Talk:Gun violence/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Joyce Malcolm's misleading "massage" claim

I see that Malcom's claim that "English police 'massage down' the homicide statistics" is continuing to be used here without any clarification that it is highly misleading. As I noted above back in March, the Home Office continues - as it always has done - to publish two sets of figure: "offences initially recorded as homicide," and "offences currently recorded as homicide" (my emphasis). In most statistical bulletins they are printed alongside each other. The impression given by Malcom's claim, that only the adjusted figures are available" is simply false. Thi is especially pertinent considering that - as I showed previously above - the UN document which feeds the homicides by country table is clearly using figures which are based on the "initially recorded" for England & Wales. Nick Cooper (talk) 13:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

NPOV Dispute

I feel that this article violates Wikipedia's NPOV policy. It appears to me that this article is written with a pro-gun control point of view. For example, it uses the verbiage "loose gun laws" in the United States. The United States at the Federal level, as well as all 50 states, have many, many laws that outlaw the illegal use of firearms, including but not limited to murder, (armed) robbery, assault, etc.

Furthermore, many of the articles cited are from known pro-gun control authors. Philip J. Cook, for instance, has written books and papers and is a gun control proponent (http://www.nraila.org/Issues/articles/read.aspx?ID=125 and http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/factsheets/?page=econ). The article cites the Mighigan Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence, which is a gun control support group with links the Brady Campaign and Violence Policy Center (http://www.mppgv.org/Web_links_content.htm) but no links to the National Rifle Association, an organization on the pro-gun side of the equation.

While it is perfectly valid to include citations from both the Brady Campaign and the NRA, I feel that the article's neutrality should be evaluated so that neither a pro-gun control nor pro-gun point of view are presented. Gun violence is a real thing, and proponents on both sides will present arguments in favor of their cause, but Wikipedia's articles aren't the place for that. Msawyer91 (talk) 04:03, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. This article is biased in the opening intro. I'm going to clean it a bit right now. Krushia (talk) 05:57, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, just removed the entire USA sentence - it could not be salvaged. The rest of the country-specific references in the opening header should probably go too as the table says it all. If anyone else agrees, just go at it. Krushia (talk) 06:03, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree that the article violates the NPOV policy, if anything it leans more towards a pro-gun viewpoint, brushing aside issues like suicide statistics and inaccurately listing the top crime-ridden cities with outdated facts. There's no such thing as a neutral source in this debate, so we should strive for balance, not the elimination of either side. 76.120.86.193 (talk) 02:25, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

Inclusion of suicide data into gun "violence" data

As firearms suicides comprise the majority of annual firearms deaths in the United States, most gun control organizations have started to factor in these figures into their statistics on gun "violence", presumably in an effort to make their statistics more convincing. As the term "violence" implies criminal misuse, and most medical authorities would consider suicide to be a medical, not a criminal problem. (For the pedantically inclined: The inclusion of suicide in many penal codes reflects the desire to establish a mechanism to allow law enforcement authorities and courts to involuntarily place suicidal individuals into medical care; in the real world, no attempted suicides are ever sent to prison.) Therefore, I feel that inclusion of suicides and attempted suicide data in overall "violence" data to be inappropriate and disingenuous. Regrettably, this sort of tactic has become commonplace in the gun control debate. NDM (talk) 23:56, 19 December 2008 (UTC)

I think suicide is absolutely a factor in gun violence statistics and this article artificially deflates statistics to prove an unfortunate bias in not including them. Violence is a simple term and includes *all* destructive use of a weapon - homicide, personal injury (self inflicted or otherwise), death. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Prosecreator (talk • contribs) 05:42, 23 May 2009 (UTC)

Gun Violence

The term "gun violence" does not make sense in English.

"Gun violence" = "violence committed with guns." I don't see what's so nonsensical about it. Krimpet 14:53, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Homicide stats involving firearms include lawful gun-related self-defense deaths, at least in the US. Homicide only means the deaths are due to firearms in these stats, not that the total numbers of deaths are due to gun violence. To claim otherwise is misleading. Yaf 13:28, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I think death by a gun is violent enough to be considered violent, justifiable or not 96.18.35.35 (talk) 19:34, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Lawful homicides with firearms in the US are seperated from murders with firearms by the FBI. You can see it on their website. I don't know if the UN or FBI added them as these multi-country/city studies often contain mistakes. Power Society (talk) 01:24, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

This entire article seems to be deeply flawed. It is bizarre that the article is titled "Gun Violence" and yet nowhere in the article are comparative statistics for Gun Deaths (homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths committed with guns, and gun-deaths that have unknown/unreported causes) presented. For example, the section "Association with Urban Areas" begins by talking about "gun crime" and then presents only statistics on overall homicide (from all causes). Likewise, the section "Changes Over Time" presents no data whatsoever on "gun violence" specifically, instead referring again to violent crime and overall homicide rates from all causes. Regarding this section, why would an article on "Gun Violence" mention that the U.S. homicide rate is currently three times higher than Britain's without mentioning that the U.S. gun death rate is currently more than 30 times higher than Britain's? The selection of "See Also" articles also appear to be biased, and has no direct relation to this topic. Have statistics on Gun Death from all causes been scrubbed from this article, or where they simply never presented, as they should have been? These statistics are readily available. As for the specific issue of justifiable homicides in the U.S., the FBI consistently reports fewer than 200 such homicides each year, a very small number in a country that experiences more than 17,000 total murders annually. Forward Thinkers (talk) 18:41, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Updated (& later reverted) statistics

The article currently says

20 percent of U.S. homicides occur in four cities with just 6% of the population – New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Washington, D.C., and each has a virtual prohibition on private handguns

Well I just did the calculation for myself and it seems that things have greatly changed These 4 cities account with handgun bans now account for only about 10 percent of U.S. homicides so crime in those hand gun ban cities, seemingly a remarkable fall. See http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/03/national/main4696974.shtml. New York had 522 homicides, Chicago 508, Detroit 344, and Washington DC had 186 making 1560 of about 16000 homicides nationally (if the pattern for 2008 matches the last 8 years which have swung around 16000 annual homicides. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/index.html

I will update the article accordingly.--Hauskalainen (talk) 00:21, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

i've reverted your edits, which contained unsupported speculations (OR). please avoid including your personal speculations in article space. the guns bans were in effect long ago, and have had no effect on crime. the gun bans are still in effect. correlation and causation are two different things. all violent crime statistics across the country are down significantly, to the lowest levels seen since the 1960's. your speculation that it may or may not be due to gun bans isn't supported by what you cited. let the citations speak, not the editor. Anastrophe (talk) 05:04, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

My concern is that the text Anastrophe re-inserted invites us to think that the handgun ban has no effect on homicide levels. But that is wrong to infer and there is no warning in the text about making such an inference. I added the fact that the homicide rate for those 4 cities with virtual handgun bans has seen a dramatic decline in homicide levels in the last eleven years (more than 50 per cent lower than they were) but I added he warning that the reader should not jump to conclusions about the reasons for that. I would say my edit was much more guarded than the one he reverted. Anastrophes's reverted edit also tends to prefer old data to new data. That too is surely not very helpful. The revert seems to ignore the good news that homicides crime in those cities are now much closer to the national average than they were and worse still paints a picture that handgun bans do not reduce homicide rates. I have no idea whether handgun bans do or do not but we should not shy away from the fact that in 1988 1998 (corrected--Hauskalainen (talk) 10:24, 3 May 2009 (UTC)) there were 20675 homicides nationally which by 2007 had dropped to 16929 - a drop of 18 percent over 10 years ( http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius2007/data/documents/07tbl01.xls) but that in the 4 cities specifically mentioned in the text, the homicide rate had droppped by over 50% in 11 years - i.e. four times faster than the national average rate of homicide reduction.

Anastrophe seem to know when the handgun bans were implemented in those cities because he says they were instigated "long before" (presumabaly long before 1997). Perhaps he can tell us when and give us some references. --Hauskalainen (talk) 20:00, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

there are an assortment of serious problems with your edits, not the least of which being your characterization of them above.

