From: viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson)
Subject: Re: A Japanese Student Kill in Lousianna
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 05:42:55 GMT

In <1992Nov19.203328.17337@ntmtv> nguyenpd@ntmtv.UUCP (Phat Nguyen) writes:

	This is _NOT_ a refutation, just a disagreement to an
extent.  If you want the former, skip it.  If you're curious
read it and let me know if it affected you.  I am curious.

>Question:  "Do you happen to have in your home (or garage)
>any guns or revolvers?"
>If yes, "Do any of these guns personally belong to you?"
>(percent reporting owning guns)
>National                1980     1982      1984        1985 
>----------------------------------------------------------
>Sex
>Male                     52       48        46          50
>Female                   11       14        11          12

>Education
>College                  25       26        24          26
>High School              29       30        27          31
>Grade School             36       29        28          32

>Occupation
>Professional/business    29       28        24          28
>Clerical                 15       16        14          16
>Manual                   35       34        32          36
>Farmer                   69       73        81          73

>The message is here clear:  The low percentage in Clerical
>makes sense to me because women dominated in clerical fields.
>Anyway the message here is clear: less education = more likely
>to own guns.  

	Those farmers at the bottom of the pole often inherited a
thousand acres of land, had no need for more than a high school
education, and can shoot the balls off a gnat at 1000 meters.  They
also have in incredibly low accident rate compared to city lawyers
who sent their new Benelli shotgun to the gun store for a cleaning
prior to deer season.  In short, education is hardly any sort of
criterion for responsible or competent gun ownership or usage, and
the stereotypes I've presented are no more valid than the stats you
have posted with regards to an individual, even though each might
be correct over the wide range of subjects.

>On page 106 of Sourcebook, Criminal Justice
>Statistics - 1985, published by U.S. Department of Justice,
>Bureau of Justice Statistics.  The research is done by 
>The Gallup Report, Report No.237 (June 1985).  49 percent
>of the people whose income is above $50,000 said that
>they owned a gun whereas 54 percent whose income is
>from $25,000 to $34,999 said yes.

	Know what a farmer makes as income?  It's rarely over
the $50,000 mark you cited above, once expenses are taken out.
I'll ramble on about $120,000 combines and $25,000 fuel bills if
you wish, but hope you'll trust me that free income is, again, hardly
any sort of criterion for responsible or competent gun usage.

>Question:  Why did that person in your household buy a handgun
>or pistol?  (The following question was asked only of
>respondents with a handgun or pistol owner in the immediate
>household)

>(percent)
>Protection:                      43%
>Target Practice:                 9%
>Hunting:                         8%
>Employment:                      8%
>Sport:                           6% 
>Collecting:                      5%
>Was a gift:                      5%
>For fun:                         4%
>Always had one:                  3%
>Other:                           7%
>Don't know:                      3%

>Here we can see that most people buy guns for protection and
>not for recreation for sure.

	This seems to discount the former stats, as rural residents
tend to buy shotguns as opposed to handguns.  What's the difference
between a handgun and a pistol, anyway?  I'd like to know.  As for
my home, we had shotguns, and rifles.  Handguns were only introduced
when I got into black powder shooting, and a black powder gun is
certainly not a figure in crime.  As I recall, it wasn't even noted,
nor are they used in self-defense to any extent.  We always had guns
about the house, we were taught how to use them, and we were competent
in their usage.  Your 3% figure above casts doubts in my mind, but
more on that later...

>On page 80-97 in "Victimization and the Fear of Crime,"  Journal
>of Research in Crime and Delinquency, James Garofalo found that
>fear steadily increases as income decreases.  

	Fear of what?  Having your guns grabbed I can understand.
At home, we haven't locked the doors in nearly forty years.  All
houses contain shotguns and light-sleeping farmers.  Please explain.

>....  The typical American firearms owner is a rural or smalltown 
>Protestant male.

	While I disagree with Protestant, as the Lutherans, Mormons,
Catholics, and Methodists all have significant portions in their ranks,
I'll agree fairly fundamentalist Christian.  That means they trust
God to help those who help themselves.  These are independent folks.

>....  As a National Institute of Justice report explained, gun
>values are best typed as rural rather than urban.

