![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
I am a Canadian and thus have not much knowledge on this contentions topic - thus am not confident in editing the article at all. I found this page at CBC news very informative with its format choice and unlike this article that has these stats but from 1997 is much more updated with stats up to 2009. talking about the section "Gun ownership". Do what you wish with this info if anything at all. Moxy ( talk) 23:09, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
The numbers in the intro section are not really clear (to me). Para 1 states "there were 358 deaths involving rifles. Deaths involving the use of pistols in the US that same year [2010] totaled 6,009 including suicides." Then a few paras later we have "Of the 30,470 firearm-related deaths in the United States in 2010...". So where did the extra 23,000+ deaths come from? Are there that many accidental deaths by firearm? Other firearms not classified as pistols or rifles? Or are one (or both) of these stats just plain wrong? Some clarification on these number is needed, imo. Eaglizard ( talk) 19:32, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
There's a problem in dealing with John Lott's research on this topic. There are serious questions about the validity of everything he has done, instanced by the bogus Mary Rosh identity, missing survey etc. The fact that, despite what looks like a stellar publication record, he hasn't been able to hold on to an academic job, or even stay on at a conservative thinktank like AEI is indicative of the difficulties. So citing him as an authority as in "research shows" is problematic. Something like "an article by John Lott concluded that ..." would be better. JQ ( talk) 08:23, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
I just replaced the following paragraph:
"Gun policies are influenced by interpretations since the late twentieth century of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees citizens the right to own and carry firearms, as protecting individual gun ownership. In 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court took a position for the first time in District of Columbia v. Heller, holding that the second amendment secured an individual's right to own firearms. [1]"
First of all, "interpretations since the late twentieth century of the Second Amendment"? Heller was in 2008. Before Heller, there had been no Supreme Court case explaining the Second Amendment. So I'm not sure what "interpretations" this paragraph is referring to. It also seems to be implying that the disagreement about the meaning of the Second Amendment is a relatively recent thing. It isn't. People have argued about it for a long, long time.
Secondly, I think the phrase "which guarantees citizens the right to own and carry firearms" should be deleted. While most people do believe this is what the Second Amendment means, there is a substantial number of people who think that the Second Amendment merely prevents the national government from interfering with state militias, and doesn't guarantee citizens the right to own and carry firearms. Yes this is perhaps odd given that the amendment says "right of the people" but it's a view held by a significant enough number of people that I think this article should refrain from taking a dispositive position on it.
Third, the phrase "the U.S. Supreme Court took a position" I think should read "took the position." A Supreme Court decision is authoritative and singular, so the article "the" as opposed to "a" should be used.
Finally, I think that this characterization of the Heller holding should be changed. The respondents in Heller didn't argue that the Second Amendment wasn't about an individual right to own firearms, but that this right was limited in scope to militia service, and didn't apply to things like self-defense or hunting deer. This is a misconception about the position of Washington D.C. in the Heller case. D.C. didn't argue that the Second Amendment didn't protect an individual right, but rather argue that the "scope" of the right should be limited to circumstances where the federal government is interfering with militia service. The Supreme Court (by a vote of 5-4) disagreed and held that the Second Amendment was broader than this, and included things such as self-defense.
Sorry to be nitpicky, but a lot of people rely on this website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atomicporcupine88 ( talk • contribs) 14:22, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
people, keep in mind that just because there is a reference number next to the "fact", doesn't mean the reference is accurate, true, or even neutral in its presentation. if this article is going to stay, in spite of the fact that the article is a misnomer, the references need to at least be looked at thoroughly. many of the references for the "facts" are simply garbage.
But Aude says 15 super experts say it's a fact. Perhaps you should re-read his comments in this talk page. Maybe you'll grow a brain as large as his.
Danielvincentkelley (
talk) 20:13, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
This artilce is SHAMEFUL wikipedia. You're pretending history = current events. In recent years gun purchases have been through the roof. Consequently EVERY manner of VIOLENT CRIME is PLUMMETING. You offer statistics from 2004. If in 2004, the homicide rate was 14 per 100k, surely that's atrocious. NOW though, the US homicide rate is less than 3 per 100k. Which is on par with many of these "industrial nations". Right now Russia has the highest murder rate of any industrial nation at 17 per 100k. You don't hear anybody trying to force gun control on Russians right? Oh that's right, with their ENORMOUS MURDER RATE they have one of the strictest gun control regimes of industrial nations.
"In Russia, only licensed gun owners24 25 may lawfully acquire, possess or transfer a firearm or ammunition..."
Oh OK, only the state approved criminal element, the organized crime cops and such are able to own guns in Russia. 17 murders yearly per 100,000 people, Russia. That you cite statistics from 8 YEARS AGO, obscuring the reality of guns, that as we buy more of them, easy victims dwindle and CRIME IS THUS DIMINISHED... instead of presenting this TRUTH of the gun debate, you present aged statistics claiming this GARBAGE supports expanded gun control, by this WOEFULLY CRIMINAL CLIQUE that is The US Federal Government, who have allowed their bankster crony's to THIEVE US home equity, THIEVING thus 85% of US wealth into their off shore accounts and into their derivatives gambling scheme, they've thieved the titles of US Homes, also by criminal instruments called Adjustable Rate Mortgages, which are easily recognized as contracts that were not finalized, thus illegitimate. All that plus they're massively guilty of theft from 401k pensioners by their, Congresses, INSIDER TRADING. OBVIOUSLY these CRIMINALS are nervous that The Armed People of America are going to impose JUSTICE on them and so they're decided to attempt to thieve our guns. This PROPAGANDA NONSENSE, siting statistics from 2004, only exposes you as a criminal conspirator in the treacherous traitorous crimes of the US Federal EmPyre.
From DailyKos:
Tue Jan 17, 2012 at 07:16 AM PST
RKBA: Crime down...gun ownership up, that can't be right.
"The most recent FBI crime statistics show that in the first half of 2011, "violent crimes were down 6.4 percent, while property crimes fell 3.7 percent." Murder declined by 5.7 percent, rape by 5.1 percent, and robbery by 7.7 percent...
Of course short term six-month drops don't mean a whole lot all by themselves, but this one continues an established trend. In 1991, crime peaked and then fell pretty steadily before it flattened out half way through the 2000s, and since 2006, both violent crime and property crime have dropped significantly."
What you've done here, is not even "cherry picking" facts, you've VERY OBVIOUSLY IGNORED 8 YEARS (2004-2012), and are trying to present disarmed victim HISTORY as the present reality, that massively gun armed America is as violent as it was when everybody was disarmed. But it's not nearly the truth. I'm 1000% certain that if anybody attempts to correct your garbage mix up of history with present reality on this garbage wiki article their CORRECTIONS of your propaganda nonsense will just be immediately stricken from the record by your propaganda minister administrators, pretending to be a publicly updatable encyclopdia, being really though a god damn arm of the corporate fascist state. Danielvincentkelley ( talk) 20:13, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
90% of this article is complete bullshit. It's amazing that this is considered a GA. Viriditas ( talk) 08:28, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
The sources quoted in this section
"One consideration is that only 60-70% of firearms sales in the United States are transacted through federally licensed firearm dealers, with the remainder taking place in the "secondary market", in which previously owned firearms are transferred by non-dealers.[95][96][97][98]"
are from the Assault Weapons Ban(AWB) period. The expiration of the ban and the general uptick in arms sales have, in my opinion, rendered these studies to be invalid. The references should be removed, and new studies should be added. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevinmo1 ( talk • contribs) 13:48, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
I would clarify this sentence in the opening summary if I could understand it:
"However, federal legislation also aims to prohibit intentional interference of weapon sales to criminals domestically and insurgents abroad by prohibition of ATF and local law enforcement from access to digital databases for the purpose of idenfitication of the place of sale for weapons recovered at crime scenes."
Anyone understand what this contributor was trying to say here?
Neededandwanted (
talk) 23:53, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
How is it there aren't any reliable stats anywhere for this? Doesn't a law enforcement website have statistics on how many times a gun was used in defense? That should be in the lead. Mention how many people shot someone in a criminal act, how many shot someone in a legal manner of defense, and how many did it for suicide, or by accident. Dream Focus 05:53, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
This section only quotes studies twenty years old. Something a bit newer disagrees http://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/13287 Kleck isn't even a neutral source, nor is the language in this section backed by a broad set of citations, merely circular ones. 174.62.69.11 ( talk) 00:36, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf Gaijin42 ( talk) 15:28, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Gaijin42 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gaijin42) is a member of the WikiProject Firearms ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Firearms).
As a result he is consistently deleting a key link which has been added multiple times to the 'Gun violence in the United States' page - the link is to a directory of all the gunfire victims shot in the US in 2013 - http://usgunviolence.wordpress.com. The project has been widely publicized and praised.
I call on the Wikipedia admin community to prevent Gaijin42 from removing factual links added to this article simply because he is pursuing his own political goals and trying to censor this article accordingly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.16.141.114 ( talk) 04:34, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Gaijin42 ( talk) 15:06, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
I posted the DOJ link here, so that it could be discussed. The same way that you should have posted your link, so it could be discussed. If I was trying to suppress it, it seems like I would have not posted at all? Since someone has spoken up and agreed with me, but nobody has spoken up and agreed with you, is it perhaps that you don't understand policy, and I do? The slate database is certainly much better than the blog you originally posted. Indeed the DGU does include a map, including user submitted data, but one edited by a major think tank. I don't object to the Salon article.
Further, I note that you have attempted to add this information into the article at least 4 times under this IP, and possibly additional times under other IPs, and have been reverted by multiple users other than myself. Physician, heal thyself. Gaijin42 ( talk) 20:55, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
I don't see where Gaijin42 has attempted to bias gun issues, the weight of current research may cause the overall tone of a certain article to reflect a leaning, reality is not all subjects are balanced.... if you wish to restore your opinion of the issue, find credible research and cite it, but accusing him of bias simply because you don't agree with the research he has cited is absurd -- Anuoldman ( talk) 15:24, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
http://www.nature.com/news/firearms-research-the-gun-fighter-1.12864
LudicrousTripe ( talk) 15:53, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
Reading this article top to bottom, it doesn't really come off as NPOV to me. There are references for things, but i really don't get a sense of "Hey here is a unbiased assessment of where this political issue is in today's culture", it reads more like "here are some facts, here are some pro gun claims, but <claim here> is in dispute because of <reason here>."
Call me pedantic, but it just reads a bit too much like a propaganda piece. 206.222.208.4 ( talk) 19:06, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Okay. I'm not the IP above, but I read this. Here's a statement: Higher gun-related death rates can be found in developing countries and countries with political instability.[28][32][33] However, developed countries with strict gun laws have essentially eliminated gun violence.[34][35][36][37]
What does "essentially eliminated" mean here? The gun homicide rate in Canada is 0.5 per 100,000, about the same as Switzerland's. Canada has much stricter firearms laws than Switzerland. This rate is the same as the continental US state with the lowest firearm homicide rate, which is New Hampshire. They all have the same 0.5 gun homicide rate per 100,000 persons per year. See Gun violence in the United States by state, which has the reports for 2010; New Hampshire is slightly higher in 2011, but that's where I took the 0.5 from [1]. In the Wikipedia article you will also discover that New Hampshire has a Brady score near the bottom, which means that its gun laws are more lax than all states except a few like Utah and Arizona.
So, what are we to make of all this? The thrust of the synthesis here is that being "developed" and having "strict gun laws" is the path to "eliminating gun violence". Either they don't mean Canada, or else we are to assume that New Hampshire has also "essentially eliminated gun violence." But wihtout all the bother of strict gun laws. So how did that happen?
A perusal of the above WP article Gun violence in the United States by state will show you that state gun murder rates vary by an incredible factor of 20, with New Hampshire being best (followed closely by Vermont) and Louisiana being worst. By contrast, automobile death rates vary only by a factor of 3.3 across the continental US. What would we do if one state had 20 time the auto death rate of another? Would we add more safety features to automobiles and restrict their ownership (as David Hemenway suggests in this week's NEJM), or would we look more deeply? Gun murder rates in the US are a function of latitude and ethnic makeup, and have very little to do with gun laws, and almost nothing to do with povery or income.
Population density is an influence, as it is on all crime, but within the US you can find that the Memphis metropolitan area has a per capita violent crime rate 20 times that of the Logan metropolitan area (in Utah and Idaho). The latter doesn't have as dense population, but it is more impoverished even by household income (and far worse per capita due to the many children in Utah and Southern Idaho). Well, what's the difference? Not gun laws. Utah and Idaho are dead bottom of the Brady score, with Utah getting zero and Idaho getting 2 in a score of 100. Utah and Idaho have more firearms between them even than New Hampshire, and a massively armed populace with the right to carry concealed weapons. Why so little violent crime? Northern Utah and Southern Idaho are places full of Caucasion upstanding god-fearing teatotaling Mormons. In Memphis, well, let's just say that it isn't full of such people. But gun laws (or lack of them) are not the problem. Culture is the problem. Culture is the reason New Hampshire looks like Canada, and Louisiana looks like the Third World. This article hardly acknowledges that. S B H arris 05:06, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure you can successfully argue a point regarding gun deaths by comparing rates for countries with rates for individual US states. As you point out, there are more variables at play than individual states' approaches.
However, as you also point out, this isn't the page for state-by-state analysis. That has its own page. This is a presentation of the overall view for the US as a whole. Obviously (to me, at least) there must be a discussion of state approaches here, but the whole article is an attempt to provide a relatively concise overview of the problems with gun violence in the US, with sources.
As to NPOV, I'll just point out that this is a page outlining the many problems with gun violence in the US. There are no such pages for any other country - it is a uniquely US problem, and it is a serious problem. Therefore, it would be nearly impossible not to treat the manifold issues as problems, with an attendant risk of negative connotations.
Also, I don't believe that taking commonly-understood phrases like "essentially eliminated" and requiring that they be sourced or defined is helpful. This just introduces a layer of pedantry that merely confuses the casual reader. I do agree that comparisons should be sourced, but those may be able to be introduced in a less obfuscating way. These rules aren't generally applied unless there is a clear comparison being made. There are enough statistics in this page as it is!
I think I understand where you're coming from, and I agree that in such an emotional issue we need to be quite clear. But introducing decimal points where a simple English sentence makes the same point is getting pedantic, and that's the last thing we need!
Cephas Atheos ( talk) 23:32, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
So what is the purpose of this article? Developed countries with strict gun laws may have eliminated gun violence, but that's not the only path. One path is that a country can develop instead of continuue in sloth and corruption, but I suppose that's not a liberal idea. However, liberal or not, and it's grossly unfair to suggest that Utahns live with Mexico's gun laws just because low-class people kill each other in (say) New Orleans. And certainly unfair to suggest that New Hampshire and Vermont need to toughen their gun laws when they do as well as Canada, violence-wise without gun laws. Indeed, this is an argument that Canada might look at Vermont and New Hampshire and loosen its laws. Most of Canada looks more like Vermont and New Hampshire than it does like Louisiana anyway. And has a culture to match. So they don't kill each other? Well, it's not because of pistol ownership or not. It has to do with what kind of people they are, and what they'll put up with. Same goes for Mexico. S B H arris 02:06, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Everything in these sections comes across as WP:POV (starting with their inclusion) because no connection has been established with their relationship to gun violence. There is a lot of information that deals with "guns", but very little that deals with "violence" either the psychology behind it or research on its causes. -- Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... ( talk) 15:04, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
I propose removing all of the off topic content. This article is about "gun violence" (if the Lead is its summary) and seemingly violence related to criminal activity with the exception of suicide which used to be a crime, but is no longer in Western societies. That said the Lead needs to be edited and reduced along with the rest of the article. The "gun ownership" section is just a conglomeration of statistics and does not directly address any actual gun violence. The "Public policy" section is much the same. It appears to be attempting to answer a question that is not present in the article.
Cited or not, much of this information is just unrelated fluff that some are trying to pass off relevant content. Worse yet, the inclusion of it amounts to sythesis with no claim or connection made for why the information is stated. For example, the first two paragraphs of the gun ownership section have nothing to do with gun violence or criminal use of guns, its just raw statistics in prose form without explanation of its significance to the article subject. The self protection section that follows is about the lawful use of firearms for the prevention of crime. This is interesting information, but it seems to have little to do with "gun violence". The same goes for the Public policy section, it talks "around" the subject, but not specifically "to it".
All in all, very little of this article corresponds directly with its stated topic unless the strategy behind its editing is just to throw an inordinate amount of data at the reader and let them figure out has merit. As it stands now, I can't see how this article attained Good Article status. --
Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (
talk) 22:30, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
I was merely trying to answer your last question: Non-hypothetically, it wouldn't matter if you couldn't demonstrate the notability of "Rolling pin violence in the United States". So lets start there, why is non-military, criminal and non-criminal (since suicide has been decriminalized) related "Gun violence in the United States" worthy of an article?
The basic question, is why any X and Y type thing that has an article on WP, is worthy of such an article? The answer is always notability. There's a literature to be sumarized. Why do we have (for example) articles on Homosexuality in ancient Rome, LGBT topics and Hinduism, and HIV/AIDS in China? In many cases it's because some topic is notable because there are many articles published positing some kind of cause-and-effect relationship, like Health effects of tobacco. In others, the authors are summarizing a literature that posits a relationship betweeen a state or its laws and some other problem, such as Torture and the United States. Again, the literature makes for notability.
In the present article, we have a little of both, with the argument made that easier access to guns in the US (as compared with developed countries) has resulted in greater gun violence in the US. The statistician I mentioned, Hemenway, has specifically made that argument, and he is quoted in this article. So, that's the reason and the reasoning. Hemenway believes that gun violence in the US would drop to Canadian levels if the US adopted Canadian-style gun laws. Personally I don't believe this would happen, as Vermont and New Hampshire already have Canadian levels of gun violence, while having laws similar to the rest of the US (they achieve their results by being nearer in culture and distance to Canada than to the rest of the US). But that's a fault of this article, not a reason to delete the article's summaries of the gun-law advocate's arguments. Such epidemiologic arguments would be more valid if we didn't have good control groups showing that Canadian levels of gun violence can be acheived with US gun laws: For example, if we had some US state where most adults smoked 3 packs a day of cigarettes and yet had the same lung cancer rates as (say) Utah, that would constitute a sound argument against those wanting to levy higher cigarette taxes in the US, in order to prevent lung cancer. We could certainly point out that it's possible to smoke a lot and yet have low lung cancer rates, so perhaps some other way can be explored. Alas, no such state exists, because smoking IS the prime cause of lung cancer in the US (that's one reason why we know it is). The reason we do have such outlier state cases in the US when it comes to firearms, is that gun-violence is NOT primarily caused by access to guns, but rather by other cultural problems (sex, age, race, racism, the war on drugs, inner-city decay) that politicians would rather not talk about. Tell me what fraction of your state population is young male blacks who are out of work, and I'll predict your level of gun violence with a p value far better than any gun law or gun count can do. Sorry. It's a shame this article is so poorly written that it doesn't point that out. The solution, however, is not to emasculate the article by removing such correlative content as it DOES contain. S B H arris 02:21, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
Questions or comments about the Suicides involving firearms section? Please see the Suicide materials across articles discussion on the main Gun violence talk page. Lightbreather ( talk) 00:06, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
This article is very inconsistent in its use of "United States," "US," "USA," "U.S." etc. I am going to make the following style changes to make it look a little more professional. First occurrence in a section, spelled out "United States"; rest of section, "U.S." Lightbreather ( talk) 20:36, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
FYI: I am in the middle of updating the Cook Gun Violence: The Real Costs citations. I have a copy and I'm pinpointing the references (rather than "Chapter 2" or "Chapter 3". Lightbreather ( talk) 00:00, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
There are two RfCs in which your participation would be greatly appreciated:
Thank you. -- Lightbreather ( talk) 17:25, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
How many gun deaths are caused by police? How many are 'justified homicide'? Or are those numbers excluded from the total numbers reported here?
~ender 2014-05-03 10:54:AM MST
In the third sentence, an outdated text is quoted saying high-profile mass murder is rare. This book is from 2002. Twelve years later, they are not as rare. This should be changed. BenjaminHold ( talk) 08:44, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Done
[2] --
Scalhotrod - Just your
average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy...
(Talk) 17:58, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
I am confused by the edit. The source is more current, and there is enough even in the snippet available without a paid subscription to update the material in question. But this:
Does not seem like an accurate, NPOV summary of this:
-- Lightbreather ( talk) 18:09, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
The titles of this Wikipedia article is: "Gun violence in the United States". Yet there is NO graph which shows homicide rates for all guns, unless you can figure out how to graphically add two chart lines together. The only graph in the article breaks down guns into constituent parts, which is not helpful, since no one could mentally create a mental picture of the sum of the individual chart lines. Could someone post a graph which shows homicide rates for the total of guns, all guns combined? Otherwise, the article needs to be titled, "Handgun, longgun, knife, and other weapon violence in the United States." Or perhaps we need a separate article on handguns, rather than lumping them in with the generic notion of "guns". I came to this article looking for the homicide rate for all guns, combined. — Preceding unsigned comment added by N0w8st8s ( talk • contribs) 08:34, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
I can see mentioning Heller and McDonald in the lead of Gun politics in the United States. I can see mentioning them in the body of this article. However, since they're about the right to own guns for self-defense in the home - and not about gun violence - I don't see how they merit inclusion in the lead. So I deleted mention of them from the lead [3] (not the body). However, they were restored. [4] I would like to read some feedback on this. Are Heller and McDonald lead-worthy in an article about gun violence? Lightbreather ( talk) 20:02, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
I don't come at this from any political side, but this article reads like amateur hour. Lulaq ( talk) 07:10, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
Please see related article Wikipedia:Good article help#How to determine an article's "good article" history? and below Article title - and relationship to Gun politics in the U.S. article. No matter which side of the debate one is on, there seems to be agreement that the article is no longer "good." Lightbreather ( talk) 19:15, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
While I agree with replacing the 1. McKinkley assassination illustration with something more current, I absolutely disagree that 2. the bell tower sniper's photo is the best replacement - or even a good replacement for that matter. -- Lightbreather ( talk) 19:08, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
Maybe the one of 3. President Bush after the Virginia Tech shooting? Lightbreather ( talk) 20:08, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
My recent post about Heller and McDonald in the lead brings up a bigger issue.
I've always thought about this article as an article just about... gun violence in the United States. In fact, the title would lead any reader to think the same thing. But it is as much about the policies/politics related to gun violence in the U.S. as it is about the violence itself. In fact, in Gun politics in the United States (GPUS), this article is given as the MAIN article under Public policy arguments > Gun violence debate.
So, I would like to discuss and come to an agreement about what information to put where.
Reviewing the hierarchy of these related articles and each article' scope is what I'm suggesting. Lightbreather ( talk) 19:08, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
I am a new user to Wikipedia, but found this article provided a lot of information, yet it lacked fluidity and structure which caused it to be confusing. The article lacks several necessary citations to some of the "facts" it provides. One of Wikipedia's policies is "no original research" can be posted to entries, but with the verbosity and lack of citations throughout the article, I found it to be somewhat opinionated information. I also sensed a disconnect in the writing because of the sporadic dates and locations provided in examples and it seems to include too many sections. Overall, though, the read was informative and did a good job covering the cause of why gun violence and how it happens in the US. Thank you for letting me share my thoughts in this new community! Megzmarie5 ( talk) 00:54, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, 467,321 persons were victims of a crime committed with a firearm in 2011. In the same year, data collected by the FBI show that firearms were used in 68 percent of murders, 41 percent of robbery offenses and 21 percent of aggravated assaults nationwide. Most homicides in the United States are committed with firearms, especially handguns. Homicides committed with firearms peaked in 1993 at 17,075, after which the figure steadily fell, reaching a low of 10,117 in 1999. Gun-related homicides increased slightly after that, to a high of 11,547 in 2006, before falling again to 10,869 in 2008. References:<Ref> http://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/gun-violence/Pages/welcome.aspx </ref> this is the most relevent informationI could find on NIJ.gov 72.224.171.98 ( talk) 22:12, 28 August 2014 (UTC)Wade Walling 72.224.171.98 ( talk) 22:12, 28 August 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wwalling ( talk • contribs) 01:35, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
Please stop undoing the deletion of that 1,232 byte section. It's far from meeting encyclopedic standards and has a washington post opinion blog as a source. It needs to major reworking and proper sourcing before it's appropriate for an encyclopedia. 72.224.171.98 ( talk) 22:14, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
I have been noticing that one user has been adding that section on Obama and opinions with the source from the WaPo opinion page. To me it appears that this is someone who is using multiple ip's because for example one IP created a new section in the talk page and another referenced it in a response to a user in the talk page. Also their have been multiple different IP's reverting the removal of that information from the page. I don't know how to deal with them, any suggestions? SantiLak ( talk) 22:16, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
The counterpoint of Swiss Gun Ownership to me feels shaky at best. For one it's devoid of context. Outside of the army and police, a lot of guns are banned that are allowed in the US. Automatic weapons (including those converted to semi-auto or handguns) are completely banned and everyone who purchases a gun must have a weapons purchase permit for most guns. And private sales require a written contract. And carry is entirely forbidden without a permit. So it's a lot stricter than most of the US and applies country wide. 216.163.254.2 ( talk) 19:31, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
President Barack Obama has a huge right to Express their opinion with respect to any laws and research on the use of firearms in the United States because he is a lawyer of the highest level in the field of constitutional law, and for several other reasons. In any relevant articles about weapons in the United States (he can be represented with his opinion and related facts). - 37.144.114.16 ( talk) 20:36, 29 August 2014 (UTC).
I took out this whole section. It's not about gun violence, the program is already mentioned in the previous section, it's undue weight, and it's basically an NRA feel-good project. 162.119.231.132 ( talk) 16:04, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
This is clearly on-topic, as it addresses one approach to addressing gun violence among children. It should remain in the article, where it has been for several years now. Miguel Escopeta ( talk) 17:08, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The article has not been reassessed since 2006 and there've been a lotta changes since then. Two big problems: the intro doesn't summarize the article, and some editors keep reinserting repetitive, non-neutral text. Felsic ( talk) 15:16, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
.
McDowall's study for the American Journal of Public Health contrasted with the 1993 study by Kleck, who found that 2.45 million crimes were thwarted each year in the U.S. by guns, and in most cases, the potential victim never fired a shot. [2]
Is this really the best source for the contents of an academic study? Is it even reliable for anything besides La Pierre's opinions? [5] I don't think so, but I'd be amused to see someone make that argument. Felsic ( talk) 19:55, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
The intro to this article is crap. "Gun violence is an issue"?! What isn't an "issue"? The whole thing looks like it was written to push a POV rather than summarize the article. Start with the main points first - like the fact that gun violence is the source of thousands of deaths and injuries annually. 162.119.231.132 ( talk) 15:32, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
Why is suicide considered "gun violence" at all? The use of suicide to fluff up the numbers for gun "violence" totals is nothing more than equivocation and alarmism. This is stupid. This entire article should be deleted as it is nothing more than an opinion piece. Thaskyshark ( talk) 20:45, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
All while the article is one of the Social sciences and society good articles. Hmmmm. Yet, gun violence is clearly a widely debated issue, perhaps the most important to many in the Social Sciences. The cites clearly establish that it is widely debated. The sources determine what goes into articles. It is not POV to go with what cited sources claim. Miguel Escopeta ( talk) 17:07, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
The core metric indicates a major and sustained plunge. It needs to be right up there first sentence of that lede graph dealing with gun murder. Also since 2/3 of gun violence in the US is suicide, suicide needs to be ahead of murder in the lede and subsequent graphs, along with the estimates of gun suicide attributable to gun availability, which is way lower than those where the means is guns. Aeo1987 ( talk) 17:26, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
I see there are statistical graphs for weapon type, and age of the perpetrator, but what about the gender and/or ethnicity of the perpetrator ? Having such information would garner a more precise picture of the "homicide problem" and thus probable solutions to such problems. Gizziiusa ( talk) 05:54, 11 March 2015 (UTC)gizziiusa
The article presents a lotta info in the intro that isn't in the rest of the article. You don't have to look farther than the first section, on suicide. It never says how many suicides with firearms there are. It's in the intro, but not in the section that talks about it. Another big omission is accidental death and injury from firearms. Partisans may enjoy writing about groups and proposals and all that stuff but the article oughta stay focused on the topic - gun violence in the US. Where, why, what, when: cover the basics first. Felsic ( talk) 18:21, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
Started an accident section. It oughta have more recent data covering more accidents. Felsic ( talk) 16:01, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
Higher gun-related death rates can be found in developing countries and countries with political instability. [1] [2] [3] However, some developed countries with strict gun laws have almost eliminated gun violence. [4] [5] [6] [7]
NAS-ch3
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).{{
cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
I don't see nothing in this about the gun violence in the US. It oughta go in some other article. Felsic ( talk) 21:27, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
I have looked at articles such as "defensive gun use" and "justifiable homicide" and found that no articles of this nature exclusively deal with shootings undertaken by law enforcement officials.
I came here looking for a statistic on the number of shootings carried out by law enforcement officers, resultant deaths and the ratio of shootings which resulted in charges compared to those which were deemed lawful. Perhaps there is an article which already deals with this. If there is not - I suggest its inclusion in this article as a subheading, "Gun violence involving law enforcement".
I would include Number of recorded shootings by officers (with breakdown by state) Number of recorded shootings of officers (with breakdown by state) Statistics on the resultant legal and medical follow up
Many thanks for giving this suggestion your consideration.
Elliott, Shanghai 180.173.86.61 ( talk) 06:30, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
Lede is supposed to be a summary and therefore contain no footnotes (because the body contains the footnotes). Instead, there are 20 footnotes. There is too much data, which normally belongs in the body. There are 322 million people in the United States. .003571% of the population is killed annually by homicide. 4 out of 100,000 or so. Student7 ( talk) 22:42, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Demographics are given based upon gender and age, but not race. Since there are differences based upon all three, shouldn't all three be included? 72.218.218.34 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:48, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
It looks like there's a lot of "noise" editing going on here - changes made by users without an account, subsequently reverted. I imagine that this has to do with the sensitive political nature of the article, and subsequent increased attention. I think that this is a high importance article, and is likely viewed very frequently, thus quality is a priority. Perhaps edits should be locked to signed in users only? Test35965 ( talk) 09:21, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
Someone (or more than one) editor has structured this article. It looks pretty good, except that reasons for violence are omitted. This gives the casual visitor to the article one impression (which happens to be that of the media): the country owns a lot of guns. There is a lot of gun violence. Therefore, the best way to eliminate gun violence is to do away with guns.
First off, the media would love this approach since it would give them hours of reporting, all underwritten by ads, of course. A significant plurality would hate it and oppose it at every opportunity (which it does already). So the role that media plays should probably be a separate subsection.... They like to pretend that "they just report", but they clearly do more than that. They have a dog in the fight too.
Reasons for violence needs a subsection as well, most likely. The media would hate this because it is difficult to report. Not something you can "break news" on at 7 with "news at 11". They like the quick and dirty. No one listens to talking heads. A lot fewer paid ads. The media would rather say, "Who knew that this quiet, unassuming young man would do this? Everyone is wringing their hands." Pretty much it for analysis! Television can't be too deep; no one would watch it!
As everyone has pointed out, gun ownership in Israel and Switzerland is high, murder rate low, so an objective person cannot automatically correlate gun ownership with violence. Student7 ( talk) 19:39, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
Is there a particular justification as to the practice of not quoting the entire forth article of the second amendment to the US Bill of Rights? It reads as follows: Fourth Article: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
After some research, I have been given to understand that it is meant to either defend a just government or remove a corrupt one. It isn't simply a right to own and carry Arms.
This is an observation I've made regarding any political or private quote on the article. The 6th Republican Presidential Nomination Debate dated Jan 14, 2016 is a good example where the complete sentence was not quoted. Torontofred ( talk) 19:06, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
I was having a look at this article [7] --- Does anyone have the time/interest to reconfigure some of these graphs and use them in the article? -- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 18:36, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to 3 external links on
Gun violence in the United States. Please take a moment to review
my edit. If necessary, add {{
cbignore}}
after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{
nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}}
to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 05:54, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
The first sentence in the entire article is Gun violence in the United States results in thousands of deaths and thousands more injuries annually". The tone of the article, especially the lede, is now heavily weighted to "guns are bad" histrionics and not to science and NPOV. At one time, this was rated a good article, but it looks like the gun banners have gone in and turned it into yet another polemic. That sentence is not appropriate as the first in the article whatsoever. Kindzmarauli ( talk) 18:00, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
I agree with Absoluetlypuremilk and others. Statistics are statistics. It's not disruptive to ask relevant questions that you are unable to answer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SombodysDad77 ( talk • contribs) 20:47, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
This reads like an editorial rather than a researched topic with a "neutral point of view" which is what Wikipedia has requested. The title kicks off with the slant "Gun Violence in the US" and there is little recovery from that point forward. One could substitute other nouns in for "Gun" and it becomes quite apparent the problem. For example "Car Violence, Knife Violence, Football Violence, White Violence, Black Violence, Cat Violence, Dog Violence" and everything that follows, whether factual or not, will be written to support that point of view. This article/document needs to be rewritten with objectivity and a larger context. The larger context cold be "Gun Ownership in America" and then Gun Homicides, Gun Suicides, Legal/Illegal ownership, are subsections, hunting in American, etc.
Tsk1989 (
talk)tsk2000 —Preceding
undated comment added 19:07, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
The article quotes statistics from different years, and from different sources, often juxtaposed in the same graf. There needs to be better consistency - particularly in terms of the quality of sources. For example, the CDC, FBI, and the BBC are used as sources for homicide numbers, each using differing years, and differing numbers. Not to even mention that raw numbers are considerably less informative than rates. Some effort needs to go into vetting the accuracy of sources relative to one another. The FBI and US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics are largely the 'go to' sources for data on violent crime; the BBC, while unquestionably a reliable news source, has their numbers wrong on the numbers quoted in the lede (they are listing total homicides, not the fraction committed using a gun). I'm hoping to find some time soon to work on this, but in the meantime it would be good if others began comparing values against sources to determine whether the source is accurate. Anastrophe ( talk) 15:27, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
There's been quite a few articles on some notable mass shootings that are lacking the details to make it complete. I wanted to give you guys the heads up to see if your ok with that. He are the changes.
I'm going to be adding a picture of the location of the shooting complete with a map of where the shooting took place. I'm going to start with the Stockton Schoolyard shooting, the 101 California street shooting, and the Luby's shooting. /info/en/?search=Cleveland_Elementary_School_shooting_(Stockton) /info/en/?search=101_California_Street_shooting /info/en/?search=Luby%27s_shooting
I'm also going to try and rename some of the articles for the more high profile shootings since right now their pages are oddly named after the perpetrator. /info/en/?search=Mark_O._Barton /info/en/?search=Charles_Whitman
As for the Stockton Schoolyard shooting and the San Ysidro Mcdonalds massarce, I honestly think that the perpetrators to those event's should have their own article seperate from the shootings since both of those are extremely I profile incidents much like the Virginia Tech Shooting and the Charleston shooting have a lot more notoriety. On the other hand i'm not shure of the details that require the perpetrator to have his own wikipedia page seperate from the shooting article. /info/en/?search=San_Ysidro_McDonald%27s_massacre#Perpetrator Any help would be greatly appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Graylandertagger ( talk • contribs) 22:22, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
I'm unclear why this, and the next section, are on this article's talk page - shouldn't they be on the talk page for the article you are planning to make changes on? Anastrophe ( talk) 15:42, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
We could merge the two at the top or something, but this seems like an easy fix. Darknipples ( talk) 00:40, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
Done
Darknipples (
talk) 02:23, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
I think GV makes a lot more sense than The Sandy Hook article, for the term 'Gun Violence Task Force'. [9] Darknipples ( talk) 01:10, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
I am removing context originally cited from a blog post by John Lott in 2013 [11], by what seems like a random IP.
Not only is the quality of this source (blog) poor, this claim by Lott has often been refuted.
Darknipples ( talk) 08:59, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
Not really sure what is going on, or what the point of these sections is. Please share your thoughts as to how they can be improved. Darknipples ( talk) 11:55, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
Anastrophe, with regard to your recent edit to the lead (without consensus) [16], I feel this warrants some actual discussion. Here are some cites I found after only a brief search. Please take some time to look at them. Instead of omitting this context all together, perhaps we can come up with an alternative.
Darknipples ( talk) 10:36, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
Gun violence in the United States is characterized as an epidemic by those who wish to impose more gun control laws. There is no actual epidemiological basis for the characterization. If we want to add a section to the article discussing the misrepresentation of criminological and sociological problems as an epidemiological problem by those intent on promulgating false narratives, I have no problem with working on such a section. Nevertheless, science trumps ideology, rhetoric, and propaganda every time, and Wikipedia has an obligation not to promulgate falsehoods without describing their nature neutrally. Stating that gun violence is "considered" an epidemic is a falsehood - it is *characterized* as such by partisans. There is a meaningful difference. And it absolutely has no place in the lede where it is not discussed in the article. Anastrophe ( talk) 18:18, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
Anastrophe, you keep making changes like this while we are in the middle of a discussion about it [29]. Your most recent edit removes context sourced from the cite on page one of the introduction, which says...
Also, just a quick reminder WP:BRD -- Darknipples ( talk) 20:05, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
I've been trying to change the frequency section of the Wikipedia article on mass shootings. Right now the article says that the United States has 33 percent of all mass shootings in the world which has been debunked constantly.
There's a few more things I found on mass shootings that I think might be worth looking at. The first two are articles regarding the frequency of mass shootings in the United States compared to it's population size along with mass shootings from other countries. The United States is one of the most densely populated countries on earth with a population of 320 million people which is the main factor that influences all these mass shootings. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jun/22/barack-obama/barack-obama-correct-mass-killings-dont-happen-oth/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/12/03/obamas-inconsistent-claim-on-the-frequency-of-mass-shootings-in-the-u-s-compared-to-other-countries/
Compared with India which has a population of 1.2 billion I believe that India has more mass shootings because of it's population size, but since India's homicide rate is only 3.5 where the United States is 4.5.
The Crime Prevention Center is where I discovered the US State Department report on mass killings around the world. I understand that Wikipedia isn't supposed to accept sources that side with either side of the debate, but much of the statistics could be used to create a list on the frequency of attacks. Sadly I don't know how to make a group on Wikipedia. http://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-mass-public-shootings-in-the-us-and-europe/ While the State Department's report only focus's on terrorism, it proves that the United States doesn't have more mass shootings than any other country. Part of the problem is that in many countries mass shootings tend to go unnoticed due to ineffective law enforcement lack of a definition on a mass shooting. As a result I would recommend either removing the CNN report source that states the United States has the most mass shootings or show that most countries themselves don't even report mass shootings.
Aside from that I also found some articles from politifact on Mass Shooting Tracker that you might be interested in reading. http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2015/nov/01/david-cicilline/david-cicilline-mixes-shooting-data-call-stronger-/ http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2015/oct/08/debbie-wasserman-schultz/how-many-americans-have-been-killed-mass-shootings/
Also take a look here http://www.npr.org/2015/12/05/458492474/how-many-mass-shootings-this-year-theres-no-consensus
Keep in mind, that as far as referencing Shooting Tracker on the Wikipedia page, i'm perfectly fine with that so long as we include the criticism that it's received. As of now the Wikipedia article on Mass Shootings does include the criticisms towards Shooting Tracker. I just want to keep it that way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Graylandertagger ( talk • contribs) 22:41, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
The article vacillates throughout in dependence upon FBI or CDC data regarding firearm homicides. CDC numbers are generally higher than FBI numbers. It wouldn't be appropriate to choose one data source or the other for this article, however, I think a brief discussion - early on in the article - would be appropriate to explain these differences. I found an excellent article by the DOJ Bureau of Justice statistics that explains these differences. I may make a go at summarizing this and adding it to the article. Anastrophe ( talk) 18:41, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
An edit that seemed well-sourced was reverted, with the summary "The results of these studies are based on an interval far too long ago to have current validity. The most recent data presented is 19 years old. No current relevance for the correlations." [34] I'm not sure I understand why we'd substiture our own judgment for that of the authors and editors of the studies. If the only issue is that the studies are old, we can add the dates. For example, "Studies published in 2002 and 2007 found that..." This article should include history and trends, etc., not just the up-to-the minute info like a medical article. Are there newer studies which contradict these? Felsic2 ( talk) 19:44, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
The sourcing and citation of statistics on homicide have become a mishmash, bouncing around year to year and source to source, to the point that anyone reading with any attention will ask themselves which, if any, are accurate.
It would look far more encyclopedic if the article stuck to _one_ count for homicides, and one reliable source, and one particular year throughout - obviously, the most recent statistics are the most relevant, except when discussing historical trends. The FBI has been accumulating violent crime statistics for more than seventy years, and their numbers have never been called into question (at least, outside of the tinfoil hat crowd). They are the gold standard. The FBI just released their 2015 data a week ago, and unless we are trying to suggest wildly varying firearm homicide counts in a very narrow number of years, the most current data seems to me to be the best. As well, the FBI numbers are the most consistent over recent years - see https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015/tables/expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2011-2015.xls , rather than the wildly varying counts from other sources. If firearm homicides had dropped from 11,078 in 2010 to 8,855 in 2012, it would have represented a gigantic drop in the actual rate, which would have been front-page news coast to coast. Likewise if the number had increased back up to 11,208 in 2013. It's fairly obvious that the other sources are counting total homicides in inaccurate ways, rather than firearm homicides. Again, the FBI expanded homicide data shows the most rational dataset, particularly against the rates with growing population. And in the balance, it provides a far more consistent and encyclopedic attention to details. As the numbers above show - we are only confusing readers with these different sources. I would propose cleaning up the article with the FBI figures. Anastrophe ( talk) 04:16, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
"The National Crime Victimization Survey, which relies on self-reports of victimization, is an ongoing annual survey conducted by the federal government (i.e., the Census Bureau on behalf of the Department of Justice) that collects information from a representative sample of nearly 100,000 noninstitutionalized adults (age 12 and over) from approximately 50,000 households. It is widely viewed as a “gold standard” for measuring crime victimization."
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Gun violence in the United States. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 14:23, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
Page watchers may be interested in " Thoughts and prayers". Thanks, -- Another Believer ( Talk) 20:00, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 5 external links on Gun violence in the United States. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 02:55, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 |
I am a Canadian and thus have not much knowledge on this contentions topic - thus am not confident in editing the article at all. I found this page at CBC news very informative with its format choice and unlike this article that has these stats but from 1997 is much more updated with stats up to 2009. talking about the section "Gun ownership". Do what you wish with this info if anything at all. Moxy ( talk) 23:09, 16 January 2013 (UTC)
The numbers in the intro section are not really clear (to me). Para 1 states "there were 358 deaths involving rifles. Deaths involving the use of pistols in the US that same year [2010] totaled 6,009 including suicides." Then a few paras later we have "Of the 30,470 firearm-related deaths in the United States in 2010...". So where did the extra 23,000+ deaths come from? Are there that many accidental deaths by firearm? Other firearms not classified as pistols or rifles? Or are one (or both) of these stats just plain wrong? Some clarification on these number is needed, imo. Eaglizard ( talk) 19:32, 18 January 2013 (UTC)
There's a problem in dealing with John Lott's research on this topic. There are serious questions about the validity of everything he has done, instanced by the bogus Mary Rosh identity, missing survey etc. The fact that, despite what looks like a stellar publication record, he hasn't been able to hold on to an academic job, or even stay on at a conservative thinktank like AEI is indicative of the difficulties. So citing him as an authority as in "research shows" is problematic. Something like "an article by John Lott concluded that ..." would be better. JQ ( talk) 08:23, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
I just replaced the following paragraph:
"Gun policies are influenced by interpretations since the late twentieth century of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which guarantees citizens the right to own and carry firearms, as protecting individual gun ownership. In 2008 the U.S. Supreme Court took a position for the first time in District of Columbia v. Heller, holding that the second amendment secured an individual's right to own firearms. [1]"
First of all, "interpretations since the late twentieth century of the Second Amendment"? Heller was in 2008. Before Heller, there had been no Supreme Court case explaining the Second Amendment. So I'm not sure what "interpretations" this paragraph is referring to. It also seems to be implying that the disagreement about the meaning of the Second Amendment is a relatively recent thing. It isn't. People have argued about it for a long, long time.
Secondly, I think the phrase "which guarantees citizens the right to own and carry firearms" should be deleted. While most people do believe this is what the Second Amendment means, there is a substantial number of people who think that the Second Amendment merely prevents the national government from interfering with state militias, and doesn't guarantee citizens the right to own and carry firearms. Yes this is perhaps odd given that the amendment says "right of the people" but it's a view held by a significant enough number of people that I think this article should refrain from taking a dispositive position on it.
Third, the phrase "the U.S. Supreme Court took a position" I think should read "took the position." A Supreme Court decision is authoritative and singular, so the article "the" as opposed to "a" should be used.
Finally, I think that this characterization of the Heller holding should be changed. The respondents in Heller didn't argue that the Second Amendment wasn't about an individual right to own firearms, but that this right was limited in scope to militia service, and didn't apply to things like self-defense or hunting deer. This is a misconception about the position of Washington D.C. in the Heller case. D.C. didn't argue that the Second Amendment didn't protect an individual right, but rather argue that the "scope" of the right should be limited to circumstances where the federal government is interfering with militia service. The Supreme Court (by a vote of 5-4) disagreed and held that the Second Amendment was broader than this, and included things such as self-defense.
Sorry to be nitpicky, but a lot of people rely on this website. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Atomicporcupine88 ( talk • contribs) 14:22, 21 January 2013 (UTC)
people, keep in mind that just because there is a reference number next to the "fact", doesn't mean the reference is accurate, true, or even neutral in its presentation. if this article is going to stay, in spite of the fact that the article is a misnomer, the references need to at least be looked at thoroughly. many of the references for the "facts" are simply garbage.
But Aude says 15 super experts say it's a fact. Perhaps you should re-read his comments in this talk page. Maybe you'll grow a brain as large as his.
Danielvincentkelley (
talk) 20:13, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
This artilce is SHAMEFUL wikipedia. You're pretending history = current events. In recent years gun purchases have been through the roof. Consequently EVERY manner of VIOLENT CRIME is PLUMMETING. You offer statistics from 2004. If in 2004, the homicide rate was 14 per 100k, surely that's atrocious. NOW though, the US homicide rate is less than 3 per 100k. Which is on par with many of these "industrial nations". Right now Russia has the highest murder rate of any industrial nation at 17 per 100k. You don't hear anybody trying to force gun control on Russians right? Oh that's right, with their ENORMOUS MURDER RATE they have one of the strictest gun control regimes of industrial nations.
"In Russia, only licensed gun owners24 25 may lawfully acquire, possess or transfer a firearm or ammunition..."
Oh OK, only the state approved criminal element, the organized crime cops and such are able to own guns in Russia. 17 murders yearly per 100,000 people, Russia. That you cite statistics from 8 YEARS AGO, obscuring the reality of guns, that as we buy more of them, easy victims dwindle and CRIME IS THUS DIMINISHED... instead of presenting this TRUTH of the gun debate, you present aged statistics claiming this GARBAGE supports expanded gun control, by this WOEFULLY CRIMINAL CLIQUE that is The US Federal Government, who have allowed their bankster crony's to THIEVE US home equity, THIEVING thus 85% of US wealth into their off shore accounts and into their derivatives gambling scheme, they've thieved the titles of US Homes, also by criminal instruments called Adjustable Rate Mortgages, which are easily recognized as contracts that were not finalized, thus illegitimate. All that plus they're massively guilty of theft from 401k pensioners by their, Congresses, INSIDER TRADING. OBVIOUSLY these CRIMINALS are nervous that The Armed People of America are going to impose JUSTICE on them and so they're decided to attempt to thieve our guns. This PROPAGANDA NONSENSE, siting statistics from 2004, only exposes you as a criminal conspirator in the treacherous traitorous crimes of the US Federal EmPyre.
From DailyKos:
Tue Jan 17, 2012 at 07:16 AM PST
RKBA: Crime down...gun ownership up, that can't be right.