1. rates are far more illuminative than raw numbers, since the population is ever increasing (whereas the population in the cities in question has actually dropped). the drop in US homicides is even more significant than presented, since the number dropped while the population increased. you suggest that the homicide rate had dropped by over 50% in eleven years, but theres no rate in anything you cite.
2. your numbers don't add up, even remotely. i've no idea why you've chosen 1988 above for your claims, nor how you figure that 1988 to 2007 equals 10 years. which of the sources discuss 1988? (inserted comment: It was a typo, I should have typed 1998--Hauskalainen (talk) 10:24, 3 May 2009 (UTC)) the original statistic stated that 20% of US homicides occurred in the four cities with 6% of the US population - presumably based on 1990, as the quote is from Kleck's Point Blank, published in 1991. in 1990, there were 23,440 homicides in the US. that would mean that there were 4688 homicides in those four cities in 1990, out of a population of 14,922,592. that is a rate of 31.42 per 100,000.
3. your additions seem designed to suggest that the gun bans do have an effect - while ignoring that violent crime and homicide rates have been falling across the board in the US since 1992, without any significant changes in gun control nationwide.
4. the cities in question comprised 4% of the US population as of 2007. that would mean 1560 homicides in those four cities out of a population of 12,064,846. that is a rate of 12.93 per 100,000. so in fact the rate has dropped by more than 50% in those four cities since 1990. the problem however, is demonstrated by the next item...:
5. washington DC's gun ban has been in place since 1976. as this chart shows [1] one can see that the number of homicides increase by orders of magnitude well after the ban was put in place. one can't rationally suggest that a ban reduced homicides when homicides increased long after the ban took effect, then only decreased when violent crime nationally began dropping in 1992.
6. chicago's gun ban has been in place since 1982. new york city's virtual gun ban has been in place since 1976. i can't find specifically when detroit's restrictions went into place. but the bottom line is, homicides increased, steadily, since the 1960's through to the early 1990's in the united states. these bans had been in place long before the early 1990's, thus homicides were increasing long after the bans began, and have since decreased without any further restrictions.
7. ultimately, massaging statistics is not going to make a better article. the obvious root cause of the increasing homicide rates in washington DC through the 1980's was the crack epidemic therein, not the ban on handguns, which had been in place since fifteen years before the peak. Anastrophe (talk) 02:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

(((i have refactored editor hauskalainen's comments, as the inline commenting broke the the numbering i used (employing the octothorpe character). i've reintroduced numbering below so that the responses correspond to the numbers of my comments. hopefully this is acceptable))

1. I did not mention rates but neither did the edit you put back! I merely updated the contribution of those 4 cities to the national homicide total. It fell from 20% to 10%. It is the same statistic as was there originally but updated from the 1990 or 1991 data to the situation in 2008. There was an assumption in there and that is that the national total of homicides for 2008 will be in line with those for the previous 10 years. It is an assumption but not an unrealistic one.
2. The numbers do add up. They came from the article. And they are therefore 18 years more up to date than the numbers in the text you added back. Now that I have told you the date and the source of the data, what possible reason is there for not having back the more recent data? --Hauskalainen (talk) 14:50, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
3. On the contrary. The original text shows an edit bias whereas mine at least had a caveat about interpretation. Nick has also made the same point. You are simply wrong and guilty of re-introducing bias.
4. Well what you added back says that 20% of the nation's homicides occur in these 4 cities (though it does not make it clear that the statistic is from 1990). My text said it was 20% but is now 10%. The text in the article space did not say that the incident rate had fallen by 50%. My 10% figure is going to be more accurate (and provable if the total homicides for 2008 are in line with those in the last 10 years). It can go back when we have that data.
5. For some reason my system cannot open the file you referenced. Nevertheless I did not suggest any link between the handgun bans and the reduction in homicides in those citites. But the text you added back implies that there is a inverse link (add gun ban, get more deaths). Where is the original source evidence for this link and what does it purport to show?
6. But if the 4 cities contribtion to total homicides has dropped from 20% to 10%, that means that drop has been greater in those cities (taken together) than elsewhere. Or are you arguing that the population in those cities has halved since 1990?
7. I did NOT massage any statisitics! You may be right about crack, but that makes my caution about interpretation highly valid.--Hauskalainen (talk) 14:50, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) to the points:

1. i reverted your edit because of the problems i described. that isn't an endorsement of the previous text.
2. i agree that more up to date statistics would be good. but the speculative commentary going along with it is not appropriate - if you suggest that the totals dropped by half, without acknowledging that all violent crime/homicide rates have fallen nationally, and that the rates in those cities far exceeded national rates while rates were climbing - then it's misleading. concentrated centers of population always have more significant fluctuations in crime than less densely populated areas.
3. both the former and your edit introduce bias, per the above. ultimately the section needs a clearer description, because it does not address the issues with any depth. replacing one biased statement with another is not an improvement. status quo until the details are worked out here on talk is the rule of the day.
4. yes, i agree, the former material needs to identify that it is from 1990 or thereabouts. again, i reverted your edit, which introduced several errors, in favor of the status quo, until the details can be worked out.
5. see the article Crime in Washington, D.C..
6. see 2, above.
7. your caution would be appropriate if it were a blanket caution. ultimately, what's needed is an examination of violent crime/homicide rates in large cities that have had high rates in the past, that did not have gun bans in effect. comparing how the rates have climbed and fallen through the years against those with bans would be the most illuminating path. Anastrophe (talk) 16:03, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think Hauskalainen's edits were designed - as you suggest - "to suggest that the gun bans do have an effect," but the original/current wording does appear to lead the reader in the direction that such legislation either has no effect, or has the opposite effect. The latter is, of course, an argument frequently made by the pro-gun lobby, claiming that criminals can then use firearms with impunity without the risk of coming up against an armed civilian. This line of reasoning has been especially popular on the part of American commentators in relation to the UK handgun bans not affecting rising trends in burglary and robbery, even though only 0.1% of the population owned the handguns that were banned, and that legally they should have been kept in secure storage, so they would not have been available for such self-defence purposes. Nick Cooper (talk) 09:52, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Its funny Nick, I too had the same thoughts! Its not as though guns are very prevalent in English burlaries and robberies. I have not read the stats, but I'm fairly sure most criminals in the UK do not go out armed, with a gun or otherwise. Have recently seen the last 3 episodes of Morse and the first two of Lewis. If these guys think Manchester has a bad rate of gun crime they should check out Oxford! But only in their dreams of course ;) --Hauskalainen (talk) 14:50, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Home Office stats show that the number of burglaries involving firearms in E&W were:

Calendar years:

1991 - 176

1992 - 182

1993 - 237

1994 - 259

1995 - 279

1996 - 300

1997 - 316

Financial years:

1997/98 - 333

1998/99 - 319

1999/00 - 329

2000/01 - 390

2001/02 - 483

2002/03 - 494

2003/04 - 533

2004/05 - 341

2005/06 - 298

2006/07 - 206

2007/08 - 172

As can be seen, they did rise after the handgun bans, but pretty much at the same rate as they had been for six years previously, then you get the unaccountable plummet after 2003/04. The number of police-recorded burglaries in 2007/08 was 280,704 domestic and 302,995 non-domestic, so a total of 583,699. Firearms were therefore only used in one in every 3,394. Nick Cooper (talk) 16:43, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Regarding the recent edits by Hauskalainen reverted by Anastrophe, if the four cities accounted for 20% of homicides nationally in 1997, but 10% in 2008, this is a statistically significant change. Either this should be explicitly mentioned, or else we should use the most recent figure, since it would be misleading to retain the older one in isolation. In a wide sense, 20% in 6% of the population is a marked difference, but 10% in (what I assume is still) 6% of the population is not. Should we present this as if it is still an "issue"? Nick Cooper (talk) 07:55, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

It is no longer 6% of the population, being the large exodus that has occurred to escape ever increasing crime rates in the cities in question. New statistics would be interesting to find, as they would no doubt provide interesting comparisons. Considering just Detroit, the downward trend in population has been:

• 1950 1,849,568
• 1960 1,670,144
• 1970 1,514,063
• 1980 1,203,368
• 1990 1,027,974
• 2000 951,270
• 2008 916,952 (estimated)

The city population is less than half the size it was in 1950, as crime has increased and driven many residents out. The current city population is probably under 885,000. Meanwhile, the population of the country as a whole is up considerably. The current percentage of the nationwide population for the 4 cities in question is therefore probably considerably under 6%. Absolute numbers are not as indicative as rates, due to rapidly diminishing populations in the cities in question, and the rapid rise in total country population. Looking at 10% of the total homicides in a much larger population for the country as a whole, coming from just 4 cities that now have considerably under 6% of the total population, is definitely an interesting point to ponder. Yaf (talk) 20:36, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

If Detroit really is 885,000 then that's 3% of the US popultion (299 million) on its own. New York (8,274,527) is 2.8%, Chicago (2,836,659) is 0.9%, and Washington DC (591,833) 0.2%. Overall that's 12,588,019 people - 4.2% of the population. If fatalities had kept pace with population, they would be 14% of the total, not 10%. Nick Cooper (talk) 17:07, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

your math is incomprehensible. how can

885,000 = 3% of the population, but

8,274,527 = 2.8% ???

as has already been pointed out, high density populations trend more dramatically than less densely populated areas. that is, if crime on the whole is rising nationally, high density cities will tend to rise more dramatically than the average, and less densely populated areas will rise less dramatically than the average. conversely, as crime rates fall, high density population areas will tend to fall more dramatically than the average, while less densely populated areas will fall less dramatically. dense population = magnified effect/response to trends. Anastrophe (talk) 07:13, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

No, I just missed a decimal point/added a zero in haste in the case of Detroit. However, the other calculations are correct and the total remains at 12,588,019 - 4.2% of the US population. Nick Cooper (talk) 11:21, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