	Admitted.  City folks expect cops to arrive.  Rural folks have
no such delusions, and are expected to fend for themselves.  They do.
How this is based on education and religion escapes me.  I content it
has more to do with the distance from police and the mindset of the
population in question.

	In addition, note the wealth stats can be easily confused if
you equate wealth to net worth or to income.  My father has easily
a quarter million in net worth.  We made something like $500 net profit
last year by the time taxes, depreciation, expenses, and family living
costs were deducted.  This was better than some years, less so than
others.  It just isn't that simple when it's all tallied, hence the
fairly simplistic stats.  Income?  Million-dollar incomes are not
uncommon on farms.  Take away expenses, and the accounting changes a lot.

>>> 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. 

	Note that older people who went through the depression generally
tend to own guns.  Their wealth is small, their education small (trade
school or apprenticeship programs vs. college) and yet they approach
nearly a 100% gun ownership rate.  Perhaps the stats don't take all
into account?  I base this percentage on experience, not any stats
the government makes.  Given how they don't put money in banks either,
I have to subject both to equal distrust with regards to wealth and
total numbers.  Old people tend to distrust government as much as I,
and will not generally tell all to the census due to distrust.

>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?  And on what pages and
>in what chapters did the author mention the arguments that you
>present??  When you quote something, you have to give the readers
>some kind of authenticity that come with it.  Otherwise this is
>another classic case of trying to give oneself some sense of authority
>by using another people's work without even saying what exactly does
>the author say -- another type of plagiarism.  One vaguely referenced
>book doesn't convince anyone.  

	Coming from a rural background, I find this quite ironic as
I've just shown many ways in which the stats you provided can be
easily misrepresented.  My conclusion?  Do your own research and
don't take anything you see on the net as truth.  By doing so you
expose the validity of your claims to your own conscience, and this
should be enough to keep you from making broad claims outside your
own area of knowledge.  Many do so anyway, but they are easily detected.

>I have become quite skeptical when someone gives me some kind of 
>arguments with the source that is vaguely referenced.  This gives no 
>sense to the readers that the source is indeed valid because they 
>cannot check it out themselves.  

	My references are 18 years growing up on a farm in Woodbine, Iowa.
Population less than 1200, intimate knowledge of gun ownership and
financial situation of those within a 25-mile radius (the whole county,
basically).  No, I haven't published these.  I merely point out how
a professor or statistician can not give the whole picture, either for
a county or for a nation.  Doubt is the best method of convincing others
to seek the facts on their own, I believe.

>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.

	I just gave a paper and speech on the issue last week, and used
bits from nearly every file on the RKBA archives.  Some I disagreed with,
but there were several megabytes of reputable information there.  While
I was Nuclear Engineering major, I also used Greenpeace as a reference
source.  I contend that the sources aren't the be-all end-all of a
fact; the real result is in how you interpret what they say.  I cast
doubt here -- let's let the readers make up their own mind.

>P.S.:  That's the end of the discussion.  I would rather spend my
>lunch time doing something more useful than arguing with someone
>who can offer nothing more than a falsely quoted and vaguely
>referenced source to the readers.  To conclude this topic, I 
>will quote Lindblom and Cohen's thoughts through James Lindgren
>and Franklin E. ZimRing's words in [Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice,
>page 837] which say "....  yet statistics do not answer most important
>policy questions.  Common sense and ordinary reasoning are also 
>necessary."  I am sadly sorry to say this; but it seems to me that 
>YOU HAVE NONE of the statistics and the common sense.

	I merely hope to bring a little to the discussion and put
the bit of doubt in the minds of the readers.  My common sense and
experience versus your stats and documents -- which is more valid?
I say we let the reader decide, and follow up as necessary.

	I'm sorry to use the bandwidth on such a piece, but it seems
to me that this is the crux of most arguments in this group.  One
side poses a claim, the other side refutes.  My hope is that the
readership will use common sense and their own research in determining
who to believe, not whomever gives the largest bibliography, by
showing how life and statistics often contradict each other.

< Dan Sorenson, DoD #1066 z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu viking@iastate.edu >
<  ISU only censors what I read, not what I say.  Don't blame them.  >
<  "This isn't an answer, it's a pagan dance around a midnight fire  >
<   written in intellectual runes." -- Rich Young                    >
Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns