, specifically discussing the disarming of the Jews prior to the events (and using the NYT articles as primary sources).
  • here is another (page 11).
  • a third
• German books regarding the holocaust and Kristallnacht
  • "Die Juden ganzlich entwaffnen" "The jews have been completey disarmed" (using the telegram mentioned above as a source) http://www.oldenbourg-verlag.de/wissenschaftsverlag/weg-den-krieg-193839/9783486705133 or http://books.google.com/books?

id=FFOY_HOgA6cC&pg=PA359&dq=helldorf+entwaffnen&hl=en&sa=X&ei=74grUZWnOuyQyQHzvoHwBQ&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=helldorf%20entwaffnen&f=false

• • Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der europäischen Juden durch das nationalsozialistische Deutschland 1933–1945, Page 366

Gaijin42 (talk) 16:13, 25 February 2013 (UTC)

Hi, Gaijin. I am taking your arguments very seriously and I have not yet had a chance to look at them. I will respond later today or tomorrow.--StopYourBull (talk) 18:07, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Kristallnacht is important for what was done to the Jews living in Germany, Austria, and parts of the Suedetenland during the second week of November, 1938; the methods the Nazis used to enable it were not, other than for the retelling of the entire Kristallnacht story. Gun confiscation took place co-incident with Kristallnacht; it was not part of Kristallnacht. The Nazis simply made it easier for Kristallnacht to take place by formally having the SA/SS protect non-Jewish citizens, looking the other way while the "unofficially" sanctioned events happened, and in some cases by removing guns from the Jews, either to stop them shooting the perpetrators or to allow the Nazis access to the Jews' homes.

You are confusing the outcome with the methods used. I think the only significance of the removal of the Jews' guns was that it signalled further measures against them were to begin and that it was just another in a litany of common martial law measures taken against the Jews by the Nazis. Gun confiscation is a universal tool of war. It is not peculiar to the Nazis, Kristallnacht, or any of the horrors of the Holocaust. It is a tool, as are concentration camps, bombardment, removal of officials from office and installation of your own puppet regime, and all the other methods of war and martial law.

Prior to the vom Rath slaying, and Kristallnacht, the Nazis did the following, formally, as early as 1933:

• Jewish children were expelled from German schools
• "foreign" Jews were forced out of Germany
• Jewish businesses/factories were seized and nationalized
• Jews were barred from most public places
• Jews were given curfew restrictions
• Jews were forced to wear badges with the Star of David for identification
• ghettos began

I fail completely to understand the big deal about gun confiscation during war. It is no more peculiar to Kristallnacht than it is to the indignities done to, and violations of the rights of, Japanese people in North America during WWII. Kristallnacht would have occurred regardless of the seizure of any weapons the Jews may have had and probably occurred in places where guns had not yet been confiscated from the Jewish population--which may have been the case in Kassel, the earliest reported incidence of "Kristallnacht." Gun confiscation simply made the management of the "Jewish problem" easier for the Nazis and gave them an excuse for entry into the homes of the Jewish people.

As an argument against gun control, this is grasping at straws:

• It is not peculiar to the Nazis; the Allies also did it.
• It was neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for Nazi atrocities.
• Much of the opinion on the Jews being able to counteract the Nazi genocide machine states that gun confiscation is a non-issue as there were so few Jews living in Nazi occupied areas then and--as the one reference you cite states:

"A considerable number of Jewish homes in Germany did indeed contain weapons, but these were overwhelmingly daggers, sabers, and pistols that Jewish men had kept as mementos from their military service in World War One. The notion that Jews needed to be disarmed because they constituted some sort of physical threat was preposterous. It fit well, however, with the antisemitic narrative that German propaganda had constructed to explain the vom Rath shooting. It would also serve a practical purpose during the pogrom on November 9 and 10, when Jewish homes were not infrequently broken into and ransacked on the pretext of a search for illegal weapons."

• Many opponents of gun control believe in the adage "guns don't kill people; people kill people," and all that it entails. The argument that the Nazis practiced gun control to subjugate Jews (for example) by not allowing them to fight back, is just blatant hypocrisy. Think about it.

You are correct: proof does exist that gun confiscation was part of the Nazis method at the time of Kristallnacht. Halbrook tried to make an issue of this ten years ago as an argument against gun control. It does satisfy WP:V, with the caveat that it is virtually meaningless for gun control from what the published work on it says, and that it may have just been a ruse to portray the Jews as dangerous and that they should have further actions taken against them. WP:N, from my understanding, doesn't really apply here.

For the entire section, I would still think that both WP:SOAP and WP:NPOV are violated. Why make it worse by adding details that would require balance? To balance out this section, it should be explained that gun confiscation is a reality of war and martial law and that everyone does it, regardless of whether they have been labelled as authoritarian or not.

The point of editing this article on Gun control is to ensure that it is accurate and balanced. The section, as it is, is precariously balanced but not really suitable to an article on gun control. Adding more details to it will just waste more space.

I do appreciate the scholarship you have put into this and I think it may be of use in the actual Kristallnacht article. The addition of a section with as many details as possible documenting what the Nazis did to prepare for, or used as an excuse for, Kristallnacht is probably very cogent there. Including mention of Kristallnacht on the von Helldorf page I will leave up to you and mind my own business.--StopYourBull (talk) 00:05, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Statistics

In the section regarding Australian gun laws, it extensively cites statistics, most of which suggest that gun crime in Australia has gone down (and a few of which suggest that gun crime rates haven't changed). The problem with these statistics, though, is that they're overly-specific; if guns are illegal, one would expect gun crime to go down. The statistics which actually matter are general murder rates, which aren't cited once; there's no good in cutting down on gun murders if knife murders rise.

tl;dr, please cite general crime statistics, rather than statistics aimed specifically at gun crime; it should go wihtout saying that making guns illegal cuts down on gun use (barring poor enforcement) 143.92.1.33 (talk) 01:53, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

I don't follow the reasoning in the assertion that if guns are illegal, one would expect gun crime to go down. Why would that be? Would it be because one expects criminals to obey laws restricting firearms possession? Does that expectation go without saying? Also, it seems appropriate to me to cite statistics on gun crime in an article the topic of which is gun control.

Re general Australian crime stats -- I haven't looked these over with an eye to how they might contribute usefully to this article, but you might take a look at items turned up here. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 02:36, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

The broader point is that gun control has ramifications on crime and the ramifications are not consistent across all societies. Gun control in Australia has led to an explosion in thefts, burglaries, home invasions, assault while in Japan gun control is generally just a part of orderly society - what does this say about the underlying culture? In Great Britain when guns started to be removed from society knife crime shot up as did home invasions, now politicians are actually debating outlawing "pointy" knives - go figure. And the debate has gone further down the road to where the right of self defense is largely in question in Great Britain - killing someone that presents you with mortal danger can and does land you in jail - case 1, case 2. Gun control alters society. Worse, because in some cases gun control is attempting to address an underlying issue like crime and violence but, by controlling guns you might just shift the problem to knifes and then you limit pointy knives and the problem shifts again. Similarly gun control can be used by tyrannical governments to disarm the population - quite common historically yet we argue here (incredulously) whether that's relevant here --- YES, OF COURSE IT'S RELEVANT (and yes many of those societies descended into war - just because they did doesn't mean they didn't practice gun control). The British tried to practice gun control on the colonies and IT DID lead to war and REVOLUTION. The point, no pun intended, is that gun control efforts have consequences and those consequences should be noted here and those consequences are not homogenous across all societies on the planet. The article is already Western European pro-gun control enough as it is and I don't know how many British and Australian writers we have here but there seems to be a concerted effort to misrepresent and lower crime statistics for Australia and Great Britain and to cast America a some kind of lawless murder hotspot - which it most certainly is not. We should also note that looking at gun violence as a disease and a societal health is notably a British idea exported to Australia and to a less successful extent to the United States. This article desperately needs balance. And yes, if you take firearms from a society you will by default lower firearm crime - it's moronic to think otherwise, unless you only remove firearms from the law abiding but that would indicate an enforcement issue no? Look at Mexico with a complete gun ban on the lawful and a government unable to disarm the drug cartels with gigantic implications to a society. I highly urge the group to get rid of the agendas that are so very evidently present here. Write a good balanced NPOV article that describes gun control and stop trying to push your agenda. Basically, if you're a layperson, you should really stay away from this topic. If you're proAustralia, proBritain, proUSA you should just stay away. If you have an agenda you should stay away from this topic. What this topic needs is a few really good PHD sociologists who actually know what the heck they are writing about. Or at a very minimum, the writers need to be referencing some hard research by sociologists. This is a highly nuanced article and the way it is written at the moment with the competing superfluous viewpoints really reads parochial. We also need a world view and a long historical view on this, we seem to be almost exclusively focused on the US, Australia, Britain and a few European countries and then only for today and in the very recent past - that is now what a gun control articls should be about and it's not a WP:Battleground for pet agendas. No disrespect, we have a lot of work left here.-Justanonymous (talk) 15:45, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Ok I don't understand why we have a bunch of statistics on USA' gun ownership in a global article that is here to describe gun control. How does this help us describe gun control as a concept? Seems like people making some pet argument. Advise or we might delete the whole section. -Justanonymous (talk) 21:05, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Impact on Mortality and Injury - contentious text removed and pasted here for consensus

Sorry guys, this just doesn't make sense and some of it is untruthful. Facts are that:

• some countries have far worse gun crime than the United States, so it's untruthful statement
• this is not about the United States, this article is about the world, leading with the US is nonsensical
• it's filled with weasle wording that sounds to me like "Yet despite all of these horrific facts there is still disagreement by idiots out there" - it's biased sorry.
• it's questionable whether this is a matter of "public health" - that is concept that comes straight from the UK. If you want a section on the "public health" argument then we need to describe it in an NPOV manner vs trying to make the argument for gun control in the article.
• tag has been here since 2010 saying this section is to US / western centric.

There is general agreement that gun violence is a serious public health and economic concern, especially in the United States, where an average of 32,300 people die and approximately 69,000 injuries occur per year due to guns, at a estimated annual cost of $100 billion. Yet, society remains deeply divided over whether more restrictive gun control policies would save lives and prevent injuries. Scholars agree the rate of gun violence in the United States is disproportionately high relative to other wealthy countries and a 2005 analysis suggested that the United States' low life expectancy (relative to other wealthy countries) may be attributable to guns, with a reduction in average American lifespan of 104 days. Nevertheless, strong disagreement remains among academics on the question of whether a causal relationship between gun availability and violence exists, and which, if any, gun controls would effectively stem the violence.

Let's get some consensus on stuff like this before adding this to a world article. The banner saying this is to US centric has been there since 2010 and nobody has done anything about it so I'm doing something about it. Help appreciated let's keep it NPOV. In my mind, The article is not here to make an argument for or against gun control but merely to describe gun control. I'm entirely unsold on whether the article should be organized as such with a bunch of arguments for or against. This article is merely to describe gun control vs attempting to sway the reader with arguments.-Justanonymous (talk) 21:01, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

What changes would you like to see to this passage? What would make it more NPOV? The article is US-centric, throughout, as a lot of research had been done on gun control in the past in the US. What could we add from the rest of the world. The one article is a comparison of wealthier nations around the world, including the US. The passage as it stands is well sourced. We could start by tweaking the wording.--StopYourBull (talk) 00:04, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

I wrote a detailed description in the introduction to this section. "agreement" does not seem to be in the literature of references provided. The article section talks about this bing a problem "especially in the United States" which is factually incorrect, Mexico, Brazil, Subsaharan Africa have far worse problems and it might especially be a problem in the Congo or Colombia but not int he United States. We can't lie in the encyclopedia even by consensus. Nonfactual relativistic information and pov pushing should be removed immediately. Aside from that I think we've gone down the wrong path with this article - this is not a place to pump our particular arguments for gun control, this is an article to describe gun control contextually throughout history and on a worldwide scale not a pet project on US vs Australian vs UK gun control in the early 2000s which is what this reads like. Very POV laden.-Justanonymous (talk) 13:57, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Rewriting this Article

Esteemed editors, I recommend we rewrite this article almost entirely for the following reasons:

• It doesn't describe the practice of gun control as a concept
• It doesn't describe the history and origins of gun control correctly (some US and Australia junk only, not real work)
• In its current format it encourages people to just come and fight (the arguments section is just a virtual WP:Battleground] invitation)

Sadly this article has become a place to:

• argue for or against gun control in the US, UK, Australia
• try to determine what practice between US, UK, Australia is better
• as a place to say that gun crime is horrific and a health concern and as a place to say that gun control can lead to the holocaust
• as a general dumping ground and spillover on the ongoing gun control fights going on in the US
• the argument section are just a poor attempt to segregate the fighting on the topics. It's self serving and doesn't contribute to the article.