Yaf. Please let us have the source for your stats for the declining population of Detroit.--Hauskalainen (talk) 11:40, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

removal of POV material

editor hauskalainen appears to be on a one-man campaign to remove material that he claims is "POV". there are problems with this. first, WP runs by consensus. second, there is nothing at all wrong or improper with an article containing "POV" content, in fact, it's entirely appropriate. NPOV does not mean that the article doesn't include material that is exemplar of any points of view, it means that an article fairly includes all major points of view. further, NPOV policy is very, very clear that NPOV is not a license for deletion. it is license to add material to balance a POV, if a POV is overrepresented. such is not the case with the material editor hauskalainen is removing. it appears to be that editor hauskalainen doesn't like some of the statistics. not liking something isn't an acceptable rationale for removing it. nor, as just mentioned, is such removal supported by NPOV. the claim that the statistics are 'irrelevant' doesn't hold water. please discuss before removing this material yet again. Anastrophe (talk) 17:44, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Anastrophe is wrong here. Anastrophe misrepresents WP:PRESERVE here, and the moving of the content to the talk page is a another acceptable method to remove content from the article space. Per policy the article should have a balanced point of view, and moving the excessive POV material to the talk page is a genuine way to achieve balance. There are conflicting principles. Yes, there is a guideline favoring the preservation of content. Yes, there is guideline for an optimal article size. While balanced POV is a policy. Anastrophe is giving selective focus to one guideline over the other and improperly ignoring the violation of policy. Also, editors should note that this is also part of a long term pattern of Anastrophe and Yaf giving deep scrutiny of user Hauskalainen, which appears personally focused, and to be improper WP:OWN of this article. SaltyBoatr (talk) 16:08, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

POV can be expressed when it is clear that this is POV. Not when it is buried in supposedly neutral text (such as the references to gun control which clearly were intended tolead the reader to a a conclusion that "gun control does not work". All I was doing was moving or removing POV from sections that should be neutral, deleting repetition and irrelevant material from the article. I am still awaiting a response to the issues that Anastophe and Yaf have with each individual edit. As far as I can see each individual edit was totally justifiable. The reversions of those edits were not. I did accidentally somehow delete some of Anastrophes text on this talk page for which I apologise. (Thanks to Yaf for puting it back). However, if there is no sensible reply soon to the questions I have raised about the individual edits, I will just make the changes again. --Hauskalainen (talk) 18:34, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I totally agree that a significant problem with this article is that too much "supposedly neutral text" serves "to lead the reader to a a conclusion that "gun control does not work". (Violation of WP:SYN.) That is the biggest single reason for the longstanding NPOV warning on the article. Yaf and Anastrophe seem dead set on obstructing attempts to fix this problem. They could dispel this improper appearance by engaging in good faith dialog about these specific reverts done by Anastrophe. SaltyBoatr (talk) 18:53, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree as well. This article is painful to read as it pedantically ignores the intelligence of the reader with leading commentary that obviously is written to sway an opinion against gun control. Prosecreator (talk) 04:48, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

It is right that all main POVs should be represented. But this is not the problem.

Tell me,

1. why is it necessary to have the qualifications about the interpretation data within the table itself? This is against all normal conventions.

2. Its bolding and repetititon sees to me to be there solely to undermine the data in the table, but the basic data in the table is correct. The proper place for the qualification should be in the introduction to the table. That is where I placed it. You have put back the repetition, the bolding and the placement of that qualification into the table. That is evidence of POV editing whereas my editing was entirely aimed at preserving proper editing standards.

3. You claim to have reverted 1 edit by me. Actually you have reverted several edits by me, each of which was carefully explained. Your (and Yaf's) en bloc reversions are against the spirit of Wikipedia which should be to explain ones edits and reasons for reverts.

4. The claims by Malcolm about violence in the UK is really a smoke screen. We are not discussing violence. We are discussing gun violence.

5. The level of serious gun violence is about 25 times greater in the UK than the UK. It is a fact. The edit you have put back is about all violence and not gun violence. I see no real reason for this being here other to undermine the truth (which I mentioned and Yaf I think reverted) that serious gun violence is 25 times greater in the US than in the UK. That the reference I added for this did not mention this is frankly irrelevant. The UK and the US represent similar industrialized economic powers at approximately the same state of economic and social development but are at polar opposites when it comes to gun ownership and gun violence rates. This is an interesting observation and was partly referred to in the edit I made this morning and which has now been reverted. This is not POV but bald factual information. I fail to see what is wrong with it.

6. The right place for POV elements are in parts of the text where views are being expressed, One should not have POV edits in what should be neutral elements of the text such as tables and in references!

7. I actually deleted very little. Mostly repetitious statements and off topic statements. Most of the references were left. What did I delete specifically that you object to? If you think they are on topic or not repetitive, please explain which applies to which deletion and why.--Hauskalainen (talk) 20:15, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

we cannot pretend that a discussion of gun violence exists in a vacuum, discrete from violence in general. gun violence in the US rises and falls with the overall violence levels. just as important is that the overall violent crime rates between the UK and US have been gradually converging, with UK violence rising and US violence falling. the smokescreen is to pretend that the difference in rates of gun violence comport to dramatically different rates of violent crime overall, and homicide in particular. the smokescreen is the political and advocacy term 'gun violence' itself. just because people in the UK kill themselves and each other more frequently using their fists, knives, cudgels, ropes, and pills than we do in the US is small consolation to the dead. but i digress. scrubbing information about overall homicide rates is not acceptable. Anastrophe (talk) 23:35, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I think you make some good points, but I would have to disagree about any suggestion that UK and US violent crime rates are converging. Convergence suggests they will soon be on par. The spread by any estimate I'm aware of is huge, convergence would mean dramatic changes in both regions quickly. I think this portion of the article should be removed. Also, when you use the term "smoke screen" you're suggesting bias and possibly deceit. IMHO, it is worthwhile to single out gun violence because firearms by definition are unique in their ability to do harm easily and to greater numbers than other means, simply put. Prosecreator (talk) 02:34, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

the statistics speak for themselves, and in fact they are on a path to convergence. no, guns are not unique in their ability to do harm easily and to greater numbers than other means. your opinion is noted but the facts are clear that there are many means for doing violence that are just as easy, and can harm even greater numbers. see Happy Land fire, for example. not many things are easier, and cheaper, than a little gas and a match. Anastrophe (talk) 02:56, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Anastrophe - do you have a reference that says these contries are converging or are you simply making a bold prediction? As I mentioned, figures rising in one country and dropping in the other, paired with a staggering gap, does not indicate convergence. Once I see FBI statistics showing widespread violence involving gas and matches - then I'll believe you. ;) Prosecreator (talk) 04:43, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Anastrophe, what is the statistical basis for your claim that, "people in the UK kill themselves and each other more frequently using their fists, knives, cudgels, ropes, and pills than we do in the US"? The most recent figures avaulable on the BJS site[2] show the number of homicides in the US by weapon types as:

Handgun = 8478 (approximately 2.87 per 100,000 of population)

Other gun = 2868 (approx. 0.97 per 100,000)

Knife = 2147 (approx. 0.73 per 100,000)

Blunt instrument = 671 (approx. 0.23 per 100,000)

Other = 2528 (approx. 0.86 per 100,000)

For the financial year Apr 2005 - Mar 2006, homicides in England and Wales were:

Shooting = 50 (approx. 0.09 per 100,000)

Sharp instrument = 212 (approx. 0.40 per 100,000)

Blunt instrument = 61 (approx. 0.11 per 100,000)

Other = 423 (approx. 0.79 per 100,000)

Knife/sharp instruments deaths are almost twice as frequent by population in the US; blunt instruments more than twice as frequent; and all others marginally higher. Clearly on every level, Americans are more likely to be the victims of homicide than the people in England & Wales. Nick Cooper (talk) 07:44, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

i clearly wrote "themselves and each other". you left out suicide from your statistical tally. Anastrophe (talk) 03:39, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

But you were clearly wrong as regards the so freely offered "each other" element. The UK has historically always had a higher suicide rate than the US (about 72% higher in 2005), but the percentage of it commited with firearms is virtually the same as the percentage of the population that owns firearms, so other methods naturally account for (literally) 99% of such deaths. I suspect, though, that in terms of "gun violence" most people would be more bothered by the prospect of being killed by others, than others killing themselves. Nick Cooper (talk) 20:08, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

you make my point. absence of guns doesn't reduce suicides, so presence of guns doesn't increase them. those intent on harm - to themselves or others - will use whatever is available. interestingly, saltyboatr below suggests that the majority of gun violence is suicide. you on the other hand don't consider that a great bother. thus the problem with the political advocacy term "gun violence". it's a smokescreen. violence is violence, regardless of the tool used to render it. Anastrophe (talk) 03:54, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Anastrophe - So in essence you're arguing this article should be removed as it is inherently biased just in it's subject alone? Prosecreator (talk) 04:43, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

