From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: A Japanese Student Kill in Lousiana (AKA Gun Control)
Followup-To: talk.politics.guns
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1992 23:34:37 GMT

In article <1992Nov19.203237.17276@ntmtv> nguyenpd@ntmtv.UUCP (Phat Nguyen) writes:

Once again, Nguyen demonstrates that he doesn't even read what he writes.

However, he's improving on one front; this time he didn't mangle the
quoting convention as much as before.  (He only added an extra level
of ">"s in a couple of cases.)

>1. James Wright, Peter Rossi, and Kathleen Daly, Under the Gun:
>Weapons, Crime and Violence in America, Hawthorne, N.Y: Aldine,
>1983, p.109.
>

Then a few paragraphs later, in response to:
>In article <1992Nov13.230737.13329@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU> andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes:
>> Since 50% of US households have guns, it is hard for gun owners to be
>> very different from US averages, but they are slightly more educated
>> than average and slightly more wealthy. 

he whines

>Your source is invalid because it doesn't answer the questions
>that the readers want to know.  Who is Wright and what are HIS 
>CREDENTIALS?  Who publishes the book?

Note that Nguyen is happy with Wright when he thinks that
Wright's data supports his position, but ....

Speaking of that data, let's look at it.  Nguyen disagrees with my
statement that gun owners are slightly better educated than the
typical american and are somewhat more wealthy.  In response he types
in a demographic profile of gun owners.  He doesn't bother to take the
necessary step of comparing it to the demographic profile of americans
in general.

>(percent reporting owning guns)
>
>National                1980     1982      1984        1985 
>----------------------------------------------------------
>Education
>College                  25       26        24          26
>High School              29       30        27          31
>Grade School             36       29        28          32

Since less than 25% of American adults have a college education,
at least as defined by this survey ....

Nguyen's income argument has the same problem.  He showed that
slightly less than 50% of way above median income people own guns,
that 54% of people just above median income own, and since we know
that overall gun ownership rates are 50%, the only way to get that is
if people who have less than median income are less likely to own
guns.

>> Nguyen is talking through his hat again, because the groups listed
>> haven't done the work he claims to be referring to.  That explains why
>> his results don't agree with the relevant work that has been done;
>> he's making it up.

That really set Nguyen off.  Note that the sources he quotes aren't
the sources he referred to previously.  In fact, they happen to be the
sources I pointed to.  (Nguyen claims to be familiar with Wright's
work, but doesn't know about one of his major gun-issues works,
"Ownership of the Means of Destruction".  Maybe Nguyen is claiming
familiarity with Wright's work on other issues or maybe he's just
lying again.)

>> Nguyen's "profile", which he made up, does tell about his bigotry.
>
>I find it quite funny when you say this.  It only shows your true
>character.  Trying to guess other people's character based on your
>character -- An old trick that doesn't work anymore.  Because
>not everyone is dishonest as you are.

Looks like the pot wants to claim that everyone else is black.  He
started out by lying about his sources and now he's lying about mine.

>The sources that I use above are some of the 153 sources that
>I have obtained while doing my research paper on gun control
>back in my college days.

Only 153?  There are hundreds more on my shelves, no to mention those
that I have read but don't own a copy of.

No, I don't type in each and every one.  I refer people to sources
with decent bibiographies so that they can chase things as far as they
want.  If Nguyen wants more, he can pay for it.  (Here's one for free.
Kleck's "Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America", pub'd in 1991 by
Aldine de Gruyter, the publisher of the trade-press version of
Wright's "Under the Gun."  People who have actually read UtG know that
that Wright concluded was that there wasn't good data supporting
Nguyen's "gun control works" theory but that there wasn't much good
data to work with.  Kleck's work takes advantage of the good data that
has been collected since UtG was written.)

Of course, given the quality of Nguyen's analysis, it doesn't matter
how many sources he has.  He can't tell what they mean anyway.

>Do you want me to quote the gun control laws in New York and neigboring
>states??   I have around 4 dozen sources on this.

And now we find that Nguyen's 153 sources are redundant, so the count
doesn't mean anything.  There's only one source necessary for New York
state's gun control laws.  NYC - again, one source.  There are
comprehensive sources for the communities, so NY can be covered with 4
sources.  It only has a couple of neighbors and they're even less
complex.  (In fact, a clever person would figure out that there are
probably single sources that cover the state gun laws for multiple
states and someone familiar with the field would even know where to
look for such a source.  The BATF is an obvious candidate.)

>P.S.:  That's the end of the discussion.

Considering the quality of Nguyen's contributions, one can only hope
that he means it this time.  Then again, this isn't the first time
that he's posted his "last" message on the subject.

-andy
--
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