TO me that's just not right. I'm sorry. Misplaced Pages deserves better. We need a short beefy article that describes gun control which at one extreme bans firearms entirely from the population and at the other extreme where you have existent limits on gun ownership with might be trivial. That's the spectrum. We shouldn't be dumping a bunch of arguments in here trying to sway the reader. That's not what Misplaced Pages is here for. We shouldn't be dumping irrelevant statistics on the US or UK here, that's not what this article is about. We need to take a worldview with this and it needs to describe the concept - no more no less. Let's discuss on here but to me the article has way too much garbage, it's poorly organized, and it's POV laden and filled with weasle words and out of date tags which just shows nobody is really working to fix. Let's discuss.-Justanonymous (talk) 21:33, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Lots of concerns. Why do you think Gun Control is a "concept" and not simply "any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of guns or other firearms by private citizens among others?" What history do you wish to downplay, or cherry pick? Shouldn't all relevant history be given equal coverage, in proportion to what is found in cited references? Contention has been fairly low on this article for some time, at least until mid-December 2012, with Sandy Hook. Why shouldn't gun control "fights", as you call them, in the US not be covered? A "short beefy article" that only covers what you feel should be here is just not the way Misplaced Pages works. Statistics are clearly necessary for understanding the details, rather than simply writing a "short beefy article" that only has emotional content, which appears to be what you are advocating. All that said, can this article be improved? Absolutely! But, we shouldn't throw out the present content, that contains statistics necessary to accomplish the goal of improving this article. My $0.02. Miguel Escopeta (talk) 22:08, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Plato wrote, "As of oligarchy so of tyranny, the end is wealth; for by wealth only can the tyrant maintain either his guard or his luxury. Both mistrust the people, and therefore deprive them of their arms." he also wrote, "In a constitutional government the fighting-men have the supreme power, and those who possess arms are the citizens." That was 2,500 years ago and he wasn't talking about firearms or guns. He was talking about weapons. Gun control is the modern (since 1600s or so) extension of a broader concept of arms control which dates back since humanity first arose into sentiency and probably from just before (no RS on that) but we can go back to the earliest written words like those from Plato, Chinese thought, and Japanese thought and we find that concept. Arms control was there and it progressed through Roman times, the middle ages, Rennaissance, American Revolution, French Revolution, modernity. There is quite a history that this is a concept - the concept of denying or restricting the populous from being armed. Regarding your broader point, we can most certainly cover the US, it's just that the article is not about gun control in the United States. We can start that article if we want or add to it here. This article is about gun control as the concept, not about the petty bickering going on right now. This is an encyclopedia. Similarly since this article is not about the US, we shouldn't just have US statistics particularly those that are factually incorrect.-Justanonymous (talk) 22:22, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

And, similarly, there is the concept of Sell your cloak and buy a sword, an instruction by Jesus to his disciples which has been interpreted in several ways. At the Last Supper Jesus says: “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” Luke 22:36, NIV. Some, such as S. G. F. Brandon point to Luke 22:36 as a justification for either self-defence or righteous violence, which is the classic counter to the Roman (and earlier Greek) belief(s) in arms control. The founders in America clearly also believed in this right to self defense and righteous violence, as well. Ignoring the God-given right to self defense is a classic approach to arms control being the antithesis to the concept of righteous arms. We should include both viewpoints in this article, rather than simply covering the secular side, as you seemingly advocate giving preference and sole emphasis and shrift to Plato, Aristotle, Alexander the Great, et. al., and to 17th-19th Japanese samurai up to about 1867. Restricting this article to just the secular coverage approach, as you advocate, would not be neutral, either. Miguel Escopeta (talk) 22:44, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Let's just be clear, this is an article on gun control not on self defense which is what the Luke reference is alluding to - that the road is dangerous and you have an inalienable right to defend yourself (why shouldn't you?). Also, let us not confuse a theological work, the bible, with nonfiction historical works on ancient greek philosophy. But you get my point, there is a history here to the concept and that's what this encyclopedic article should describe. Not the minutiae of Australian and US current gun control issues.-Justanonymous (talk) 22:57, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Your implication that the Bible is a work of fiction is extremely offensive. You really need to consider the viewpoints of others, rather than belittle everyone that disagrees with your secular world view. Remember, the goal to writing a good article on Misplaced Pages is consensus. Insulting other editors is not the way to encourage collaboration, which is always needed to reach consensus. The presumption you make, of ignoring any God-given rights to self defense and presenting only secular arguments against guns, with a presumption that "gun control is always wonderful", is showing badly. Miguel Escopeta (talk) 23:06, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

I didn't imply anything, your reading comprehension and bias is clouding your reading comprehension. I correctly labeled it a work of theology and out of context since this article is about gun control not self defense. Shall we discuss improvements to the article? -Justanonymous (talk) 23:14, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Then, why use the phrase "nonfiction historical works on ancient greek philosophy", when you could just as easily have stated "historical works on ancient greek philosophy", unless you were specifically attempting to draw an offensive comparison. No, your message is and was clear, and it is extremely offensive. Miguel Escopeta (talk) 23:18, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

It's a talk page, stream of consciousness no disrespect intended. Shall we discuss improvements to this article?-Justanonymous (talk) 23:24, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Are we discussing the "offending passage" or afd here? JustAnonymous, I am asking you to return the passage to the article so that other editors can view it in context, before we discuss "whatever." I think it has been there for a month or so. WP:BRD says this:

"BRD is not a valid excuse for reverting good-faith efforts to improve a page simply because you don't like the changes. Don't invoke BRD as your reason for reverting someone else's work or for edit warring: instead, provide a reason that is based on policies, guidelines, or common sense."--StopYourBull (talk) 23:10, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

It's back in, go to the section above and discuss that entry there.-Justanonymous (talk) 23:13, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. I'll see you there shortly. To add my bit here, I think what you and Miguel Escopeta are discussing may fit with some changes to The Right to keep and bear arms article.Have some though about that.--StopYourBull (talk) 23:17, 1 March 2013 (UTC)

Severe wording problems

Even after a few minutes I've spotted a few very creative wording problems.

The first is nameing everything where a firearm was involves as caused by the firearm. That's like saying that drunk driving deaths "caused" by automobiles.

Second is the deception in the US numbers. In the US, the vast majority of firearm deaths are by suicide. Efforts abound to make those sound like something else. For example calling a suicide "killed by a family member" because a person is technically a family member of themselves, or "victims of gun violence" because technically whatever you do to yourself could be called "violence". This article does the latter, by following an unexplained listing of total US firearm deaths by a reference to deaths by "gun violence". North8000 (talk) 01:50, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Hi, North8000. Can you quote specific instances, please. I think that the original data tend to be named that way. For example, it would be "automobile deaths, drugs or alcohol involved." I'm pretty sure that the sources discuss deaths by gunshot wound as "firearm deaths," or "gun violence." This is certainly the case in the press, at the very least.--StopYourBull (talk) 02:13, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Regarding the first item, "involved" is fine, but the instance of "caused by" in the article is not. North8000 (talk) 02:24, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

An example of the second item is where "where an average of 32,300 people die" is both preceded and proceeded by the term "gun violence" North8000 (talk) 02:26, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Would you rather have it as "death due to/injury due to gunshot wound?" For the your second example, would it be better as:

High rates of gunshot wound mortality and injury are often cited as a primary impetus for gun control policies. There is general agreement that gunshot wound deaths and injuries are a serious public health and economic concern, especially in the United States, where an average of 32,300 people die and approximately 69,000 injuries occur per year due to gunshot wounds,

I would have to stare at that to figure out if it wasn't just an odd form of political correctness. Anyone else?--StopYourBull (talk) 02:47, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

it's a not a factual statement, it's a lie. " There is general agreement that gunshot wound deaths and injuries are a serious public health and economic concern, especially in the United States,". No, not especially in the United States, it's a far greater problem in Mexico, Brazil, an subsaharan Africa. The US is tame by comparison. We can't lie in Misplaced Pages even by consensus guys, yet his ludicrous statement is here. Can we at least take out the outright lies?Justanonymous (talk) 05:45, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

also where exactly is the agreement? Not in. Sources provided. -Justanonymous (talk) 05:47, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Well, I think that dialing back the most obvious wording problems as proposed is a good first step. But the result should not carry the imprimatur of being a finalization of the wording. North8000 (talk) 14:03, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

agree, it'll never be final. We should first make sure the comments are factual, then we should try to remove the bias at a minimum and get the basic english down. There are huge issues here. We also have some international editors on here and the multilanguage things is adding a lot of complexity to the sentences and it's frankly really messing up the nuance of the meaning in some complex sentences. That's part of the issue. Finally we have editing where the author assumes the reader knows something. The glaring example is the "especially in the United States" Miguel Escopeta writes in his talk that it's especially a problem because the US has a second amendment -- that context that the author is trying to make is not present in the sentence in question, it's a crime statistics sentence. The reader can't make the leap from "especially in the United States" to the because of the "second amendment" when the sentence is about statistics - the reader is logically going to assume that it's "especially a problem in the United States" because of the high number of deaths cited, only the numbers are not high when compared to Mexico, Brazil subsaharan africa and a bunch of other places. We have huge writing issues here. -Justanonymous (talk) 14:26, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

I think that you and Miguel Escopeta may be in agreement at the "big picture" level but may not realize that. North8000 (talk) 14:53, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

I 100% agree with your analysis. I came to realize some of that on his talk.-Justanonymous (talk) 15:00, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

This article is about gun control, not the philosophical underpinnings of self defence or the right to bear arms. I think that the article Right to keep and bear arms may be a better place to deal with that, and I would be perfectly happy to assist in promoting that effort. This article does, and should deal with, gun control in the modern world, with all the current realities that that includes. Twisting and turning to avoid these realities either by ignoring them or by couching them in gentle, politically correct language, is not dealing with the topic at hand.

The actual fact--from the cited documents--is that, among nations that are of the highest economic standing, the United States is a glaring anomaly in that the rate of deaths and injuries attributed to gunshot are vastly more than the other countries of equivalent economic standing, and even outpace most third world statistics. Every year, a city the size of Ann Arbor, Michigan (e.g.) is either killed, maimed, or crippled due to gunshot wounds in the US. The rest of the world wants to know what it is about firearms, especially gun control, in the US that produces this anomaly. I would think, also, that there is now probably a majority of Americans who are also wondering why this is the case.

I have little problem with the current wording of this article, although I do find some of the content superfluous to an article on gun control. It can always be improved, however, and I believe that adding more research and citations to back up--and balance-- what is there would be a step in that direction, along with trying to find more research done in countries other than the US. The article currently does have too much information from the US, but that can be remedied if we put some effort into it.