the term 'gun violence' is a political advocacy term. as an encyclopedia, we should avoid articles based on such constructs - unless they are clearly presented as such. why isn't there an article for Knive violence? Beating violence? Blunt Object violence? Arson violence? about 2500 people are murdered each year in the US using knives. do we not give a rat's-ass about their lives being taken criminally? apparently organizations such as Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and Brady Campaign don't. they only care if you're murdered "by" a gun. that, frankly, sickens me. but i digress. Anastrophe (talk) 05:06, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually, knife violence is very much an issue in the UK at the moment. Nick Cooper (talk) 07:52, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Anastrophe, your "reasoning" seems as suspect as ever. The fact that the suicide rate in the UK is significantly higher than the US clearly indicates that this is a complex issue, but the fact that a very low ownership of firearms is mirrored in a very low incidence of their use in suicide suggests that the prevalence of firearms is a factor in itself. Suicidal people choose many ways to kill themselves, and not all are successful - someone intent on jumping off a bridge can be be disuaded, the self-poisoner can misjudge the dosage or be found in time to be treated, etc. - and many such people subsequently get over their suicidal tendencies. I know people who have attempted suicide, failed, and live every day now glad that they didn't succeed. Things would be very different if they'd had a gun in the house, instead of the methods that they did choose. It is the potential effectiveness as tool for suicide that makes firearms an issue. In the UK about as many people kill others with firearms as kill themselves, but it looks like in the US twice as many people kill themselves as others with firearms. Clearly the actual prevalence of firearms has something to do with it. And I never said I "don't consider [suicide] a great bother," just that naturally most people will think homicide is a more of a concern than suicide. If a complete stranger chooses to throw themselves under a Tube train on my way to work today, that is clearly going to inconvenience a lot of people, but if instead they choose to push someone else under a train, or drag someone else with them, that would have a more significant detrimental effect. Nick Cooper (talk) 07:51, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Unless I get a sensible response to my questions above I will simply revert the deletions of my edits. I see nothing wrong with them and so far I have heard nothing that actually justifies the undoing of edits that were intended to keep the content of the article on topic and avoid the introduction of bias. I hear the argument that at least one editor here believes that violence and gun violence are related. That may well be true, but the discussion belongs neither in a table of international statistics or in a reference. If that issue needs to be discussed it should be in its own section. Please justify the undoing of each edit

Edit 1

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gun_violence&diff=293426790&oldid=293113730 Edit summary: remove text which effectively repeats what is said in the previous sentence

The summary should have said a previous sentence. The previous sentence which was retained says

"Caution is advised in reading the table. The statistics cannot take into account the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in various countries, of the different methods of tallying, etc. Consequently, the figures used in these statistics must be interpreted with great caution. In particular, to use the figures as a basis for comparison between different countries is highly problematic"

The deleted sentence says

""The statistics cannot take into account the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in various countries, of the different methods of tallying, etc.Consequently, the figures used in these statistics must be interpreted with great caution. In particular, to use the figures as a basis for comparison between different countries is highly problematic."

Please explain why this edit was deleted and the duplication retained.

Edit 2

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gun_violence&diff=293427728&oldid=293426790 Edit summary: Homicides by country: Delete specific ref to CDC actions which will not have infected the U.S. data. However, the reference is retained

The deleted text says

"However, statistics looking at gun violence will often combine homicide, suicide, and gun accident data. For example, the CDC includes homicide, suicide, and "legal intervention" in its "Violence-related" data"

This may be true for some US statistics from the CDC but it is a diversion. There is no reason to believe that the table in question is infected with suicide and accident data from the CDC or any other statistical source. If there is evidence to the contrary then I will reconsider, but otherwise this text is irrelevant. That is why I removed the text. In retrospect I really should have deleted the reference also as it is then out of context.

Edit 3

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gun_violence&diff=293428215&oldid=293427728 Edit summary: Homicides by country: again delete text which repeats the earlier point but retain references The deleted text reads "other sources for statistics are often less transparent about their raw data."

There is no precise equivalent but the point is well made in the retained text "The statistics cannot take into account the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in various countries, of the different methods of tallying, etc" which of course are impractical to list here even if they were all known.

In any case the references were sttill retained so anyone really concerned to find out about the cautions can go and find them for themselves.

Edit 4

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gun_violence&diff=293430555&oldid=293428215 Edit summary: Move the point about variance within a country to its own section. Remove esoteric and parochial references to gun control in the U.S

I made a few amendments. The first was to avoid the confusion between violence and gun violence. I therefore replaced the word violence (not the topic) to with gun violence (the topic of the article). Although the majority (some 67%) of homicides in the US are committed with a gun, gun homicides in the UK are a fairly negligible percentage of all homicides. So the relationship may be true in the US but it does not hold globally and this is after all a global view table.

The following block of text discussed variances in homicides across the US with the focus on cities and the comment that gun violence is greater in the cities and lower in some rural areas where gun ownership rates are very high. I therefore delted this text

" Within the United States, homicide rates vary widely, and the relation to gun ownership is not simple. "

and inserted in its place, this text

" Within the United States, for example the cities tend to have higher gun crime rates than the rural areas despite lower gun ownership concentrations. "

Within the block of text I also deleted 3 references in the text and associated citations to gun control. This is not an article on gun control. It is an article about gun violence. Gun control is a huge topic and, though related, if there were to be discussion of gun control in the U.S. there would be nothing to prevent opening up of discussion of gun control in other countries also. That is not sustainable and therefore I took the step of deleting what was, in any case, a POV statement to the effect that gun control is not effective. The issue of gun control and its effectiveness has nothing to do with the raw data in the table and is therefore a distraction at best and POV at worst.

Edit 5

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gun_violence&diff=293432064&oldid=293430555 Edit summary: Homicides by country: remove repeated caution and put the caution in the table into the text about cautions. Will paste other cut text into the new section

Ye again a caution was found repeated in several places. I deleted 2 blocks of text and left one in place-

This text was deleted

"In particular, to use the figures as a basis for comparison between different countries is highly problematic as is comparing data from different years among different countries. "

and another which read

"The statistics cannot take into account the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in various countries, of the different methods of tallying, etc.Consequently, the figures used in these statistics must be interpreted with great caution. In particular, to use the figures as a basis for comparison between different countries is highly problematic.""

because this other caution was left intact after the edit with the same references

"Caution is advised in reading the table. The statistics cannot take into account the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in various countries, of the different methods of tallying, etc. [19] [20] [21][22] In particular, to use the figures as a basis for comparison between different countries is highly problematic[23] as is comparing data from different years among different countries."

There was no need to have this caution in so many places in the same article.

A section of text was cut but added back in the next edit in a different place. The edit did not belong in the table but in a section of its own.

"The statistics cannot take into account the differences that exist between the legal definitions of offences in various countries, of the different methods of tallying, etc.Consequently, the figures used in these statistics must be interpreted with great caution. In particular, to use the figures as a basis for comparison between different countries is highly problematic.""

Edit 6

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gun_violence&diff=293433483&oldid=293432064 Edit summary: (→Association with Urban Areas: paste the cut element into a trends section- tweak the text to fit its new location and reflect some reasons for changes)

The text deleted in Edit 5 was reinserted in edit 6 with only minor changes

"(New Section Changes over time)

The level of gun violence will change over time. The English rate of violent crime has been increasing since 1991 but this in part is due to a tightening of the definition of violent crime. America's rate has been falling. In 1999 The Boston Globe reported that the American murder rate, which had fluctuated by about 20 percent between 1974 and 1991, was in startling free-fall, there having been nine consecutive years of sharply declining violent crime. As a result the English and American murder rates are converging. In 1981 the American rate was 8.7 times the English rate, in 1995 it was 5.7 times the English rate, and more recently it was 3.5 times. "

Edit 7

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gun_violence&diff=293438328&oldid=293433483 Edit summary: (→Changes over time: retain the focus on Gun deaths. The ratio of gun deaths is in the high twenties. Malcolm is quoting homicides and not gun homicide so was off topic)

After the text from Malcom I inseted the following caution

"Nonetheless, it is important to realise that these statistics relate to homicides and not gun violence. When looking at gun related violent deaths (homicides and suicides) the US and the UK are at opposite ends of the spectrum, the U.S. experiencing about 100 deaths per million of population and the UK less than 4, so the ratio between the two countries in terms of gun deaths is actually in the high twenties. "

This is because the editor who added the Malcolm quote has been engaging in a smoke and mirror exercice. The text referes to violent crime which it is alleged are converging when comparing US and UK (which a US reader might equate with gun violence because of the high number of gun deaths there) whereas in reality gun volence rates in US and UK are poles apart, a fact which is very easily seen in the reference I have.

General points

I urge editors Yaf and Anastrophe to justify why each of the edits above are deserving of their reversions. Please open a thread under my own comments and indent for ease of reading. --Hauskalainen (talk) 12:56, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

i'm sorry, but i've not had the free time to go over this, and simply won't have the time soon. i disagree with the scrubbing of material pertaining to violence in general, for the reasons i detailed previously. gun violence is a subset of violence in general. claiming coverage of general violence is 'off topic' is pure nonsense. Anastrophe (talk) 03:39, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

Note that Anastrophe expression of personal opinion here carries zero weight per WP:NOR. SaltyBoatr (talk) 14:35, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

what part of "Talk:Gun violence" don't you understand? this wikilawyering is tedious. if i put OR into an article, then you can open your mouth. otherwise, this is just a disruptive ad hominem. Anastrophe (talk) 04:52, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

I am not afraid of statistics as you claimed at the beginning of this discussion when you justified your delete. If you want to be accurate and up to date, the British Crime survey shows that violent crime in Britain has been on a long term trend of decline (See Figure 2.8 Trends in BCS crime, 1995 to 2007/08 on page in the British Crime Survey http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs08/hosb0708.pdf). You will see that there is now only half as much violent crime as there was 13 years ago. You see from the same document that firearms are used in only one percent of violent crimes. Here is the full quote

"Just over half (51%) of all violent incidents reported to the BCS did not result in any injury to the victim. A similar proportion (52%) of all police recorded violence against the person in 2007/08 involved no injury. Weapons were used in a quarter (24%) of violent crimes as measure by the 2007/08 BCS (this figure has been stable over the past decade). Hitting implements were used in seven per cent of violent crimes, knives in six per cent, glasses/bottles in four per cent and firearms in one per cent of incidents."

So how can you possibly argue, in an article about gun violence

(a) violent crime in Britain is rising and converging with US rates?

(b) discussing general violence in the context of gun vioelence in Briatin is 'on topic'

Your argument is clearly fallacious and misleading.--Hauskalainen (talk) 08:52, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

you might want to read the final paragraph of this article - you know, the one you split out and moved there. Anastrophe (talk) 04:52, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

comparative statistics missing from article

This entire article seems to be deeply flawed. It is bizarre that the article is titled "Gun Violence" and yet nowhere in the article are comparative statistics for Gun Deaths (homicides, suicides, and accidental deaths committed with guns, and gun-deaths that have unknown/unreported causes) presented. For example, the section "Association with Urban Areas" begins by talking about "gun crime" and then presents only statistics on overall homicide (from all causes). Likewise, the section "Changes Over Time" presents no data whatsoever on "gun violence" specifically, instead referring again to violent crime and overall homicide rates from all causes. Regarding this section, why would an article on "Gun Violence" mention that the U.S. homicide rate is currently three times higher than Britain's without mentioning that the U.S. gun death rate is currently more than 30 times higher than Britain's? The selection of "See Also" articles also appear to be biased, and has no direct relation to this topic. Have statistics on Gun Death from all causes been scrubbed from this article, or where they simply never presented, as they should have been? These statistics are readily available. As for the specific issue of justifiable homicides in the U.S., the FBI consistently reports fewer than 200 such homicides each year, a very small number in a country that experiences more than 17,000 total murders annually. Forward Thinkers (talk) 18:41, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

You describe my thoughts exactly. 'Gun right advocates' seem to focus on an idealized myth that guns are good because of the virtue of defending the self (and your family) from criminals. Again, and again, and again the issue gets framed in the need for guns to defend against crime. (While objectively, most gun violence is suicide or accidental, and even the crime is often crimes of passion, escalated personal violence between friends family and neighbors. Answering your question, yes the gun death statistics have been scrubbed from the article, though I encourage you to add statistics back into the article as comparative gun violence statistics seems entirely 'on topic'. Please be careful to use reliable sources. SaltyBoatr (talk) 19:57, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

"while objectively, most gun violence is suicide or accidental"? are you sure you don't want to retract that "objective" (and utterly false) conjunction? i like that you betray your own POV finally, with your suggestion that it is an "idealized myth that guns are good because of the virtue of defending the self (and your family) from criminals". myth? the myth is our friend from CSGV making the standard false comparison between justifiable homicides vs murders. we don't measure the effectiveness of the police by how many bad guys they kill. we measure it by how many crimes were deterred, or innocent lives saved, by their intervention. the same with privately owned firearms. rarely are they even fired in protecting oneself/family from a threat - the mere brandishment is more often than not enough to deter the would be perpetrator. you don't measure the effectiveness of private ownership of firearms by how many bad guys are killed. you measure it in innocent lives protected. and they far outnumber the damage the bad guys do with their guns. but of course, since a life saved doesn't leave behind a statistic - it's ignored. Anastrophe (talk) 03:51, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Changes over time section

I removed Colombia from the top of the list because the latest numbers show that Medellin (the former capital of violence of the world) nowadays, has a homicide rate even below Wash. D.C. and Detroit and while this is still laughable. Ciudad Juarez in Mexico and Caracas in Venezuela show the highest levels in the world and should be shown at the top. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wihenao (talk • contribs) 16:57, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Wihenao, Detroit and Washington have less than 500 murders a year with rates of 11 and 8 per 100,000. Medellín in 2009 had 2,176 murders and a rate of approx. 96 per 100,000. I've put Colombia back because unfortunately it does belong there. South Africa should be removed if anything for somewhere like Venezuela but neither are on the list and South Africa's stats are flawed in the accompanying document. I have intentional gun homicide data for South Africa but only absolute values. Power Society (talk) 01:48, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I was initially inclined to suitably contextualise Anastrophe's reinstatement of this section, but closer examination has shown that its veracity is hopelessly compromised. It claimed:

"The level of gun violence will change over time. The English rate of violent crime has been increasing since 1991 but this in part is due to a tightening of the definition of violent crime. America's rate has been falling. In 1999 The Boston Globe reported that the American murder rate, which had fluctuated by about 20 percent between 1974 and 1991, was in startling free-fall, there having been nine consecutive years of sharply declining violent crime. As a result the English and American murder rates are converging. In 1981 the American rate was 8.7 times the English rate, in 1995 it was 5.7 times the English rate, and more recently it was 3.5 times."

The cited source was Joyce Malcolm's 2002 article Gun Control's Twisted Outcome, to which I would raise a number of objections. Firstly, it actually states:

"From 1991 to 1995, crimes against the person in England's inner cities increased 91 percent. And in the four years from 1997 to 2001, the rate of violent crime more than doubled."

The claim for 1991-1995 is for "inner cities," not the whole of England, as implied by the deleted text. It is not clear if 1997-2001 is inner cities, as well, or the whole country. The Home Office's statistical bulletin Violent Crime Overview, Homicide and Gun Crime 2004/2005 (Supplementary Volume to Crime in England and Wales 2004/2005) shows in Figure 1.3 (page 10) that the British Crime Survey had violent crime in two of four types (aquaintance & domestic) falling in 1997-2001, one type (mugging) effectively static, and only one (stranger) rising slightly. Malcom's claim that, "the English rate of violent crime has been soaring since 1991," is demonstrably false.

Between the financial years 2000/01 and 2007/08, however, the numbers and rates per 100,000 of population of homicides in England and Wales were:

Year	Homicides	Rate per 100,000 of population
2000/01	773	1.49
2001/02	808	1.54
2002/03	953 (781)	1.81 (1.48)
2003/04	776	1.47
2004/05	784	1.48
2005/06	723	1.35
2006/07	742	1.38
2007/08	763	1.41

The 953 in 2002/03 includes 172 aggregated victims of Harold Shipman, without which the number and rate would have been as per the bracketed figures. This represents a static/slightly falling trend over the seven years covered. Similarly, the US Bureau of Justice statistics shows that the trend in America is also flat-lining:

Year	Homicides	Rate per 100,000 of population
2000	15,586	5.5
2001	16,039	5.6
2002	16,229	5.6
2003	16,582	5.7
2004	16,137	5.5
2005	16,692	5.6

There may have been a converging trend before 2000, but clearly it isn't anymore, so it would be very wrong of us to include text that suggests that it has continued. Between 2001 and 2005 the difference between the two countries rose from the US rate being 3.6 times higher to 4.1 times, so if anything the rates are diverging again. Nick Cooper (talk) 17:06, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

And we have to remember all the time that the article is about GUN VIOLENCE and not ALL VIOLENCE or even ALL HOMICIDES.

Perhaps Anastrophe can produce 3 tables for us; the rate per 100 000 of GUN HOMICIDES, GUN SUICIDES and GUN ROBERIES over time (say the last 10 years) for U.S. and for England & Wales then perhaps he can demonstrate how and when he thinks the rates for the two countries will converge. The figues are easy to find. --Hauskalainen (talk) 17:28, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Anastrophe's reversion[3] seems to violate WP:SYN in that there is not sourced link in his revision between the greater concept of violence which he addresses and the topic of this article which is "gun violence". SaltyBoatr (talk) 17:58, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

so "gun violence" is not a subset of "violence"? fascinating. talk about synthesis! Anastrophe (talk) 17:59, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

If I recal correctly, 67% of robberies in the U.S. threaten violence with a gun. But only 1 per cent of robberies in England and Wales involve the use of a gun. In Europe as a whole, the use of a gun in a robbery is slightly higher than that in the England and Wales but nowhere near 67%. I therefore understand why from your perspective they are related, but it is a parochial view peculiar to a country with high gun ownership and high level of gun use in crime.--Hauskalainen (talk) 18:25, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

you're generating a tautological argument in favor of the concept of gun violence being distinct from violence. Anastrophe (talk) 18:42, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Put your edit into the Violence article then. SaltyBoatr (talk) 19:42, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

it belongs here as well as in Violence. you do understand that a tautology is a fallacy, do you not? Anastrophe (talk) 20:08, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

There is nothing tautalogical at all. Your argument is akin to saying that most violence is committed by men therefore most men are violent. Well it all depends on how tightly bound the numbers are. If 60 % of men commit violence it is true, but if its only 3 percent it is not true. You cannot make that connection in England where the link between gun violence and violence in general is extremely weak. That was what that quote from Malcolm was all about. It was a false analogy and therefore it is right to delete it from the text.--Hauskalainen (talk) 20:31, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Gun control POV in a source

I deleted Anastrophe's last reinsertion of the reference to gun control in a text about violence because it is clearly meant to imply a simple truth that actually may not be true, and is at the very least highly misleading.

I am sure there is a source somewhere that will tell us that black people tend to score lower on intelligence tests than white people, even though they have had the same basic education. Out of context of a scientific paper this couelimld mean to imply that black people are inherently less intelligent than white people. Actually, few scientists accept that and point to complex social and other factors that may be the cause of the variance. But you may find some racist sources that hold this to be a genetic or inherent trait. Quoting from such a source and puting it in as if it were neutral text would be wrong. So it is with gun control. The factors causing people to use guns are probably very complex and the availability of guns is almost certainly an important factor in their use and probably explains why the UK as the US are poles apart when it comes to the use of guns in crime. That issue of whether gun control works or does not is not a simple one, and we should not introduce text that is intended to get people to draw simple conclusions when that does not necessarily hold true. For what it is worth, it is probably true that gun control has very little effect in the short term because guns are still present in large numbers. However, if the gun-holding density can be reduced in the longer term, gun control is likely to work. As an analogy, in Holland, great areas of the country are below sea level and the building and repairing of dams is a full time job. Over time, and without due care, the damns will always break. But over time, Holland has successfully kept the sea at bay. If it had never started and kept this job up, the country would still be under several feet of sea water.--Hauskalainen (talk) 12:08, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

this is all fascinating but irrelevant. if you are to continue to make claims about gun control, and violence not committed with guns, then you are again using a tautological argument as an excuse to exclude material you don't like. you cannot say 'there are fewer guns in the UK, guns are used in less crime in the UK', yet ignore whether this affects the overall levels of violence. is a murder committed using a knife less of a murder than a murder committed using a gun? this is the whole problem with the political advocacy term "gun violence". as its basis, it denigrates the victims of violence committed by other means. there are more guns in the United States today than ever before. yet our homicide rates have been falling since the early 1990's. this puts the lie to the notion that fewer guns would mean less violence.

i have restore the material you deleted. you cannot selectively quote sourced material simply because you don't like it. you are violating policy in doing so, and doing a disservice to readers. Anastrophe (talk) 17:11, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

Not irrelevant but pertinent to the claim of POV editing. For all I know, these cities may have only recently instigated a ban on handguns because of the high gun crime rate. In fact that would make a lot more sense to me. You may be right that it is factual but dropped into the article in this way is just as much biased editing as saying that blacks perform more purely than white in intelligence tests despite receiving the same basic education WITHOUT further explanation of why that may be. Whilst what you added may have been factually correct, it is written in a way that expresses the POV position that "gun control does not work". That IS POV editing.

There is nothing tautological in my argument. Of course gun violence is a sub set of violence. In the US it is a significant sub set. In the UK it is a miniscule sub set. As a miniscule fraction, a discussion about total violence in the UK is mostly off the topic of gun violence by a very long way. Your denigration argument is neither true nor relevant. Clearly violence with a gun is dependent not just on the presence of a gun but also a willingness to use it. Nobody is arguing (not me at least) that gun crime cannot fall in the presense of guns. But on the other hand, the absense of a gun in the equation should lead to an absence of gun violence and may or may not reduce total violence. One POV position may be that gun bans don't reduce the number of guns in circulation (which may or may not be true) but that is discussion best had in the gun control article. If you want to express that opinion in the article, it has to be declared as a POV, not left hanging in the way that you left it, as a leading statement in a section not discussing POVs about the efficacy of gun control.--Hauskalainen (talk) 22:22, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

based upon this continued line of argument then, in the large table of intentional homicide in the article, the following columns must be removed:

1. % homicides with firearms (this implies that there's a percentage not committed with firearms, and as has been pointed out, that's irrelevant to a discussion of gun violence)
2. Non-firearms homicide rate per 100K (same rationale, this article isn't about non-firearm homicides)
3. overall homicide rate per 100K (same rationale, since all other discussion in the article of general crime, violence, homicide are being scrubbed).

i'll attend to this shortly. Anastrophe (talk) 02:14, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Anastrophe, the US Bureau of Justice statistics figures quoted above run contrary to you claim that "[US] homicide rates have been falling since the early 1990's." If you graph the rates, those of the US have shown a slightly rising trend betwenn 2000 and 2005, whilst the E&W rates have shown a slightly falling trend between 2001/02 and 2007/08. If someone wants to include Malcolm's claims made in 2002, then they MUST be qualified by the FACT that the rates are now diverging, not converging. Nick Cooper (talk) 08:30, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Quite irrelevant reasoning by Anastrophe. Methinks he is playing devil's advocate. --Hauskalainen (talk) 16:37, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

not at all. you've made the argument for me. no mention of non-gun violence is acceptable within this article, since it is off topic. the statistics in the intentional homicide chart include significant volumes of data that are not specifically gun violence related, therefore, they must be scrubbed. Anastrophe (talk) 17:12, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

editor Saltyboatr reverted my removal of this off-topic material. we seem to have a double-standard here. mention of gun-control is scrubbed from the article, but removal of comparisons of gun violence to other violence - when it implies that gun violence is "badder" than other violence - gets reverted? pure POV editing. this article is about gun violence. statistics that lead people to believe there's a connection to violence in general are POV and inappropriate.

either material that discusses gun control in relation to gun violence is acceptable (is gun control not an alleged factor in gun violence???) or all POV claims that suggest a connection to violence in general are inappropriate. you fellas can't have it both ways. Anastrophe (talk) 18:36, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Not at all my argument holds perfectly well in the context and your actions are uncceptable. There is nothing in what you deleted which implied that gun vioence is qualitatively worse than other violence. It is right and proper to determine how much serious violence is connected to firearms. In the US there is a close connection. If some 67% of homicides in the US are commited with a firearm but in the UK ut is only 1% then guns in the US are a significant part of all murders. That does not prove of course that the murder rate would be less if guns are not present, though many believe that to be true and international comparisons seem to confirm that there may well be a relationship. But reducing gun ownership levels in the UK is not likely to affect overall homicide levels by very much because guns are used in so few homicides. Thus ownership or availability issues are relevant. You have just deleted stats on gun ownership level from the table without obtaining any consensus here to that action. And you have done so on the spurious notion that there is no relationship. That, as I am sure you know, is highly contested and therefore your actions show biased editing. The Malcolm quote was misplaced because one would have to assume that gun ownership was significantly related to overall violence levels. That is true in the US but not in the UK which was the context of the Malcolm quote. And as has already been pointed out, the rates are nowhere near each other and are now diverging and not converging. The issue of gun control is not the antithesis of this article but the issues are tangentially related. On you other point you imply that I have said that gun control is off-topic. I have said no such thing. I said that the Malcolm discussion of all gun violence in the UK was off topic about gun violence in the Uk (for the reason stated). My objection was to the styling of the edit which said "even though there is a virtual ban on hand guns) because it was a leading statement with a slant on the issue of gun control and therefore was not a NPOV edit. I actually implied that it could be appropriate to say such a thing in the context of text describing the aims and opinons about gun control. It was because it was out of that context and presented as a leading the reader to a conclusion which may or may not be true.

Please re-insert references in the table to gun ownership levels in the countries listed.--Hauskalainen (talk) 20:39, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

there were no 'references in the table to gun ownership levels', thus i cannot re-insert that which did not exist in the first place. the table as it is contains no more and no less than what this article requires. the other statistics pertained to violence in general, or to violence committed with weapons other than firearms, and pursuant to your previous arguments in that vein, i support their removal as off-topic, and POV, as they easily lead people to extrapolate conclusions about violence in general, contrary to the topic of this article. if you wish to restore the material somewhere, i would suggest the article on Violence. Anastrophe (talk) 03:06, 9 June 2009 (UTC). It is surely pertinent to know the level of connectivity between guns and

Indeed it was the percentage homicides commited with a gun that was the relevant statistic that was deleted and not ownership levels. It is this statistic that is pertinent as per the points I made. This is factual information not part of any leading text. It therefore belongs in the article. Please add it back.--Hauskalainen (talk) 06:35, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The editing by Anastrophe, done after lengthy discussion here on the talk page, to remove non-relevant content, is a great improvement to the article. I have long thought it needed editing, but wasn't quite sure of the best formatting. The new formatting looks very nice. The article is about gun violence, not violence in general. Yaf (talk) 21:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC)'

The change was made without discussion and it certainly does not have my approval. It would be good to know the opinions of others.--Hauskalainen (talk) 06:35, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