The big problem I can see with all of the articles on "gun politics" in Misplaced Pages, is that whenever someone is unhappy that the article is not slanted toward their particular values, or world view, another article is spawned to push the unhappy person's point of view. That's what needs correction.--StopYourBull (talk) 16:55, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

• What this article is about - Respectfully, you StopYourBull don't get to unilaterally decide what this article is about. Right to keep and bear arms is a different topic as is the topic of Self Defense. This article is about governments and societies limiting guns. It's a meaty topic and there is a rich history to that that stretches all the way back from Plato and as Miguel said it's even mentioned in the bible to an extent. I'm ok with touching on the politics of specific countries of it but those shouldn't be central. We need to rationalize our gun articles.
• Be Clear and NPOV- If you're saying that America stands alone among "developed countries" then say that! don't assume that the reader will know. The way it's written at the moment it says that America is the worst but what you really need to say is that it's the worst among developed countries We need to be clear, "among developed countries the United States has a gun murder rate of 3.9 vs Britain's 1.2 per 100,000" and let's say it without judgement and weasle words like "yet." Let's also be completely clear that although the UK has lower gun crime, violence has shifted to knives - that's relevant. Analyzing gun crime in a vacuum does not yield an accurate picture to the full effects of gun controls. You're something like 4 times as likely to be stabbed in the Uk than you are of being shot in the US. Home invasions are up in the UK and Australia - some of the worst rates in the world (collateral to exercising gun control indiscriminately?)That's a huge part of the problem here with the article. Authors are assuming that the reader is an expert on gun control and they could very well be a 14 year old coming to write a book report and they get this specialist garbage loaded pov language and at the end of the day you wind up with a brainwashing article - which is what this is at the moment..
• Improvements should still be welcome- just because you don't see an issue is no reason to block improvements to the article
• The real problem with these articles - is that they are treated not like an encyclopedia but as a personal forum for POV pushers to drive home their personal agenda to the exclusion of everything else. We don't need US only statistics on this article and we don't need those detail US statistics on the Right to bear arms page either.....maybe in a Gun pollitics or Crime in the United States but not everywhere someone wants to dump their little POV.-Justanonymous (talk) 17:22, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

I disagree. We cannot have just a pile of articles dealing with the polemics of weapons ownership in history. This is an article specifically dealing with gun control, and it must deal with the topic in the modern world and not with just the wisdom of the ancients. If you want to merge the content of this article with Gun politics (from which it originally sprang from what I've seen), I would have no problem with that. It may also solve some of the US-centric problem. I oppose just making this another philosophical treatment of gun ownership to avoid dealing with the provable realities of gun control.

I did not write that section, but I can see that, in an attempt to add balance and to phrase the issue in fair terms, what you are calling weasel words and not NPOV are actually one way to provide both sides of an issue: thus the terms "yet," "however," "on the other hand," etc.. As far as the statistics not agreeing with what you know to be true in Britain and Australia, you know that well-sourced additions are part of the WP process, and you can make such additions. You cannot expect, however, to go unchallenged if the statistics are spurious, out of date, bear less weight, or are irrelevant to the arguments being debated.

Yes, we always need to make improvements. I think you are saying the same thing I am saying: POV pushing is not good. The censoring of the exploration of the current realities of gun control is also not good.--StopYourBull (talk) 18:25, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

You are clearly saying that you want to write an article that exposes the perils of not having gun control? I'm sorry that is NOT what this article is about and that is not what Misplaced Pages is about. This is an encyclopedic article about gun control. Please read WP:NOT right away. This is not WP:Battleground. It's a topic and it has a history and we should NOT ignore nor gloss over the history of gun control and we should absolutely not create some kind of pro gun control article here (and we shouldn't create an anti gun control article either). That is clearly outside the boundaries. You also need to read WP:WORD and WP:WEASEL which explicitly states that we should not use weasel words and the wikipedia policy is that we should rewrite those articles per the policy. Please do not block me as I clean that up. We can go to arbitration. -Justanonymous (talk) 18:38, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

'POV pushing is saying that gun control is either good or bad based on distorted rationalizations, philosophical ramblings, unconnected anecdotal quotations, and censorship; presenting both sides of the argument supported by data as compared to specious argument and innuendo, is NPOV. I, for one, will oppose such changes, and demand facts bolstered by up-to-date empirical evidence'.--StopYourBull (talk) 18:47, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Just to be clear -

• Will you will oppose the removal of weasel words? Yes or no?
• Will you oppose any addition of a history of the concept of gun control (it wasn't invented yesterday)? yes or no?
• Will you oppose the addition of facts for worldwide gun control by country?
• Will you oppose the addition of facts other than the onese you like? (your facts are very one sided, Mexico has a full gun ban and horrific gun crime we can take it from there.)
• Will you oppose the philsophical context from notable historical philosophers like Plato and notable figures in gun and arms control? (you label them ramblings I think)

We need answers to these and based on those answers and I think the other editors here need to know what you will and will not be able to live with in a consensus. I will seek arbitration if you are unreasonable as you appear to be and we'll figure out whether you have your personal pool to push your agenda or whether we have an encyclopedia here.-Justanonymous (talk) 18:59, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Hello Stopyourbull. Your last post was quite a blend of things.....some good ideas, some things that are in line with Misplaced Pages policies and guidlines, and some things that are directly in violation of them. I think we'll need on focus on specifics to sort this out. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 20:58, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

Hello StopYourBull:

• A big chunk of your post seems to be arguing a reason why this article should be be POV'd. I think that that says a lot, but that is not right for a Misplaced Pages article.
• You seem to be conflicting with yourself. You start by saying that the article should be narrowly construed to be only about gun control itself, not arguments related to it. I guess that would also be fine, but it would entail deleting about 3/4 of the present article. The alternative would be to include the debates/ arguments / reasoning for and against and such is partially currently in the article (mostly the "for") and you said you like the currently article. So I'm guessing that you would prefer to have the "for" in there and not the "against", but that is not right for a Misplaced Pages article.

North8000 (talk) 17:49, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

There is a very glaring agenda here from Stopyourbull to cast the United States as the worst gun crime country on earth, that is what is written on the article and there is very strong resistance to changing that view eventhough it is patently incorrect. Misplaced Pages is not a place to push your bias or to drive your agenda. This article is very straightforward, I would expect to find a History of the concept, maybe a map of the world denoting countries on a spectrum from restrictive to unrestricted (I can do that if I can find good data), maybe some summaries of connections with right to bear arms, self defense, differnt types of governments. Very straightforward very substantive vs this garbage (pardon my french). I'm sorry, I'm just frankly agast at some of what the article contains. Also, just because this article hadn't gotten much attention pre-sandy hook doesn't mean it was a good article. We need to fix this asap, it doesn't stand up to Misplaced Pages standards.-Justanonymous (talk) 18:18, 2 March 2013 (UTC)

The article in its current state is incredibly slanted in favor of one side of the gun control issue. Lumping the number of "gun suicides" into the number of "gun deaths" in the United States is just one example of the rampant issues in this article. The number is much lower if you confine it to gun murders. As pointed out earlier, the wording gives the impression that those are deaths caused by the availability of guns, and that is absolutely not true. The problem we're running into here is that people on the anti-gun side actually believe "more gun violence" means "more violence," when in fact it just means "more gun violence." The United States has a whole lot of guns and a whole lot of gun owners, so of course it's going to have more "gun violence" than other comparable countries. If people are killing each other (or themselves) with guns instead of with other items, is that a "serious public health concern?" Of course not. Murder is murder, suicide is suicide, etc., regardless of the means. The aforementioned issue is just one of many glaring issues in this article. The entire article needs a makeover so as to be in line with WP:NPOV. ROG5728 (talk) 00:35, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Impact on mortality and injury

There have been a lot of edits on this section. It is glaring Pro-Gun Control. Edits are reverted by Stopyourbull without discussion on the talk. Let's get consensus:

• why can't we break down gun violence into it's constituent parts?
• it's factually inaccurate to say that the US has a "low life expectancy" It's 77+ years within a year or two of all the other industrial countries. This is not "low". Very arbitrary
• why can't we say that most of the gun violence is gang related? numerous studies out there show that it is.
• why must we have weasel words against the policy?

We need to discuss this right away.-Justanonymous (talk) 17:56, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Agree with you on the first three points. I don't understand the last one. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 18:09, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, and it seems we have a rough consensus to rework the article so as to be in line with WP:NPOV. ROG5728 (talk) 18:27, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Just to get this on the record, I am not the one making threats about who can and cannot edit articles in WP. I am not blindly reverting edits, but I will edit statements that run afoul of WP policies and make sure that they are properly sourced, and make sense. Contrary to what you say to each other, no page is "our page," and I take great offence to anyone trying to bully or otherwise push their opinions on any other editor. As I stated in my (bolded) response above: I simply will not be bullied. If you wish to take this to arbitration, I am fine with that, but coercion does not work with me.

To get to your specific points:

-we can break gun violence down into its constituent parts, as long as it is properly documented. Pointing out that "many' gun deaths and injuries are among people of lower-class status is wrong: the loss of their lives are just as much a part of the problem and expense as are deaths among college students. Similar deaths are included in firearms-related statistics around the world. Trying to slough them of as inconsequential is morally wrong and probably runs up against a WP policy somewhere. I will check.

-You have to read the article to understand what the authors are saying. I can provide an even longer and more detailed worldwide view that says the same thing and I will dig it out.

-You would have to provide actual numbers. It also is meaningless as a life is a life, the same types of people are included around the world, and they are still part of the cost to the health-care system.

-Some of what you have removed were weasel words. I think we should all go back and read up on what constitutes weasel words.

Apart from the rancor, I think we are making headway in cleaning up this article.

We do not have consensus---StopYourBull (talk) 18:41, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

I do see what you are trying to do Stopyourbull and sadly it's not working. And there is consensus, you just don't like it. Progress is not me making an edit and you removing it. That's called edit warring, hence why I created this before we all get blocked. Agreed a rework is highly in order here - Looking carefully at the section I do note that there appears to be a bunch of pro and then a bunch of anti and then a bunch of other articles mentioned in prose. But if we want to have three formal sections that are anti, pro and other we can't do it in prose because the editor here winds up pushing an agenda with filler words that are biased. If we're going to list, pro and anti gun control research we should just list the research without accompanying weasel words and without injecting bias for the reader. It should be clear that we are listing potentially biased research and not take a position on Misplaced Pages as to the value of the research. Here are some examples of the bias and weasel wording:

A preponderance of studies point to a significant relationship between gun availability and gun violence.

• POV pushing uncited content, should be removed. It's uncited, it's weasel worded. Do we have a survey of studies we can point to and say like on climate change at least?

The press conference was disrupted twice by hecklers carrying banners that said "NRA: Killing Our Kids" and "NRA: Blood On Its Hands".

• This is POV pushing, shall we also add that the Newtown school board unanimously asked for armed guards? By this standard, if two hecklers warrant inclusion, shouldn't the unanimous actions of a school board acting in direct response to the tragedy in question and in line with what the NRA had requested? WP:NPOV violation.

This stems in part from successful efforts to suppress research by Congress and the National Rifle Association

• We can't just cite one side of the argument and not the other, here is the other side and it merits inclusion, "Ten senators who strongly supported the CDC gun research funding ban put their reasons in writing: 'This research is designed to, and is used to, promote a campaign to reduce lawful firearms ownership in America…Funding redundant research initiatives, particularly those which are driven by a social-policy agenda, simply does not make sense.']" Neither of the sources used here are strictly OR but if we're going to include one OR source, we should include the other. WP:NPOV violation.

The most thorough of these, the 2004 critical review by the National Research Council concluded that

• Weasel word phrase indicating a value judgement on a study. The editor in this case attempted to give undue weight to one particular study. Violation of WP:DUE and WP:WEIGHT

Another thorough review conducted in 2011 of data from many sources by the Firearm

• Another weasel worded value judgement on the part of the editor. Who claimed it to be thorough? At the very minimum we should add the person who made the claim that it was a thorough study.

Misplaced Pages is not a debate forum where Stopyourbull puts forth his argument and then MrGunRights puts forth his argument against gun control and may the better rhetoritician or the one with the best funded research wins. That is not what we are here to do. We document, not engage in the rhetoric. We need to rewrite this pronto-Justanonymous (talk) 18:51, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, and I noticed a number of other glaring neutrality issues. One example is the section Associations with authoritarianism, which basically acts as a one-sided rebuttal to pro-gun positions on the history of gun control; it claims that the Nazis "relaxed" their gun control laws, and yet in the very next sentence it admits Jews were eventually forbidden from possessing weapons at all. That's a bit of a contradiction, no? The section also goes on to quote an anti-gun Holocaust survivor, while making no mention whatsoever of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, or anyone on the other side of that issue. Shameful. This entire article has serious issues, and SYB seems to be the only editor stalling progress in improving it. Consensus does not require unanimity. ROG5728 (talk) 19:06, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Each edit has to stand or fail on its own. All are subject to being supported properly with verifiable acceptable references, not just opinion, or unacceptable blog posts, etc.. The weight they are to be given is due to the preponderance of information that is available (WP:DUE).

I'm not sure what you are accusing me of doing? Are you saying that I am engaged in something untoward? There is no consensus. You do not have carte blanche to make this page into one of "our pages."--StopYourBull (talk) 19:13, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Stopyourbull, this article falls under the scope of Wikiprojects firearms. It's not yours or mine or anybody else's. I'm specifically accussing you of reverting reasonable edits without discussing them materially in the talk. Above are a series of specific entries in quotes, please address your rationale for keeping them. If you can't provide rationale within a reasonable amount of time, I will remove them or modify them to comply with Misplaced Pages standards and policies. We're also likely going to radically rewrite the article. It's in bad shape. There is consensus for a rewrite:

• it seems that a tenous peace had been reached here where one pov pushing editor could push their agenda in their little bucket if they left the other pov pushing editor's bucket alone
• it seems that since December this tenous peace has been broken by not allowing Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership views etc from being included here along with other transgressions among other skirmishes in what appears to be a violation of WP:Battleground
• sadly the tenous peace came at the price of significant violations of Misplaced Pages policies. again violation of WP:Battleground

The consensus is that this article is POV laden and materially diverges from Misplaced Pages policy. We will work in good faith to bring it to Misplaced Pages standards. Do not block attempts to bring the article to a high Misplaced Pages Standard.-Justanonymous (talk) 19:28, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Are you threatening me? I've had about enough of your threats. You do not forbid me from editing.--StopYourBull (talk) 19:32, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Heaven forbid no Stopyourbull, we're a civil group here. But[REDACTED] editors have to have skin that is a bit more than paperthin. The article is a mess, both on the progun control side and anti gun control side. IT's a fact. Deal with it-Justanonymous (talk) 19:36, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Do you have references that are newer than the 17 or 18 year old references you used for the "mostly gangs" statement? Can you provide actual numbers or proportions instead of just the "majority" or "many" weasel words. That would be much better and up to WP standards.--StopYourBull (talk) 20:24, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Not a full answer to that but I did find a good source (the FBI) for the total number of firearm murders in the US in a year. For the most recent complied year, it is 8,583. . I saw some figures for "disagreements between criminals" estimated at > 70% of that but still not a solid new source. North8000 (talk) 20:43, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes. Thank you. Those may be closer, but not quite close enough yet. I will look, too, although I do not believe that police-supplied UCR data has that degree of accuracy. I am still of a mind, however, that it does not matter who dies or is injured, someones's family is still left to deal with it and there is an equal burden on the health-care system for the injuries.--StopYourBull (talk) 21:00, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Yes, just as with the other ~2,500,000 deaths and ~100,000,000 injuries in the US each year. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:11, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

You are correct, but the same type of analysis and treatment goes into automobile deaths and injuries. I have worked in that area and the similarities are close. With the advent of better and safer automobile construction, better road geography, and especially better trauma treatment, deaths are going down. That does have an odd downside in that it is now more expensive for the health system.--StopYourBull (talk) 21:18, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

(added later) Good observations and info. North8000 (talk) 23:16, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

Not only gang related but it's estimated that over half of all gun crime victims in the United States were criminals themselves recently released from prison, felons, etc. Young people for sure with families but still criminals. Here is an article, admittedly from a conservative source but follow the links, there is some good data and insight there. Once we start peeling the onion, a very intersting picture emerges on the nature of gun crime in the United States.-Justanonymous (talk) 21:57, 3 March 2013 (UTC)

That all may be true, but the big point would be whether the constituent proportions of gun-related crimes in the US are any different than they are in other countries. If they are then you would certainly have a point; if they aren't then there is something distinctly awry that needs to be investigated.--StopYourBull (talk) 20:50, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

We have to be careful here. Gun Control is an action by a government to restrict firearms from the people. Gun crime is something that might or might not have a direct correlation with Gun control and it will vary country by country. A layperson's analysis would clearly show that the percentages in the types of violence in different countries varies widely and largely irrespective of gun control:

• Mexico has almost a complete gun ban but because of drug gangs (drug cartels) there is a very high gun violence rate, mostly among cartel members but the people do suffer.
• The US has over 50% of the world's weapons and enjoys crimes rates that are very low and in line with most modern societies (we can argue between Britain's 1.9 per 100k and the US 3.2 per 100k statistics until we're blue in the face)) and if you remove the gang violence crimes America's gun violence levels are positively benign for a country with 50% of the world's arms. This needs to come out.
• We can look at subsaharan Africa where gun violence is more indiscriminate and the mass of the population suffers and governments are not strong at all so it's irrespective of whether they have strong or lax gun control laws - it doesn't matter, you're a gun lord, you get guns (come and take them is their motto and they'll arm 8 year olds if it serves them). In Botswana you can buy an assault rifle (full auto) for $200 and it's legal.
• Japan has very strong gun control and has very low gun crime (is it low crime because of strict gun control or is it a violent free society that sees it reasonable to outlaw guns? Arguments can be made. Stories abound of women forgetting their purses in a busy park in Tokyo only to come back a week later to still find their purse there untouched. Try that anywhere else on the world!)
• Switzerland has gun crime rates in on the low end of being in line with developed countries and all able bodied men have access to an assault rifle.
• Great Britain & Australia both ban guns almost entirely yet they are still plagued by sporadic mass killings and they have a horrific statistics on other criminal violence (assault, robberies, burgularies, home invasion) - what to make of that? And yes, they have gang issues too.
• Brazil has middle of the road gun control yet suffers from horrific murder rates (a lot of them with guns).

I think this short example shows that gun control, as a crime control policy and health tool, does not benefit from strong corrollaries - that is to say, strict gun control policy does not mean low gun crime or low crime or low violence. Isolating the variables that would make studies reliable are very difficult across an entire planet that has governments that vary in size and government form, how they collect or categorize data. In some places there is no real data. The ratios and nature of crime in the United States vs Brazil are very difficult to quantify and to look at the United States too superficially yields a warped bizzaro view into the effects of gun control. I can leave my door unlocked where I live but I'm not insane enough to even drive by parts of Baltimore in broad daylight in a big SUV with my windows rolled up and a police escort. The UK and Australia are also not great examples if we refuse to talk about the ancillary reprecussions to gun control.....a shift of violence from gun violence to knife violence to where they're thinking of outlawing pointy kitchen knives! or if we insist on blatantly lying about our crime rates (an article in Misplaced Pages until recently stated that Australia had a low crime rate when compared to the US and UK - a blatant unsupported lie that the source did not support) But yes, in the US a very significant percentate of the gun crime and crime in general is gang related and most of the gang members have a criminal record and have done time and happen to be relatively young 17 to 31 (I'd say). Short-story is that the types of gun violence will vary from country to country. Gun control might play a role but only where the society wants it to play a role and superficially using studies to make one point while not addressing the complexity of the matter yields a POV ridden mess. Worse, this is an article about gun control not gun crime levels etc. My 2 cents. -Justanonymous (talk) 21:15, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Associations with authoritarianism

With regard to recent non-NPOV edits by StopYourBull, I would like to note that it's not a "claim" that the Nazis implemented gun control to disarm the Jewish population. It's a fact already documented by reliable sources in the article (the confiscation of weapons is also already documented in the article). Enough with the weasel wording. The fact that the Nazis relaxed their gun laws for the rest of the population is not relevant to the issue of the Holocaust or the massacre of the Jews, which this section is discussing. That text serves only to conflate and bury the relevant historical information, apparently because it doesn't suit the agenda being pushed throughout most of this article. Just because something is factual and/or sourced does not mean it is DUE. You're doing your best to make this section confusing and misleading, and it's not going to fly. By the way, one more revert will put you at 3RR, so I advise you to stop edit warring and start discussing the content here on the talk page. ROG5728 (talk) 19:26, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I would point out that it is ROG5728 that is engaged in blatantly pushing his POV by changing what the authors have said to what ROG5728 believes and would like to be true. NPOV would be stating what the authors state and not putting words in their mouth or declaring that something is accepted without providing support. The entire point of this section is that there is argument over whether weapons confiscation occurred or was or was not important, or even peculiar, to authoritarianism. The authors diverge on this point and you cannot ignore that and baldly claim that it has been decided to be the way ROG5728 wants it. ROG5728 has adjusted the passages to comply with what ROG5728 would like to be true, made assumptions that his view is accepted fact and changed the wording accordingly, added weasel words to play up parts that agree with his view, or edited out passages that disagree with what ROG5728 believes. ROG5728 has tried to remove or twist what the cited authors are saying. Some of the authors and quotations are stating that weapons confiscation is irrelevant to authoritarianism. Some of the citations and quotations also state that this line of reasoning is just a rewriting of history by a political faction involved in the US gun debate to serve their own purposes. If we are talking about WP:DUE, then up until about 1990 there is forty-plus years of historical scholarship that has not considered weapons confiscation to be either a necessary or sufficient or even notable condition to enable the Nazis to do what they ultimately did. ROG5728 must know by now that we cannot lay claim to these articles as "our articles," (whatever that may mean) and turn them into a political screed to serve our own ends. As far as threatening me that I must bend to your POV, you know where that should be housed--StopYourBull (talk) 20:45, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

What I removed is the weasel wording where you called it a "claim" that weapons confiscation took place in Nazi Germany. It's not a "claim" that the Nazis implemented gun control to disarm the Jewish population, so why refer to it as a claim? It's a fact already documented by the sources in the section. I removed the text about "relaxation" of gun laws in Nazi Germany because according to the sources that was only true with regards to non-Jews, so it's not relevant to the issue of the Holocaust. This section discusses the Holocaust and the massacre of the Jews. The fact that the Nazis relaxed their gun laws for the rest of the population is not relevant to the issue of the Holocaust or the massacre of the Jews. The Jews were completely disarmed prior to the Holocaust. ROG5728 (talk) 20:56, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

StopYourBull, a lot of your post is just making up nasty stuff about ROG5728. We should stick to specific content questions and issues. It seems that one specific dispute is whether to word that Nazis implemented gun control to disarm the Jewish population. as somebody's "claim" vs stating it as a fact. Maybe settling that would be a good place to start. Is this sourced, and is this in question? Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 21:07, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, none of the sources in the entire section (Associations with authoritarianism) deny that the Nazis disarmed the Jewish population prior to the Holocaust. Furthermore, many of them explicitly state that the Nazis did in fact disarm the Jewish population prior to the Holocaust (and that weapons confiscation took place), so I see no reason to refer to it as a "claim." It's just weasel wording. ROG5728 (talk) 21:17, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I changed "claim" to "state" which is correct and neutral.

"Relaxed" is the term that is used in the citation, it has no connotation other than made less restrictive. It is correct and it is also stated that the Jews had all of their weapons confiscated. That is neutral. It certainly does not make Jewish arms confiscation less salient, and, in fact, points out that although non-Jews had more access to guns, Jews had all their weapons confiscated.

This section discusses Associations with Authoritarianism. The big problem is that weapons confiscation is a standard operating procedure during times of war or martial law. "We" also confiscated weapons from Japanese, Italian, and German citizens living in North America during WWII, and in the case of the Japanese living on the west coast of North America, that was done before we interned them in concentration camps. This is probably an argument that needs to be made in this section, as well. Leaving out cogent information is just POV pushing.

That America did something as well is evidence of a misdeed in America's past, and in no way contradicts the intended meaning of the German (and other) references. The US also acts in an authoritarian manner on occasion. The gun control opponents in the US are well aware of this, as they see the current efforts as a step along the authoritarian path. You are making a weak strawman argument, which actually argues against your purpose.. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:38, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I can back up everything I say, and I have said nothing that is "nasty." I am getting rather tired of being threatened, however, and I won't be told that my edits "won't fly" because they disagree with someone else's opinion--StopYourBull (talk) 21:25, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary, you changed it to say scholars "claim" the Nazis implemented gun control laws to disarm the Jewish population and then wiped them out. The problem is that it's not a claim, it's a fact. The sentence is located in the middle of the first paragraph in the section (and no, it won't fly). ROG5728 (talk) 21:31, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

We need to be NPOV. I think what Rog5728 cleans is cleaning it up to a more neutral voice which is good. We should not inject weasel words per WP:WEASEL. Too much POV pushing.-Justanonymous (talk) 21:37, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

This is also not to say that gun control is evil or that it's bad. There are documented facts where totalitaian regimes enact gun control. Heck Plato was talking about them doing it back 2,500 years ago. It's quite common. Does it mirror what is going on in the US, UK, Australia? Come ask me in 300 years. I'm sure that if you asked an average Jewish person in 1935 whether gun control was bad, they might have said, "no, seems perfectly reasonable." Fact is we can't analyze and put into context modern gun control. We can only document what has happened in the past. Studies only go so far. There is a reason that Jews For The Preservation of Firearms Ownership exists out there and why Israel insists on being a nuclear power to this day. They've had to learn some very hard lessons.-Justanonymous (talk) 21:44, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

I have changed it to be NPOV and removed any weasel words. If you want to take this to mediation, we can--StopYourBull (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 21:46, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary, you changed it to add weasel wording. Now it says scholars "claim" the Nazis implemented gun control laws to disarm the Jewish population. The problem is that it's not a claim, it's a fact. So why refer to it as a "claim" except to distort and bury historical information? ROG5728 (talk) 21:50, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

You also just exceeded 3RR. ROG5728 (talk) 21:52, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:3RR Stopyourbull, you have broken the 3R rule which is generally a bright red line when it comes to Misplaced Pages sanctions and is considered Edit warring WP:WAR. I understand that this is a difficult subject but we need consensus here not a war on the article. I will offer you an opportunity to revert yourself and restore the text and come here to discuss consensus or I will have to submit the violation for action by administrators. Sorry Stopyourbull, you have to get consensus here before you just start reverting everyone and edit warring. I know it's hard. I will leave a message on your page and on Rog's page.-Justanonymous (talk) 21:55, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Please do provide it to an adiministrator. I have some things to discuss about the way that this has been carried out as well.--StopYourBull (talk) 22:00, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Ok I assume you are refusing to revert your edit. I will report this and see what the Admin says. Please let's all agree to not further edit the article until an Admin makes a decision. It'll probably go easier on us if we behave here until someone provides guidance to all of us.-Justanonymous (talk) 22:24, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

The bundling of a large group of edits from various areas of the article into one edit by StopYourBull and then warring in the whole bundle makes it near-impossible to rationally deal with. Such bundling should be avoided / unbundled. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 22:43, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Dispute resolution

This is beyond Third Opinion (since there are already more than three), and now in 3RR territory, so I'd like to suggest that all parties involved work toward clearly stating what your preferred versions of the article would be, and why, and then open a wider request for comment to invite others to come in and consider both sides. It's not necessarily binding, but it may help settle some things or at least give you some new ideas to consider. If you need help, please feel free to ask me. Kafziel 23:16, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Kafziel that's a lot more than I was hoping for. Here goes:

Option 1 - Gun Control - the encyclopedic article a lay person would expect to find

I was hoping to find a short beefy, 30k or so, noncontentious encyclopedic worldly article that informs the reader about Gun Control - which is simply a country's laws and policies aimed at restricting firearm ownership from the general population (ranging from trivial to absolute firearms bans). I'd expect to find the following elements:

• Lede - describing and defining gun control, the practice and the spectrum (from no gun control to total firearms ban)
• Infobox - A current world map denoting where countries fall on the spectrum of gun control (from no gun control to ban) Maybe 4 steps (no data, light restriction, moderate, outright ban) - I can do that svg, take me a bit to get good data.
• Origins - A modest entry on the history of gun control, it's roots in Greek, Chinese, Japanese arms control concepts expounded by plato and other philosophers. We've been constraining populations from having arms since the dawn of civilization, this is just a subset of a bigger concept
• History - History of gun control as it has progressed and evolved. Since guns only came into existence since the 1,500s or so, we might perhaps focus on history of gun control since then (the formal vs the arms control)
• See Also - A see also section of other gun politics and gun related articles
• Further Reading - Maybe a couple of notable books on the topic of gun control
• References - Standard References

I wouldn't expect to have a big arguments section where people propose their rationales for or against gun control. That's what we have now and it's an invitation to be contentious, long winded, disorganized mangle of words. As it is at 72,000 bytes and growing it's really hard to plow through and doesn't really educate the 12 year old and even the adults have to slog through a wall of pov pushing weasel worded stuff before they get any value from it. Right now you get an intro, an ugly infobox of guns and then you jump into a pro-gun control argument and you have to read 3,000 words to get to the next argument. It's painful and not up to Misplaced Pages standards. People are just trying to position their pet idea and push their POV while throwing a few stones at the other guy's pet idea. So I'm proposing almost a complete rewrite which is a lot of effort but we've done it here before. Esteemed editors, please feel free to add subtract or adjust this view, it's just a stub. -Justanonymous (talk) 00:27, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Option 2 I think that Justanonymous did a better job at defining a specific proposal than I am going to do here. But I may have a few useful core points to help sort this out. The first core question is whether the article should confine itself to just covering gun control itself, or whether to include arguments, rationales and reasons pro and con. Inevitably the latter would include selecting and presenting facts, (with or without spin in that presentation) and so selected and presented facts (unless the selection and the presentation is done unusually well and unusually objectively) will be just another form of slant. So I tend to think that the only choice that wouldn't be a giant eternally unstable wp:coatrack would be a narrowly defined article. The current article is immensely biased, being a combination of a coatrack mostly for one side of the issue only, and a un-wikipedian wp:npov-violating essay for that that same side. So the status quo is untenable. So option #2 is to strictly limit to gun control, not selected "background info" and rationales arguing for one way or the other. But if the latter is included, bring it in conformance with policies, (including wp:npov) which it severely violates at the moment. North8000 (talk) 01:59, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Option 3

• Simple, clinical description of what gun control is.
• VERY VERY stubby exceptionally summarized pro/con section (2-3 sentences for each side with the 10 second pitch)
• Spin-off article for Arguments for and against gun control or maybe Arguments for gun control and Arguments against gun control

Gaijin42 (talk) 01:27, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

Option 4 - Gun Control - the encyclopedic article that a lay person and/or someone unfamiliar with firearms would expect to find Using the Racism article as a template of sorts...

• Lede - describing and defining gun (firearm) control, the practice and the spectrum (from no control to total ban)
• Infobox - Continue using the current one of "Gun politics by country".
• Definition/Types - A preface to help clarify that it comes in several forms such as Legislative, Cultural, Commercial, Practical, and Ecological (such as with hunting restrictions and the limitation on the number of rounds loaded at any given time).
• Influence of Technology - Firearms (as a practical and/or functional device) have evolved, albeit it slowly, but certain developments have had a greater impact than others, i.e. the self contained metallic cartridge, this made changeable magazines possible even though they did not come along until decades later.
• History - Starting with a modest section on the "Origins of firearm control' (a mini-lede of sorts similar to what Just recommends) followed by the history of the views towards gun control as it has progressed and evolved in light of technological changes. Starting with the creation of black powder in China there has been some form of control (or attempt to do so) over this technology. As Just correctly states, "We've been constraining populations from having arms (bows, swords, etc.) since the dawn of civilization, this is just a subset of a bigger concept".
• See Also - A see also section of other gun politics and gun related articles
• Further Reading - Maybe a couple of notable books on the topic of gun control
• References - Standard References

The caveats to this format hopefully are obvious, but my intention is that as clinical of an approach to the subject matter as possible be taken or that the references permit.

Discussion

I completely agree North8000, at a bare minimum we have to remove the countless Misplaced Pages violations present. Also at 72,000 bytes and with editors looking to still add content, this current structure is too long and too biased, hence the proposal for a more radical rewrite. At a minimum I hope we can get a dissenting vision from Stopyourbull so that we understand his vision for how this ends up like a high quality Misplaced Pages article. Once we get a couple of other Options and recommendations we can open it up for Rfc and see what the community thinks. Thank you for all the help. -Justanonymous (talk) 21:46, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

Comment: I'm not sure if this will result in another format "Option", but here's my 2 cents on this matter. I regard this article in much the same way that I view the article, for example, on Racism. It's a worldwide phenomenon (meaning not limited to the U.S. regardless of the activity level or media attention), cultural norms do impact how it is viewed (understood, reviled, and/or accepted), as well as there are political elements affected by recent and historical events. Maybe the structure of the Racism article would provide a good framework for this article....?

That said, there seems to be ample information (meaning reliable and non-controversial sources) just to construct an article on the "concept of gun control worldwide" without getting into the myriad of POV arguments about who is "right" or "wrong" and/or gun control is "good" or "bad". It would seem that we can talk "about" gun control without actually debating it within the article. Make sense?--Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 00:06, 7 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree with your idea Scalhotrod, we should be able to tackle this like we do in the "racism" article. That's a very logical way to describe this in a noncontentious NPOV manner. Let's wait a few more days and then open it up to Rfc.-Justanonymous (talk) 20:00, 8 March 2013 (UTC)

I decided to go ahead and be WP:BOLD. I restructured and rewrote the article according to some suggestions in this discussion. I snipped a LOT of excess arguing and POV violations, moved the authoritarianism section into history, and condensed some info into the Arguments section. The arguments section still needs some trimming/balancing. Thoughts? ROG5728 (talk) 20:52, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

I think this is the right path. The RFC on the dispute page attracted the usual high quality editors and the consensus was to go down a more NPOV path rather than have a bunch of pro and anti gun control entries. Let's keep making it better. I've been a bit busy but I'll help here.-Justanonymous (talk) 21:00, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Recent work

Looks like an immense amount of good work. Hard to be specific on such a scale, but in general the article looks much more wikified and encyclopedic now. North8000 (talk) 02:15, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

Hear, hear! I second the praise of the judicious efforts. Nicely done... --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 02:27, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

great stuff! Finally, some great NPOV movement!-Justanonymous (talk) 03:12, 12 April 2013 (UTC)

"Association with totalitarianism"

The section titled "Association with totalitarianism", which I just removed and was reverted, is clearly highly POV and partisan to the point of deceiving the readers of this article. A quick glance at Gun politics in Germany#The Third Reich's Discrimination Policy & 1938 German Weapons Act gives a completely different account of gun laws in the Third Reich. The section in this article consists of a series of highly selective quotations designed to give a particular impression to the reader, an impression which is opposite to the (better sourced, better written) to the content at Gun politics in Germany#The Third Reich's Discrimination Policy & 1938 German Weapons Act. The section in this article should simply be removed. Readers can read about gun policy in the Third Reich on the Gun politics in Germany page. There's no reason to have two separate and conflicting essays on the same topic. — goethean 22:46, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Did you actually read the Wiki article you just linked? It doesn't give a different account of gun laws in the Third Reich at all. Jews were eventually forbidden from possessing firearms at all. That info is correct and relevant to the history of gun control. ROG5728 (talk) 23:01, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

As for the quotes from Holocaust survivors, there is currently one quote each from Holocaust survivors on both sides of the gun control issue. ROG5728 (talk) 00:52, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

The simple (verifiable) fact is that the Nazis used gun control as a tool in their genocide of the Jews, so of course that's going to be the gist of what the section says. ROG5728 (talk) 00:57, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Are the Holocaust survivors quoted in the article (in the clearly POV version has been restored twice) recognized authorities on "the association of totalitarian regimes with gun control"? — goethean 01:09, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

And although no one has responded to my reasonable question, User:North8000 has reverted my removal of the quotations from non-expert Holocaust survivors, with the edit summary: "Undo mass deletion. Please get consensus in talk." — goethean 15:34, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I will answer the false implied premise of your question which makes the question faulty. They do not need to be "recognized authorities on "the association of totalitarian regimes with gun control"" to include what they said. And, as indicated previously, folks on both sides of the issue were included. North8000 (talk) 15:52, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

I will take that to mean that you agree that these people are not authorities on the subject. Why and how, then, were these seemingly random individuals selected to have their views on gun control published on Misplaced Pages as representative? What was the process by which these two people were selected? — goethean 15:58, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Goethean, please read what I actually wrote. If you want to make an actually "reasonable" question, try a more direct one rather than one with a false statement knitted in as a false implied premise. North8000 (talk) 16:59, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

All of the above machinations maneuvers aside, and saying that the answer isn't dictated by policy. I think that it would be a good idea to discuss the paragraph which includes the quotes from the two holocaust survivors. On one hand, such a way to select material runs a high risk of being cherry-pickable and so I am generally against such a process. On the other hand, there are two quotes in there from Holocaust survivors, both eloquent, who are in direct conflict with each other on the topic at hand. And so I found it to be gripping and informative, and a neutral approach. North8000 (talk) 17:16, 15 April 2013 (UTC)North8000 (talk) 11:35, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