It looks to me like Yaf and Anastrophe are tag team stonewalling this, I don't expect that to change soon. If that appearance is wrong, Yaf and Anastrophe might show some more compromise. It seems highly relevant that gun violence rates vis a vis gun ownership rates is a relevant topic in a gun violence article. Also, it seems relevant the ratio of firearm homicides to total homicides. Also, similar for other types of gun violence, the accidental and the suicidal, comparative data makes perfect sense. SaltyBoatr (talk) 15:17, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

again, you fellas can't have it both ways. SB, you just deleted a portion of a sentence that mentioned that in countries where there are few guns, other methods of suicide are more common. i support that removal, as it's not relevant to gun violence. similarly, comparisons of gun violence to violence in general are not appropriate, since this article is intended to show that gun violence is the problem, not violence in general. as to the statistics, there were none about gun ownership levels, as hauskalainen corrected himself on that - why are you bringing up a non-issue? furthermore, i did not remove any statistical data relating to other types of gun violence, so you yet bring up more non-issues. this article is about gun violence. mention of gun control and it's effectiveness/ineffectiveness was scrubbed from the article as irrelevant, because it did not pertain directly to gun violence. therefore, statistics comparing gun homicide rates against total homicide rates, or proportions of homicides committed with guns vs other means, is wholey inappropriate, as it diverges from the topic of this article, which is "gun violence". please stop playing games, and trying to have it both ways. Anastrophe (talk) 15:27, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Let's try a new road here. Anastrophe mentions his very strong personal preference as to what is and what is not on topic in a "gun violence" article. Can we look to examples in reliable sourcing of what the reliable sources consider to be "on topic" and "off topic" for the subject of this article? Or, must we stick with the personal opinion of Anastrophe? Anastrophe, could you point to a well known book on the subject that sets the baseline example for what is properly "on topic" for this subject? Or, is your personal opinion derived entirely from your imagination? Getting specific about the sources of your personal opinion will remove it from the subjective. SaltyBoatr (talk) 15:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Here is a listing[4] of several books explicitly on the topic of "Gun Violence". Do any editors have a problem with looking at these books to objectively determine what may be considered "relevant content"? Or, shall we continue to stick with the personal subjective opinion of Yaf and Anastrophe? SaltyBoatr (talk) 16:13, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) are you sure you want to go down that road? virtually every source that discusses "gun violence" also discusses "gun control". yet every mention of "gun control" has been scrubbed from the article - even though those mentions were from reliable sources. do we want to take this different path? i would support inclusion of comparisons to non-gun violence, so long as the reliably sourced commentary regarding gun control, and its efficacy or lack thereof, won't be summarily scrubbed from the article as "POV". by all means, let's go with the reliable sources, which include voluminous coverage of gun control as directly related to gun violence. we can add back mention that a significant proportion of homicides in the US occur in four cities with virtual bans on handguns, for example. or discussion of the homicide rate in the UK vs the US, which - contrary to hauskalainen's OR - continues to converge, albeit at a slower rate than before. again, you can't have it both ways, selectively removing directly related material that does not support your thesis that gun violence is the problem, while objecting to removal of material that does not directly pertain to gun violence. Anastrophe (talk) 16:24, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Which book? SaltyBoatr (talk) 20:50, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

you can start with the first one in your list, which discusses gun control even before page one, and which cites - no joke - Ozzy Osbourne as some sort of authority on the matter. go from there.i repeat: you fellows can't have it both ways. if mention of gun control and violence in general - from reliable sources no less - is to be scrubbed from the article as 'off topic' and 'irrelevant', then live with the standard you laid down. i'm merely conforming the article to the strict interpretation that you and hauskalainen have loudly and emphatically stated is the standard. Anastrophe (talk) 21:55, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you, and I do not want it "both ways". The Cook/Ludwig book is a reliable source, and it makes an objective model of the "on topic" "off topic" yardstick for this article. Repeat, I agree. Lets continue on that basis, using an objective model based on reliable sourcing, Cook/Ludwig, and lets stay away from personal subjective models. SaltyBoatr (talk) 22:36, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

are you saying cook/ludwig is the only acceptable reliable source? that's how you're presenting it, and as you know, that's simply not true. how did you determine that it - as opposed to other sources - makes it the one best objective model? you can't declare that 'we' will use only one reliable source, that you proclaim is objective. well, you can of course, but it's not supported by policy. editors have no obligation to choose only reliable sources that you claim pass muster, so to speak. sorry, that dog don't hunt. Anastrophe (talk) 22:54, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

No. I am trying to negotiate with you an example of a reliable source that sets an objective baseline as to what is on-topic and off-topic for the subject of this article. I understood that you accepted Cook/Ludwig as a first example meeting this criteria. You pointed out that it includes both discussion of "gun violence" and discussion of "gun control". OK, I can accept that as being on-topic now. I am asking you to look at the list of books on the topic "Gun Violence" and work with me selecting this book and perhaps some other books. Cook/Ludwig published by Oxford University Press seems a solid start to which you and I agree. What else would be satisfactory to you, so we can find some mutually satisfactory objective baseline. SaltyBoatr (talk) 03:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

nah. i'm not interested in this particular game. but thanks anyway. i'm not going to be confined to your self-selected list of books. nor will i be confined only to books. here's how it works: material not directly about gun violence has been repeatedly scrubbed as off-topic and irrelevant. fine. we'll keep this article narrowly focused only on the political advocacy term "gun violence". there can be no claim that removing material not directly related to this term is POV or inappropriate. i like the article this way, and i'd be surprised if there's a policy basis to support drifting off topic. so lets keep it as narrowly focused as the title of the article demands, and be done. i'm rather liking how the article is at this point, though it does need a few more improvements to keep the focus tight. Anastrophe (talk) 03:48, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Then we are back where we were before, nothing more here than dueling personal opinions. SaltyBoatr (talk) 04:21, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

eh, no, not so much. this article is about 'gun violence'. off topic material certainly doesn't belong in it, including POV debates about whether it's good or bad. really, it could be summed up in one or two paragraphs. as an encyclopedia article, it should describe what the term means, and that's really about it. most of the rest is advocacy. Anastrophe (talk) 04:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Re:The removal of percentage of all homicides commited with a firearm from the table. I objected to this and SaltyboatR seems to agree with me. However, Yaf supports the change that was made by Anastrophe .. i.e the removal of this data. Are there any other view out there on this change? Either in support of the change or its opposition? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hauskalainen (talk • contribs) 22:56, 9 June 2009 Nick Cooper (talk) 07:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I'd agree that it is nonsense to remove the information which put the firearms homicides in context, which is everything in this particular subject. Nick Cooper (talk) 07:00, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Frankly, Anastrophe is playing games here, claiming that I had implied that discussion of ALL HOMICIDES was off the topic of GUN VIOLENCE, when what I had actually said was that Malcolm's discussion of ALL HOMICIDES in the context of the UK was off topic BECAUSE GUNS PLAY ONLY A VERY MINOR ROLE IN HOMICIDES IN THE UK. He has taken this statement as carte blanche for him to remove information about the role of guns in violent acts such as homicides in different countries because he claims that it is off topic. Well, that is his claim, but it does not agree with the views of certain criminololgists and those in the gun control lobby in the US who argue that the prevalance of guns is a factor. There is therefore controversy about this. This article should make reference to gun control and the related controversy, but it should not be used as a place to trot out arguments for and against that are better left to the gun control article. The reason why it was right to delete the reference to handgun bans in the four US cities, an a act of gun control, was not because it mentioned gun control, but was because it was not in the context of a discussion about positions taken by people in the gun control lobby. It was therefore not a neutral edit. I will therefore restore the table. If Anastrophe and Yaf do not like that idea then I propose that we take this argument to some form of dispute resolution.--Hauskalainen (talk) 15:28, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Now Yaf has deleted the reversion and I have had to reinstate it. This seems like a silly edit war is being engaged in. I have offered that we take this to dispute resolution. If it gets deleted again I will initiate this forthwith. Yaf and Anastrophe. Are you both ready to engage in this process or shall we find some other way to settle this?--Hauskalainen (talk) 15:32, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

i have removed the material, as it is off topic to this article. do what you feel you must. you're attempting to squelch material that you personally feel is off topic, and include material that you personally feel is on-topic (the latter being any material that uncritically accepts the premise that guns alone are the problem). i am merely applying in an exacting way the standard you have outlined. if comparisons of gun violence to violence in general are to be squelched, then squelched they will be. once more, with feeling: you can't have it both ways. Anastrophe (talk) 15:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

Anastrophe: I can justify why I think some things are on topic and some are off topic. You believe I am being arbitrary, but that is 'cos you don't listen to (or wish to disregard) the argument. Your only justification is that you are following my argument. But that is nonsense because you are not following the argument at all. You attribute to me motives which are not there. I do not think that gun alone are the cause of all violence. How DARE you say that it is. I ASK THAT YOU WITHDRAW THAT UNFOUNDED ALLEGATION. The fact that Wyoming has all those guns and a low rate of gun violence, and the fact that the UK has introduced a hand gun ban and has not elminated firearms crime is testament to the complexity of the issue. But that does not mean that the presence of guns has no effect on gun violence. The matter is a complex one. But I stick to my statement. The fact that overall violence in the UK may have risen (even though it has since fallen) tells us nothing about GUN VIOLENCE because gun violence is such a small component of overall violence in the UK. I can well understand the anger of gun enthusiasts in the UK at the dramatic steps taken by the UK government to protect the people from a very minor threat. You have applied my argument to the the entire article which is unwarranted and not justifiable. Please apologise for the wrongful allegation you have made about my editing and the motives for it and please put back into the table, the percentage of all homicides committed with a gun.--Hauskalainen (talk) 18:03, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

i don't respond to ALL-CAPS shouting, and i don't apologize. wikipedia is not a social network. i made the mistake of making a long belated apology once, only to be relentlessly drenched in personalized vitriol for weeks thereafter. i will withdraw the characterization however. that's the most i can do. Anastrophe (talk) 04:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Note that Hauskalainen is adding material which is reliable sourced and Anastrophe is removing it based on his subjective personal opinion. Anastrophe argues:WP:I DON'T LIKE IT. Also, far to many words above serve to obscure this central point: Hauskalainen seeks to include data about "% homicides with firearms" and Anastrophe feels that this data is unrelated to gun violence. How is "% homicides with firearms" not related to gun violence? SaltyBoatr (talk) 16:36, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

hauskalainen also removed reliably sourced material on the basis of WP:I DON'T LIKE IT.

% homicides with firearms is irrelevant because it seeks to introduce a comparison of homicides using firearms against homicides by other means. homicides by other means are not relevant to the topic of this article, since they are not "gun violence". either the article has room for coverage of non-gun violence/violence in general, or it does not. reliably sourced material that described violence in general for the purposes of comparing it with gun violence was scrubbed from the article by editor hauskalainen. if the desire is to have this article cover only gun violence, then so shall it be, and that's certainly appropriate, as articles should not stray into unrelated material. the percentage with firearm implicitly compares gun violence with non-gun violence. non-gun violence isn't the topic of this article. QED. Anastrophe (talk) 04:22, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Yaf just reverted[5], yet again, the data in the table showing "% homicides with firearms". Yaf gave a misleading edit summary "removing non-related data" while "% homicide with firearms" seems plainly related. Can we try something else than long-term revert warring this? SaltyBoatr (talk) 23:58, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

I have now raised an issue at the NPOV Noticeboard here --Hauskalainen (talk) 05:45, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

% homicides with firearms

The math for the "% homicides with firearms" column is almost entirely wrong going by the rates data posted. The United States' percentage is approximately 11% too high, and many others are off as well.

Could someone with permission to edit the main article put the table into excel and divide "Firearm homicide rate per 100,000 pop." by "Overall homicide rate per 100,000 pop." and then update the main article with the accurate info please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.55.55.37 (talk) 20:25, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

One of the statistics for the USA is wrong - the second and third columns should add to make the forth, but 2.97 + 4.58 = 7.55 not 8.55. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.135.113.104 (talk) 04:02, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

reliable definition of "gun violence"

i'm a little puzzled here. my 1955 oxford universal dictionary doesn't include a definition for "gun violence". this tends to enforce for me the conclusion that "gun violence" is a relatively recent advocacy term, particularly since there is a definition for the commonly used term "gunman" -- "I. one who is armed, or who shoots, with a gun. Now (esp from U.S. use 1903) a lawless man who uses fire-arms, an armed robber." (emphasis mine). what's troubling is that in Saul Cornell's editorial [6] he makes the claim that early gun control proponents (in the 19th century) "...also staked out another right that has not been much talked about recently in this debate: a right to be free from the fear of gun violence.". a curious construct from a historian, to say the least, but i digress. this article must have a reliable definition of gun violence, including etymology, to even exist. otherwise the article is merely an advocacy organ. i believe editor saltyboatr has a subscription to the OED online (pity it's not the actual printed book, but i guess the internet can serve as a reliable source in a pinch). does the current OED have a definition for gun violence? if so, what is it, and what's the etymology? Anastrophe (talk) 04:08, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

If we want to know what "gun violence" is I suggest we read the following books:

• Gun Violence, By Philip J. Cook, Jens Ludwig, Published by Oxford University Press US, 2002 ISBN 9780195153842
• Gun Violence in America, By Alexander DeConde, Published by UPNE, 2003 ISBN 9781555535926
• Gun Violence, By Ronald D. Lankford, Published by Greenhaven Press, 2006 ISBN 9780737732412
• Gun Violence, By James D TorrEdition: Published by Greenhaven Press, 2001 ISBN 9780737707137
• Gun Violence, By Holly Cefrey, Published by The Rosen Publishing Group, 2008 ISBN 9781404217935

The existence of five books titled "gun violence" seems a very solid start. I haven't read all these books, though I will start, and I suspect that they might also describe the origin of the term and/or the etymology. SaltyBoatr (talk) 04:51, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

so it's not defined in the OED? Anastrophe (talk) 04:52, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

furthermore, we can strike 'gun violence in america', there is a separate article for that topic. i'd be curious if these books maintain a global view, or if they focus primarily on the US. Since there are significant problems with "gun violence" in other areas of the world - orders of magnitude worse than the US - this might present a problem. Anastrophe (talk) 04:54, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

It is interesting you have such a fully formed opinion of this topic. Would you share with us what you have read to form this opinion? SaltyBoatr (talk) 04:56, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

your question is a non sequitur. i don't understand how it answers my question "so it's not defined in the OED?". Anastrophe (talk) 04:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

No, my question cuts to the heart of the Wikipedia policy WP:No Original Research. Your editing here has no apparent basis in reliable sourcing. Please disclose the source of your opinion now. SaltyBoatr (talk) 16:38, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

as you well know, editor's opinions are not a matter for debate on the talk page. please stop trying to personalize the discussion. i have zero obligation to report to you the sources of my personal opinions, the only obligation is that if i add material to an article that is unsourced, you're welcome to tag it as such, or if i add sourced material, you are welcome to challenge it. beyond that, is outside the scope of your privileges to demand of me.

to the question of whether the term is defined in the OED, it is entirely relevant whether the pre-eminent dictionary has codified this term, as they codified "gunman". it's critical to have a definition (and it doesn't have to be the OED, any decent dictionary with etymology will do), particularly with a political advocacy term. your list of books published above rather betrays a 'judging a book by its title' so to speak. simply because a book's title uses the term does not make the term reliable, nor does it confer any sensibility whatsoever that the source is neutral on the matter. one could argue that books entitled 'gun violence' have a high likelyhood of being partisan to one particular viewpoint on the matter, since again, the term 'gun violence' is a political advocacy construct, just like "sensible gun laws". Anastrophe (talk) 04:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Anastrophe claims he has "zero obligation to report to you the sources of my personal opinions". Wrong. When making edits to this article based on his personal opinion, he is required by policy to disclose the source of his opinion. SaltyBoatr (talk) 14:00, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

nice try. making up policy as you go along won't get you very far though. Anastrophe (talk) 15:31, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Anastrophe, dictionaries frequently don't define phrases, especially when the meaning is clear from the individual words. It doesn't mean they are not valid phrases or valid topics. DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:43, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

the problem is, the meaning is not clear from the individual words, and this article even discusses the imprecision. having an encyclopedia entry about a term that even proponents don't agree on the correct meaning, is fraught with pitfalls. Anastrophe (talk) 04:15, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

As I have been asked for comment: Wikipedia is not a WP:SOAPBOX, we follow WP:RS. Verbal chat 15:44, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

what soapboxing? do you have a RS definition of "gun violence"? i asked for comment on the matter that you reverted on, by the way, not on this issue. what gives? Anastrophe (talk) 15:48, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Try the UK government's All Party Parliamentary Group on gun crime report "Combating the threat of gun violence". And try 1 min on google for many other WP:RS. Verbal chat 16:04, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

i'd prefer to avoid potentially POV organizations, instead preferring a genuinely neutral definition from any high quality dictionary, or even perhaps a printed encyclopedia. we should avoid, per policy, organizations that are either highly partisan or have a stake in a particular definition. this is one of the subtexts to my objection to the UN data. the UN has long advocated forcible disarmament of citizens and nations. they're hardly a neutral source on the issue. further, books that have been written with the phrase "gun violence" prominent in their title tend to suggest a predisposition to sympathetic coverage of the term itself. thus, a real dictionary or real encyclopedia, rather than google searches, might be a better path to take. Anastrophe (talk) 16:26, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

The UN, and an all party group from the UK govt are POV? Hmmm. Whatever. They meet WP:RS. Does "genuinely neutral" mean "one I agree with" to you? WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT seems relevant. Verbal chat 16:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Total homicide data is not relevant to gun violence. Have removed the irrelevant data from the table. Yaf (talk) 16:55, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

It is clearly relevant in terms of contextualising the data. The argument for removing the data is silly. Verbal chat 17:11, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

So, you believe it is relevant to include non-related homicide data so as to spin the presentation into an anti-gun presentation, or, in your words, it is necessary for "contextualising the data" -- presumably so as to scare a reader into believing all homicide data is related to gun violence, presumably to push a POV for advocating more bans on guns. Such an argument, for including non-relevant data, simply to spin the presentation into a POV scare presentation, could likewise be called silly. Rather than advocating a "minister of silly walks" a la Monty Python, or, a "czar of sillyness", a la Obama, to judge which argument is most silly, lets stop calling good faith edits silly and discuss actual article content options. What is your rationale for including total homicide data in an article narrowly discussing gun violence? Homicide violence is not related in the UK to guns for the most part, with knives and even cricket bats being used more often than guns. So, why do you believe the article on Gun violence should also include a table of data including columns of non-related homicide tabular data, for content that is not even discussed in the article? Yaf (talk) 17:43, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Its relevency clearly depends on the numbers. If in one country all homicides were committed with a gun then total homicides equates to gun homicides and there is a 100% correlation between the two. If in another country there are no homicides committed with a gun but there are other homicides, then there is no relationship at all, i.e. a zero correlation. Most countries are on a scale somewhere in between this. But you have to see the other non-gun homicide data to know where on that scalar the country lies. But you have seen fit to delete that information from the table. I suspect that is why Verbal has called it silly. If there is another reason I am sure he will let us know.--Hauskalainen (talk) 19:03, 11 June 2009 (UTC)