There is no good reason to include quotations from two random non-experts in the article. And yet, when I removed them, you immediately reverted my edit with the edit summary "Undo mass deletion. Please get consensus in talk." And then here at talk you simply dismiss my reasonable questions as "machinations". You have provided no valid rationale for keeping the material, which is obviously inappropriate. You need to undo your edit immediately. — goethean 18:04, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

You don't have consensus to delete the quotes, so North8000 doesn't need to undo anything. Obviously it's interesting to see what Holocaust survivors say about the subject, and it's neutral (one quote per side). ROG5728 (talk) 18:39, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

As I said I am of two minds on this, but have no problem seeing the plus side....answering Goethean's question, a good reason to include would be to add to the informativeness of the article. North8000 (talk) 19:57, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

Comment - from a historical perspective, as relatively recent and readily used of an example as WW2 Germany is, there are equally glaring examples over the course of history going back to days of the Roman Empire as well as the rule of Genghis Khan. In the U.S. similar circumstances that come to mind are the prohibition of native Americans and slaves owning weapons in the 1800's. My point is there are plenty of other historical examples of "association with authoritarianism" for us to debate, let alone argue, over a solitary (however recent/relevant/etc.) historical reference. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 04:20, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, that's a good point, but it simply emphasizes how obviously WP:UNDUE and inappropriate the article's attempt to associate gun control with Nazis is. — goethean 12:58, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

The are prominent and notable examples of gun control which is the subject of this article. I don't agree with trying to use (IMO stretched use) technicalities to get coverage of such removed. North8000 (talk) 14:25, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

NPOV is not a technicality, it is a non-negotiable bedrock policy of Misplaced Pages. Pretending that gun control is most closely associated with Nazis by spending an inordinate amount of space in this article discussing gun control in the Third Reich is a clear violation of NPOV. User:Scalhotrod's comment above also illustrates this obvious fact. What other societies throughout history had gun control? Instead of treating that somewhat elementary question, this article attempts to tar a public policy by associating it with Nazis and communists. — goethean 15:14, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Gun control as a policy is not inherently "good" or "bad", its just a tool of society and the article should be written to reflect this. That said...

• To the best of our ability, as editors we should cite examples that demonstrate the historic ramifications and effects of how different cultures, societies, and governments have implemented gun control. During the Roman Empire the phrase "Civis romanus sum" (I am a Roman citizen) was enough to protect any person traveling through the Empire. It's might was so great, that no one dare take arms against or harm one of its citizens. Did crime still happen, YOU BETCHA, but it was still effectively a form of early "arms control". Fast forward several centuries to the 1800's city of Tombstone in the Arizona Territory, Marshall Wyatt Earp and his deputy brothers famously controlled the level of violence by limiting the possession of firearms while "in town". The policy was also implemented in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory and in Montana. I found this reference, Gun control in the Old West. I don't agree with every word of it, as its an opinion piece, but it demonstrates the point. Crime and violence have pretty much always happened because of "people with bad intentions".
• Now on the flip-side of this coin, we have WW2 Germany (already being debated and yes, what the Nazis did was bad) and more recently the gun ban, buyback, and confiscation in Australia. Regardless of how you characterize the chain of events the fact is that the citizens of Australia have far less firearms in their possession and the crime rates skyrocketed. Murders, assaults, and yes even armed robberies went up by significant percentages, double digits in some instances or areas.

In other words, we need to include all of it, not "play favorites", and be as neutral as we can the facts permitting. Make sense? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 17:09, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

The most valid argument I see for removing those two quotes mentioned earlier is to trim down the section so it doesn't take up too much space in the article; I agree the section is probably bigger than it needs to be. Thoughts on that, everyone? The NPOV argument is invalid; those two quotes are NOT a violation of NPOV. ROG5728 (talk) 17:30, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Holocaust survivor Haas, whose opinion was apparently elicited by an unspecified questioner and context, is not recognized as an expert in history or policy. Why is his opinion notable? The cited source does not appear to be a WP:RS. I don't see how WP policy supports the inclusion of this material. SPECIFICO talk 17:50, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

Additionally, the quotation is cited to the website of "Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership" which doesn't exactly sound like a first-rate public policy reference material. — goethean 18:02, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

On the inclusion/exclusion of the survivor quotes, I'm on the fence/neutral.....I've made arguments in both directions above. But I must note that folks have been implying non-existent policies and norms as arguments for exclusion. "NPOV is not a technicality" hides a false implied assertion that the arguments I was discussing were wp:NPOV based and that I was dismissing such. Next WP:notability is a criteria for the existence of articles, not for the existence of content within articles. And "first-rate public policy reference material" or "recognized as an expert in history or policy" are much higher bars for sources than policy or the norm. Finally, folks are implying false criteria for what is being sourced, I.E. as if the inserters had inserted broad claims on the topic. What the sourcing needs to and does support is only that survivors said those things. North8000 (talk) 11:42, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

That having been said, and without implying an opinion on my part one way or the other on the value of the inclusion of the opinions of a group highlighted as Holocaust survivors in this section, it seems to me that if opinions characterized by highlighted group membership are to be included, those opinions should be balanced by opinions (pro, con, whatever) expressed by members of other highlighted groups. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 11:56, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The section under discussion consists of two directly opposing opinions from survivors. North8000 (talk) 11:59, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I do understand that the section under discussion consists of two directly opposing opinions from that one particular group. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 12:49, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Clarifying my point -- it seems to me that if we are going to say "some members of group A agree and some disagree", we ought to present the positions of groups B, C, D, etc. as well; or, perhaps, to summarize the opinions of the various factions of these groups. At this point, we have not admitted the existence of any groups with opinions worthy of consideration other than group A. It seems to me that we beg the inference that the opinions of the various factions of Group A are the only opinions worthy of consideration. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 13:08, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Who said all of that? Folks seem to be setting up a straw man that this little paragraph purports to be coverage of the entire topic. When in reality it purports to be just 2 opposing opinions from two survivors. North8000 (talk) 14:25, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

What if there were a Mexican veterinarian who was wounded in a shootout of drug lords in a town plaza while ministering to an ailing donkey? Should the article cite a website "Mexican Veterinarians for Gun regulation" that solicited his opinion about gun ownership? Should we find an opposing Mexican veterinarian to balance the article? Would this be relevant and informative for WP users? SPECIFICO talk 15:17, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

RFC: Section on Association of Gun control with authoritarianism

Please consider joining the feedback request service. An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion. This page has been added to the following list: Politics, government, and law When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the list. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.

Is the section "Associations with authoritarianism" in Gun control neutral? An editor has suggested that:

• the section is too long
• the section is poorly sourced (e.g. one source is the website of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Protection, another source is Lethal Laws: Gun Control is the Key to Genocide-- Documentary Proof that Enforcement of Gun Control Laws Clears the way for Governments to Commit Genocide, published by Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership)
• the section exists in order to imply guilt by association about gun control
• the section includes extraneous, selective factoids, such as
  • an anti-gun control statement made by a non-notable Holocaust survivor, which is in the article in order to "balance" a pro-gun control statement by a notable Holocaust survivor
  • various selected studies done by anti-gun control groups which "prove" the association of gun control with authoritarianism (here primarily meaning Nazism). — goethean 12:52, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

PROPOSAL The section be removed from the article. It is off-topic, based on cherry-picked opinions, and relies on non-WP:RS content. SPECIFICO talk 13:18, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose invalid proposal The only relevevant criteria are whether the sources meet WP:RS - which it appears that they do, and whether Undue weight is given to a fringe position -- as the section covers all aspects of the issue per WP:NPOV that argument also seems to fail. I can see why the "Lethal Laws" might be queried as to being RS, but the NY Law School Journal of International and Comparative Law article appears to fully meet WP:RS to be sure. It is a "scholarly work" cited by multiple others. Collect (talk) 13:34, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
  • The question is, however, whether parts of it are relevant. The thing about the Jews not being allowed to carry guns is spun into a gun control-issue when it clearly is antisemitic legislation, nothing more. If including this makes sense to you then you might as well include a paragraph in a discussion about drunk driving laws that describes how women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to drive and how the state is Muslim and Pakistan, also Muslim, allows local tribal councils to gang-rape and execute women for adultery — therefore, suspending someone's license for drunk driving is the same as gang-rape and beheadings. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 13:46, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
    • Please read the article I cited - and note that it appears to make no irrelevant asides. Meanwhile, this article is about guns and not about drunk driving, so that aside is not only not relevant, it is an absurd straw man argument. Secondly - if a source meets WP:RS attacking it because you disagree with it is not a valid argument on Misplaced Pages. "IDONTLIKEIT" is not an argument of any weight whatsoever. So we are left with RS sources making statements, and balancing sources to provide NPOV. Which is how Misplaced Pages works. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:59, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
      • Read what it says. It's not balanced at all. Unless you seriously believe that one side is truth and the other is a mere claim. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 14:01, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
        • Interesting tactic - arguing on an RfC because a person presenta a law journal article which is unarguably RS! And it is not what anyone here WP:KNOWs to be the WP:TRUTH -- Misplaced Pages specifically only uses what reliable sources say, and balances to reach NPOV as nearly as possible. And that is something which your argument seems to fail to accept. Collect (talk) 14:52, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
          • A more "interesting" tactic is yours, which seems to imply that because there is at least one reliable source in the section, that the section should be left as is. — goethean 15:35, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
            • Note that I show a substantial number of reliable sources, not just "one", and Misplaced Pages policy is that where reliable sources exist, removal of an entire topic is violative of NPOV. NPOV is not created by denyin the existence of sources, but by seeking balance of points of view. Cheers. Collect (talk) 11:46, 20 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose & the RFC is fatally flawed The RFC is to blank an entire section, something which has never even been discussed. It is also worded as a total manipulative mess. The title doesn't match the arguments, it has arguments buried into the proposal, and the proposed item doesn't match the arguments. This is fatally flawed form the start. North8000 (talk) 14:02, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

You oppose what, the RFC? If you think that the section is perfectly neutral, then just say that. — goethean 14:09, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

I oppose both the fatally flawed RFC, and also blanking the entire section. North8000 (talk) 14:19, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

You oppose me seeking community input on the neutrality of the section? Interesting! — goethean 14:23, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

The "Proposal" is not that, it is to blank the entire section. Please see "PROPOSAL" in caps and bolded above....it's hard to miss. North8000 (talk) 14:28, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Then maybe you could come up with an alternative proposal. If you think that the section is perfectly neutral, then your proposal would be to leave it as it is. — goethean 14:33, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

"Perfectly" anything is a straw man. My "proposal" would be to evolve the section in the normal manner. North8000 (talk) 14:45, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

RFCs are not abnormal. I suggested some changes, my suggestions were rejected. I am seeking community input. — goethean 15:49, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose as written There are good ideas in this RfC but this is actually a set of multiple proposals which ought to be considered independently. Also, User:Collect is correct in saying that representing what the sources say is Misplaced Pages's judge of NPOV, so the both the sources which say these things and the sources which provide counterpoints must be included. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:35, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Really? Sources such as Lethal Laws: Gun Control is the Key to Genocide-- Documentary Proof that Enforcement of Gun Control Laws Clears the way for Governments to Commit Genocide? That's what Misplaced Pages is supposed to represent? I don't think so. — goethean 15:49, 17 April 2013 (UTC)
• Oppose RfC, Keep section, but... - I think the section, as a concept, has merit. But it should be kept to its barest minimum. Since this article should discuss the concept of "gun control" over its history, notable uses (or misuses) should each have their own section. So perhaps...

• Lead
• History

• GC in Australia and New Zealand

• National Firearms Agreement

• GC in the United Kingdom and Europe

• WW2 Germany

• GC in the United States

• Arguments

• Associations with authoritarianism
• Mortality rates
• Social and racial bias

• Etc.

• Lets try to remember and use to our advantage as Editors that we have the benefit of "20/20 hindsight" in this situation. Facts, figures, testimonial, and expert analysis (granted with some effort and investigation) are all available to us! --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 17:37, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

Oppose this invalid proposal for reasons already made clear by myself and others. Also, the manipulative/deceptive wording in this editor's RFC is absurd. ROG5728 (talk) 20:37, 17 April 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose Bad wording, bad proposal. Rewrite the article if you like, but don't slant it towards your POV. Shii (tock) 07:33, 18 April 2013 (UTC)
• Re-name It should be called "Conspiracy theories" but retained because they are widely believed by large segments of the U.S. public. The SPLC lists "door-to-door gun confiscations" as the fifth most popular conspiracy theory of the radical right. However, WP:FRINGE applies meaning we must not present the views as mainstream and should use reliable secondary sources. Instead of beginning, "Historically, totalitarian regimes have passed gun control legislation, which was later followed by confiscation", which is misleading and sourced to a fringe group, we should write, "Extreme opponents of gun control believe..." and source it properly. TFD (talk) 07:33, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

The use of gun control by totalitarian regimes throughout history isn't a "theory." It's fact. The statement you quoted from the section is not misleading, nor is it sourced to a "fringe group." It's established history. ROG5728 (talk) 07:40, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Agree. That stuff all happened, it is a matter of known, documented history. I think "fringe" would be to pretend that it didn't happen. North8000 (talk) 10:12, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

History is not a list of all true statements. That's why we need WP:RS secondary statements from qualified individuals who tie the content to the topic of the article. SPECIFICO talk 13:53, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

...rather than studies selected in order to prove a partisan point. This is basic, basic stuff. — goethean 14:03, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

Yup. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 14:15, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

You can read about the actual history in "Gun Laws under Nazi Germany" (Gun Laws in American Society, p. 455). The Nazis's first gun control legislation, five years after they attained power, was to abolish the requirement of permits for hunting rifles. Later they took away Jews' rights to own firearms, but never confiscated firearms from the general public. But this came long after they had locked up or killed most of the leaders of their political opposition. And soon they would be supplying firearms to almost all adult males as WW2 began. So too would the Soviet Union. The same writer, Michael S. Bryant, who is with the Holocaust Museum, explains the tendentiousness of the argument in "Holocaust Imagery and the Holocaust" (p. 565) The JPFO is certainly a fringe group, note their dispute with the ADL. TFD (talk) 16:18, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

You seem to be arguing against TFD's "door-to-door confiscation" which is not even in the article. North8000 (talk) 16:26, 20 April 2013 (UTC)

• Bad section. Most of the sources are synthy, and the ones used to tie the subject to the article topic are too poor to use. As well, the better sources dismiss the claim of gun control being just like the Nazis, but the way the section is written, they're mined for scaremongering incidents with their main point demoted to a throwaway reference, which is a totally inappropriate use. FYI, the "Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law" appears to be a student journal. –Roscelese (talk ⋅ contribs) 14:15, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

RFC response - I'm gonna dive right into the shit storm here and make some edits, fully expecting them to be reverted. Here are my explanations.

• Delete quote by Theodore Haas - goethean was correct in that this person lacks notability. My personal test for notability is whether or not a Misplaced Pages page exist for this person. We can't take Bob Gunowner's opinion on gun control and insert it into the article. This is trivially undue weight. This is not a rejection of the position he takes, and editors supporting it are encouraged to find reliable sources to state his opinion, but as it stands, this quote clearly has to go.
• Delete Stephen Halbrook quote - this also fails WP:RS as it is a self published source being used for information about something other than itself. Just look at the URL. Again, not a rejection of the information, but the sourcing is not what we need in a controversial article such as this. Supporting editors are again encouraged to fire up Google and find better sources than a lawyer with a website.
• Delete last sentence - This doesn't really add anything to either side.

Now I know this is going to upset a lot of editors, as this is a very sensitive topic for a lot of people, but it is that very reason that we must be particularly cautious when adding material to the page. Reading something somewhere online is not enough cause to add it to the article. The sources must be reliable. And editors are completely justified in removing material when the sources are not reliable. The WP:ONUS is on adding or restoring editors to provide reliable sources, so you should be looking for better sources before you revert. I will be very impressed if more sources are presented before a revert happens.

I do believe this accusation has a place on Misplaced Pages. It is a very common argument against gun control, whether or not it is valid. Thus it should not be difficult to find notable and reliable sources for the points supporting editors want to make. If we can put our rage aside for a few hours, I think it would be easy to find something that everyone can live with. But we have to work together, cooperatively and with the assumption of good faith, which, alas, might be too much to ask.

One more thing which I won't do immediately, I think the second paragraph should go. It doesn't really add anything other than to give specific on how Nazi Germany took guns from Jews. NINJA EDIT Also, I think the section should be moved to a subsection under #Arguments. PraetorianFury (talk) 18:05, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

As I stated earlier, both of the Holocaust survivor quotes could probably be removed without significantly harming this section. The other material is fine. In the meantime, the tags being added are completely unnecessary. We aren't going to say a section has multiple issues unless it's agreed that it has multiple issues. So far, that is not necessarily the case. Discuss your concerns here. ROG5728 (talk) 07:19, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, that's not really how it works. Disputed sections get disputed tags until the dispute is resolved. You have made 0 attempts to resolve any of the issues we've brought up, so the tags will stay indefinitely until you make good faith attempts to address our concerns. PraetorianFury (talk) 14:54, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

That's not right either, but let's just see if we can work it out. North8000 (talk) 15:11, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

With the RFC being so flawed that it's probably wp:snow on a resolution as framed, maybe we could just work out something here. North8000 (talk) 14:02, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Feel free to propose an alternative. SPECIFICO talk 14:17, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Take out the Holocaust survivor quotes, take off the tags, considered it to be settled, but still continue to improve the section. North8000 (talk) 14:50, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

...continue to use cherry-picked, laughably unreliable sources for a clearly partisan agenda, etc. — goethean 15:25, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree. This is false equivalence. Your "some holocaust survivor" is not equal to "a leading critical theorist with a specialization in the area of punishment and political economy". You seem to think this is a game and you can negate our reliable sources by presenting any sources of your own. No, if you want your arguments presented you need to go online and find good, reliable sources to support them. And like I said, this is not hard. I don't understand why this is even being argued over. Many many prominent Republicans and Gun Control advocates have made these claims. Why do you persist in this childish edit warring when the internet is rife with sources that support your claim? Find some experts or notable politicians and quote them. Just reverting over poor sources characterizes every POV pushing dispute I've been involved in. PraetorianFury (talk) 16:07, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Who are you arguing with? That "leading critical theorist with a specialization in the area of punishment and political economy" is already quoted in the article as saying the Nazi regime used gun control as a tool in their genocide of the Jews. And since when is that "your" reliable source? It was in the article before you entered this discussion, and since then you've actually done nothing whatsoever to contribute to the article in any way. The source flatly disagrees with you regarding gun control in Nazi Germany. In the meantime, this RFC is horribly worded (obvious POV pushing) and way too broad to be of any use in improving the article. ROG5728 (talk) 18:06, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

(Edit conflict)As I said earlier, deleting both holocaust survivors' quotes assumes false equivalence. One is notable and a reliable source. The other is not. This RFC has been open for over a week and not a single source have been provided by editors supporting the section. This is blatantly aggressive behavior definitive of POV warriors. If you are unable to provide reliable sources for the information in the article, then the information should be removed. That is how it works on Misplaced Pages, and that is how it will work on this article. On the other hand, your attempts to delete material that undermines your beliefs by equating it with that poorly sourced material is transparently biased. I have no problem with writing about the allegation made by gun rights activists and others. But it needs to be done in a way that is supported by reliable sources, and it is your responsibility to provide those reliable sources before contentious material makes it into the article. What I've seen so far I can only assume is childish laziness. You don wanna get no sources so you revert and revert to get your way. Grow up and start researching like an actual editor. PraetorianFury (talk) 18:33, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Well that's false, because removing the section completely would improve the article quite a bit. An article is not improved by the inclusion of obviously POV, highly slanted, poorly sourced material. — goethean 18:19, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Nazi Germany used gun control as a tool in their genocide of the Jews. That's a fact supported by plenty of reliable sources in the article (and elsewhere). You're the only one pushing a POV here. ROG5728 (talk) 18:24, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

What is at issue here is a section in this article which purports to describe gun control's "association with authoritarianism". THAT thesis is an argument, not a simple or obvious observation. And it is an argument made by lots of right-wing think tanks, not by mainstream sources. It is really interesting how this article treats gun control's "association with authoritarianism" but stays weirdly silent on the topics of gun control in liberal democracies or other societies. It doesn't take an Einstein-level genius to see what is going on here. — goethean 18:32, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

There's an issue with the name of the section, then. I agree, the name of the section should be changed. Actually, I did change it; then PraetorianFury changed it back. Not surprising, for an editor that has done nothing but WP:DISRUPT the article since entering this discussion. ROG5728 (talk) 18:35, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Are you whining about a rollback after having just made one? Feel free to make one undisputed change at a time if you actually want it to stick, but don't think you're fooling anyone by alleging hypocrisy because I don't sift through all the changes to try to find the few good ones. PraetorianFury (talk) 18:45, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Suppose that were true. If that were true, how would it be relevant to an article on gun control? Does the article on Mayonnaise discuss Nazi use of Mayonnaise? SPECIFICO talk 18:36, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

How is the history of gun control relevant to an article on gun control? Good question! NOT. ROG5728 (talk) 18:37, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

That was not the question that I asked, as I presume you are aware. SPECIFICO talk 18:49, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

PraetorianFury just added the Holocaust survivor quotes back, asking for better sources. Funny, because just a few comments earlier he said "WP:ONUS is on adding or restoring editors to provide reliable sources, so you should be looking for better sources before you revert." Make up your mind Praetorian... you can't have it both ways. If you want better sources for the Holocaust survivor quotes, get to work finding them. You're the only one that wants to keep them. I think they should be removed either way, as I stated earlier, because they take up a lot of space in a section that's already too big. ROG5728 (talk) 18:39, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

It's not ironic at all. I've maintained that only one of the holocaust survivor quotes needs to be deleted due to its unreliability and overweighting. When I made the change, it was reverted. So we will keep both, tags and all until a better solution is found. PraetorianFury (talk) 18:42, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, the ADL is no more reliable a source than the JFPO, nor does it deserve more weight; actually, the quote that reliable sources happen to agree with is the one from the JFPO interview. Regardless, both Holocaust survivor quotes need to go because the section is too big; actually, it's much bigger than even the section on Gun control in the U.S. ROG5728 (talk) 18:48, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't know if this is an issue with competency or just plain old WP:IDIDN'THEARTHAT. The issue with mentioning Theodore Haas is that he is not an expert. He is not a politician. He is no one. He is just some guy. Abraham Foxman is the national director of the Anti-Defamation League, which calls itself "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency". This has everything to do with gun control and it is certainly worth mentioning here. The issue has never been with the reliability of either source, but with their WP:WEIGHT. The national director of a civil rights organization should give infinitely more weight than some guy. I can't really explain it any simpler than that. PraetorianFury (talk) 18:57, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Really? Explain how this Abraham Foxman is an "expert" on gun control. He's not. More importantly, you keep complaining about weight but you don't seem to understand how it even works. Go back and actually read the policy you just linked. We give weight based on the prominence and acceptance of the views, not based on who specifically is voicing them. Your ADL quote is at odds with accepted historical fact. Period. In other words, if anything is undue, it's that quote, not the other one. ROG5728 (talk) 19:04, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Because I am editing in good faith, I will provide you with sources. Perhaps this will inspire you to follow my example, but I doubt it.

• Politico reports on the Foxman quote:
• Newsmax reports on the Foxman quote:
• Huffington Post reports on the Foxman quote:
• Here's a book that mentions Foxman and the ADL supporting gun control, which says, "Anti-semitism has a long and painful history, and the linkage to gun control is a tactic by Jews for the Preservation of Gun Ownership to manipulate fear of anti-semitism toward their own end."

Did you want anything else? PraetorianFury (talk) 19:19, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Congratulations, you found a multitude of sources that mention his quote. So what? How does that invalidate anything I said? ROG5728 (talk) 19:23, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

It establishes that he has been widely reported on in the context of gun control. The ADL in general was even more widely reported on:

• Ynet mentions the ADL's position.
• JTA devotes an entirely article to the ADL's position.
• Daily News (New York) also covers the ADL position in detail.
• Cleveland Jewish News reported that the ADL wanted an apology for using the Nazi comparision.

The point is that the ADL has been repeatedly connected to the gun control debate and Foxman is their director. He is relevant to this discussion. How about you show me some additional sources reporting on Theodore Haas? PraetorianFury (talk) 19:36, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

The fact that the ADL has been "connected" to the gun control debate doesn't prove anything either. The issue is not relevance. Obviously both quotes are about gun control so they're "relevant" automatically. The point is, the ADL guy is no more an "expert" on gun control than the other guy is. As for finding "additional sources reporting on Theodore Haas" -- I couldn't care less. I think both quotes should go. They unnecessarily bog down a section that is otherwise fact-based and historical. ROG5728 (talk) 19:48, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Wide reporting determines weight. Politicians may or may not be "experts" on gun control, but we often report their remarks on it as they are notable figures. We often report on the opinions of organizations as well. PETA, Pink, the Teaparty, etc. All of these things are noteworthy. Some guy in his shack being interviewed by a 24 hour news network trying to kill time or push an agenda is not notable. As director, we can infer that Foxman speaks for the ADL. The ADL is a civil rights group. Gun rights falls under the umbrella of civil rights. Therefore, Foxman should be mentioned as a representative of the ADL with regards to gun control. If he is not mentioned by name, other quotes taken from the ADL are also acceptable substitutes. PraetorianFury (talk) 20:12, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Wrong. The fact that a few sources mentioned the quote doesn't prove anything. That's not how weight works. Sorry, the ADL is no more reliable or neutral or relevant with regards to gun control than the JFPO. And we aren't going to give weight to either organization's opinions without a better reason. The section is already too big and neither of those quotes are noteworthy. ROG5728 (talk) 20:22, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

That many sources mention the organization and the quote does indeed prove that it should receive coverage. And you continue to show no understanding of the issues brought up regarding the quote by Theodore Haas. This is clear failure to get the point. Don't think that your childish rhetoric is convincing or original. I've been here for over 5 years and I've seen every sort of subtle manipulate to push an agenda. Nor should you think that your aggressive and bad faith editing will be rewarded. One editor has already been blocked. It will be interesting to see how far you decide to let your tantrum go. I have outlined steps for you when and if you decide to join editors who are working with sincerity: find reliable sources. Until then you are just a revert machine with nothing to contribute to this discussion. PraetorianFury (talk) 20:31, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

The fact that a few sources mention the ADL doesn't prove anything. There are plenty of sources that mention JFPO as well, including the "leading critical theorist with a specialization in the area of punishment and political economy" you were bragging about earlier. The point you keep missing is that I don't care about keeping either of those two quotes so I don't need to find sources. And the fact that you're not addressing my argument and instead attacking me just goes to show that you don't understand WP policies or procedure (after five years nonetheless), and can't make a valid argument in favor of your changes. You're the only editor that wants to keep the Holocaust survivor quotes, so actually you're the one conducting "aggressive and bad faith editing" and you're also the one that needs to look for sources. Sorry, you can't spin reality. Gain support for your changes or they won't stick. Or I could just quote your comment earlier, when you hypocritically said: "WP:ONUS is on adding or restoring editors to provide reliable sources, so you should be looking for better sources before you revert." Get to work. ROG5728 (talk) 20:48, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

*Sigh* I'm knowingly wasting my time correcting you because your fingers are miraculously in your ears and over your eyes, even as you type.

• "The fact that a few sources mention the ADL doesn't prove anything." - False. It proves that the organization and possibly the quote have received significant mainstream coverage and deserve a mention for discussing this exact topic.
• "There are plenty of sources that mention JFPO as well" - How many sources mention Theodore Haas? It is not the JFPO that I have a problem with, it's Theodore Haas.
• "The point you keep missing is that I don't care about keeping either of those two quotes" - If you don't care about the quotes, would you accept deletion of Theodore Haas's quote as I attempted to do originally? Or are you still assuming false equivalence, attempting to trade one shitty source to negate a better one. You think this is a game? You want to trade a pawn for a queen? How about I find a forum post somewhere by some guy on the internet who says there is no connection between Nazi Germany and gun control. If I try to add it to the article, do I get to remove one pro gun rights sentence? Is that how this works?
• "Or I could just quote your comment earlier..." - I have provided you with multiple reliable sources. You have provided me with none.

Right, and the fact that the organization and/or the quote has received some coverage from a few sources still doesn't prove anything. Again, that's not how weight works. The content is still WP:UNDUE. And you're the one that added the Haas quote back to the article so it's your responsibility to source it if you want to keep it. A number of other editors have already voiced support for removing both quotes prior to this RFC. The current source for the Haas quote (JFPO) is already valid anyway, but that doesn't mean it should stick. Regardless of how many sources we have for it, it's still unnecessary clutter and so is the ADL quote. Again, I couldn't care less about sourcing for either of them. If this were an article dedicated to gun control in Nazi Germany, then both quotes should be included, but the scope of this article is supposed to be much more broad. The article currently gives WP:UNDUE weight to two individuals that probably don't deserve to be mentioned here. Are you so intent on assuming bad faith that you can't understand that? ROG5728 (talk) 21:09, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

So we agree that the Haas quote is given undue weight. Yes? You want reliable sources for the Haas quote. I "refuse" to provide them. Therefore you are justified in deleting it, or since I am acting in good faith, I can do it too. Is this summary correct? PraetorianFury (talk) 21:18, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

We already have a source for the Haas quote, and there are others available. Here is one example. Again, the sourcing for either quote is not the issue. YOU are the only editor taking issue with the sourcing. My stance all along has been that both quotes are unnecessary and should be removed. You don't seem to understand... just because something is sourced doesn't mean it needs to be included. To include either quote is undue because they're both essentially nobodies giving their opinions, and obviously they can't speak for all Jews or all Holocaust survivors. ROG5728 (talk) 21:34, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, as you mentioned earlier, politicians -- there are lots of them with strong opinions for or against gun control, but you don't see us quoting all of those individuals in the article. It would be absurd to do so. Just because someone says something doesn't mean we have to put it on Misplaced Pages. ROG5728 (talk) 21:42, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I believe this was your third attempt to misrepresent my point. I will say it again. I have no problem with the reliability of the source for the Haas quote. I have a problem with the weight given to someone whose only qualifications are that he is a holocaust survivor. The book you linked to says that he was simply the "first Holocaust survivor to draw a connection between German gun control and the horror that followed it." Again, no notability established for this individual. He's just a guy who agreed with what JPFO founder Aaron Zelman on gun control. Those are the only two reasons he was interviewed. You are correct, he is a nobody. You are incorrect that the head of the ADL is a nobody. He has his own Misplaced Pages article which means that he passed the rigorous qualifications specified at WP:NOTABILITY which are specifically designed for new articles. He is notable. His positions deserve weight. When he and his organization are both mentioned in multiple reliable sources. They specifically mention the exact argument made here. Let me quote WP:WEIGHT for you:

"Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources... To give undue weight to the view of a significant minority, or to include that of a tiny minority, might be misleading as to the shape of the dispute. Misplaced Pages aims to present competing views in proportion to their representation in reliable sources on the subject."

So we have significant coverage in reliable sources for the Foxman quote. It should go in. Haas is a tiny minority. Policy says he should not receive any mention at all. Can you tell me how I am interpreting this wrong? PraetorianFury (talk) 22:11, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

A number of problems:

• Again, we don't assign weight based on who a statement is coming from or whether the person in question has his own Misplaced Pages article.
• Coverage for both of these Holocaust survivor quotes has been slim to non-existent, and it's fair to say that no one would know about either quote if it were not for this Wiki article. No one looks to the ADL guy for his expertise on the subject of gun control. In fact, in the grand scheme of things, no one even knows about the ADL's stance on guns. Sure, you can find sources if you search for them and try to find them, but that doesn't mean there's broad coverage. Even Joe Biden's comments on gun control have been much more widely reported and are much more well-known, and we don't include those in the article (and for good reason).
• The view by Haas is the "view of a significant minority?" How so? A majority of Americans actually see gun rights as protection against tyranny, so Haas's view is not some fringe minority view that doesn't deserve mention. Speaking of being "misleading as to the shape of the dispute," it would be incredibly misleading to quote the ADL guy while deleting the Haas quote and ignoring the JPFO. So that snippet from WP:WEIGHT essentially undermines your own argument.
• Again, just because someone says something (even if it's in some valid sources or the guy has good credentials) doesn't mean it needs to go on Misplaced Pages. See also: Joe Biden's well known "double barrel shotgun" comments.
• This is a section on the history of gun control, not people's arguments for or against it, so it should stick to the bare facts and leave out the opinions of both of these two individuals. We have a dedicated "arguments" section for a reason. ROG5728 (talk) 22:46, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

This is a section on the history of gun control, not people's arguments for or against it, so it should stick to the bare facts and leave out the opinions of both of these two individuals.

What complete and utter hogwash. This is a tiny snippet of history, using partisan sources and placed into this article in a shameful partisan effort to associate gun control with totalitasrian regimes.

A majority of Americans actually see gun rights as protection against tyranny], so Haas's view is not some fringe minority view that doesn't deserve mention.

This is a crazy, disingenuous argument. Should one argue that because a majority of Americans like the Beatles, every criticism of the Beatles should be balanced by a partisan quotation from some unknown person? What nonsense. — goethean 01:24, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Gun control is going to be inextricably associated with totalitarian regimes whether you like it or not, because that's history. But aside from the two Holocaust survivor quotes, I don't see any real argument for or against gun control in the section as it currently stands. As for the Haas statement, a strong majority of Americans hold that view as I said, and it's our job per WP:NPOV to balance opposing views. And as for the Beatles article, yes, of course criticisms toward them should be balanced. Actually, criticism sections in general should be avoided because they tend to distort reality. ROG5728 (talk) 01:41, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

The way that the mayo analogy is irrelevant is informative here. Gun control largely IS instances of it, mayo is not instances of it being eaten. North8000 (talk) 18:44, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Greetings, North. Have a looksee: Petitio principii. Capiche? SPECIFICO talk 18:57, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

You are going to have to be more specific if you are trying to imply applicability. North8000 (talk) 19:44, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

The feeling is mutual. Cheers SPECIFICO talk 19:54, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Mine didn't imply anything, it was a short direct statement about one aspect discussed. But to expand on that, gun control is largely an action, not an object. And so coverage of examples of gun control (e.g. of major ones in history) is coverage directly of the topic. North8000 (talk) 20:56, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

• Oppose, neutrality arguments are understandable, and it can be said that the section can be rewritten, but to delete the entire section is something I would not support. This RfC is basically a section AfD, and as such may I say WP:NOTCLEANUP is a good reason to oppose question of this RfC..--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:42, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

The Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law

The Journal in which the self-published article was first disseminated is a Student-directed project at the University of Arizona. As I stated in a recent edit comment it is not clear that this is a WP:RS for the claims made in the cited content. If any editor is familiar with this publication, its editorial policies, criteria for publication, etc. please share your view on its status as RS. In the meantime I feel that the tag is appropriate and that it should not be deleted but should remain until the original publication has been vetted. Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 00:41, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into that, SPECIFICO. PraetorianFury (talk) 16:10, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

1. ^ Firearm Injury Center at Penn (2011). Firearm Injury in the US. Firearm Injury Center at Penn.
2. National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. "Nonfatal Injury Reports". WISQARS ((Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System). CDC. Retrieved 6 February 2013.
3. Cook, Philip (2000). Gun Violence: The Real Costs. New York: Oxford University Press. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
4. Kahan, Dan. "Cultural Cognition and Public Policy". Yale Law & Policy Review. 24: 147–70. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
5. Lemaire, Jean (2005). "The Cost of Firearm Deaths in the United States: Reduced Life Expectancies and Increased Insurance Costs". Journal of Risk and Insurance. 72 (3): 359–374. doi:10.1111/j.1539-6975.2005.00128.x. Retrieved 26 January 2013. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
6. Branas, Charles (2009). "Investigating the Link Between Gun Possession and Gun Assault". Am J Public Health. 99 (11): 2034–2040. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2008.143099. Retrieved 25 January 2013. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
7. Carter, Gregg (2002). Guns In American Society: An Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1576072684.

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