"The most recent FBI crime statistics show that in the first half of 2011, "violent crimes were down 6.4 percent, while property crimes fell 3.7 percent." Murder declined by 5.7 percent, rape by 5.1 percent, and robbery by 7.7 percent...
Of course short term six-month drops don't mean a whole lot all by themselves, but this one continues an established trend. In 1991, crime peaked and then fell pretty steadily before it flattened out half way through the 2000s, and since 2006, both violent crime and property crime have dropped significantly."
What you've done here, is not even "cherry picking" facts, you've VERY OBVIOUSLY IGNORED 8 YEARS (2004-2012), and are trying to present disarmed victim HISTORY as the present reality, that massively gun armed America is as violent as it was when everybody was disarmed. But it's not nearly the truth. I'm 1000% certain that if anybody attempts to correct your garbage mix up of history with present reality on this garbage wiki article their CORRECTIONS of your propaganda nonsense will just be immediately stricken from the record by your propaganda minister administrators, pretending to be a publicly updatable encyclopdia, being really though a god damn arm of the corporate fascist state. Danielvincentkelley ( talk) 20:13, 10 August 2012 (UTC)
90% of this article is complete bullshit. It's amazing that this is considered a GA. Viriditas ( talk) 08:28, 16 December 2012 (UTC)
The sources quoted in this section
"One consideration is that only 60-70% of firearms sales in the United States are transacted through federally licensed firearm dealers, with the remainder taking place in the "secondary market", in which previously owned firearms are transferred by non-dealers.[95][96][97][98]"
are from the Assault Weapons Ban(AWB) period. The expiration of the ban and the general uptick in arms sales have, in my opinion, rendered these studies to be invalid. The references should be removed, and new studies should be added. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kevinmo1 ( talk • contribs) 13:48, 17 January 2013 (UTC)
I would clarify this sentence in the opening summary if I could understand it:
"However, federal legislation also aims to prohibit intentional interference of weapon sales to criminals domestically and insurgents abroad by prohibition of ATF and local law enforcement from access to digital databases for the purpose of idenfitication of the place of sale for weapons recovered at crime scenes."
Anyone understand what this contributor was trying to say here?
Neededandwanted (
talk) 23:53, 15 March 2013 (UTC)
How is it there aren't any reliable stats anywhere for this? Doesn't a law enforcement website have statistics on how many times a gun was used in defense? That should be in the lead. Mention how many people shot someone in a criminal act, how many shot someone in a legal manner of defense, and how many did it for suicide, or by accident. Dream Focus 05:53, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
This section only quotes studies twenty years old. Something a bit newer disagrees http://ucrtoday.ucr.edu/13287 Kleck isn't even a neutral source, nor is the language in this section backed by a broad set of citations, merely circular ones. 174.62.69.11 ( talk) 00:36, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
http://bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fv9311.pdf Gaijin42 ( talk) 15:28, 8 May 2013 (UTC)
Gaijin42 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gaijin42) is a member of the WikiProject Firearms ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Firearms).
As a result he is consistently deleting a key link which has been added multiple times to the 'Gun violence in the United States' page - the link is to a directory of all the gunfire victims shot in the US in 2013 - http://usgunviolence.wordpress.com. The project has been widely publicized and praised.
I call on the Wikipedia admin community to prevent Gaijin42 from removing factual links added to this article simply because he is pursuing his own political goals and trying to censor this article accordingly. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.16.141.114 ( talk) 04:34, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
Gaijin42 ( talk) 15:06, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
I posted the DOJ link here, so that it could be discussed. The same way that you should have posted your link, so it could be discussed. If I was trying to suppress it, it seems like I would have not posted at all? Since someone has spoken up and agreed with me, but nobody has spoken up and agreed with you, is it perhaps that you don't understand policy, and I do? The slate database is certainly much better than the blog you originally posted. Indeed the DGU does include a map, including user submitted data, but one edited by a major think tank. I don't object to the Salon article.
Further, I note that you have attempted to add this information into the article at least 4 times under this IP, and possibly additional times under other IPs, and have been reverted by multiple users other than myself. Physician, heal thyself. Gaijin42 ( talk) 20:55, 10 May 2013 (UTC)
I don't see where Gaijin42 has attempted to bias gun issues, the weight of current research may cause the overall tone of a certain article to reflect a leaning, reality is not all subjects are balanced.... if you wish to restore your opinion of the issue, find credible research and cite it, but accusing him of bias simply because you don't agree with the research he has cited is absurd -- Anuoldman ( talk) 15:24, 19 May 2013 (UTC)
http://www.nature.com/news/firearms-research-the-gun-fighter-1.12864
LudicrousTripe ( talk) 15:53, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
Reading this article top to bottom, it doesn't really come off as NPOV to me. There are references for things, but i really don't get a sense of "Hey here is a unbiased assessment of where this political issue is in today's culture", it reads more like "here are some facts, here are some pro gun claims, but <claim here> is in dispute because of <reason here>."
Call me pedantic, but it just reads a bit too much like a propaganda piece. 206.222.208.4 ( talk) 19:06, 7 May 2013 (UTC)
Okay. I'm not the IP above, but I read this. Here's a statement: Higher gun-related death rates can be found in developing countries and countries with political instability.[28][32][33] However, developed countries with strict gun laws have essentially eliminated gun violence.[34][35][36][37]
What does "essentially eliminated" mean here? The gun homicide rate in Canada is 0.5 per 100,000, about the same as Switzerland's. Canada has much stricter firearms laws than Switzerland. This rate is the same as the continental US state with the lowest firearm homicide rate, which is New Hampshire. They all have the same 0.5 gun homicide rate per 100,000 persons per year. See Gun violence in the United States by state, which has the reports for 2010; New Hampshire is slightly higher in 2011, but that's where I took the 0.5 from [1]. In the Wikipedia article you will also discover that New Hampshire has a Brady score near the bottom, which means that its gun laws are more lax than all states except a few like Utah and Arizona.
So, what are we to make of all this? The thrust of the synthesis here is that being "developed" and having "strict gun laws" is the path to "eliminating gun violence". Either they don't mean Canada, or else we are to assume that New Hampshire has also "essentially eliminated gun violence." But wihtout all the bother of strict gun laws. So how did that happen?
A perusal of the above WP article Gun violence in the United States by state will show you that state gun murder rates vary by an incredible factor of 20, with New Hampshire being best (followed closely by Vermont) and Louisiana being worst. By contrast, automobile death rates vary only by a factor of 3.3 across the continental US. What would we do if one state had 20 time the auto death rate of another? Would we add more safety features to automobiles and restrict their ownership (as David Hemenway suggests in this week's NEJM), or would we look more deeply? Gun murder rates in the US are a function of latitude and ethnic makeup, and have very little to do with gun laws, and almost nothing to do with povery or income.
Population density is an influence, as it is on all crime, but within the US you can find that the Memphis metropolitan area has a per capita violent crime rate 20 times that of the Logan metropolitan area (in Utah and Idaho). The latter doesn't have as dense population, but it is more impoverished even by household income (and far worse per capita due to the many children in Utah and Southern Idaho). Well, what's the difference? Not gun laws. Utah and Idaho are dead bottom of the Brady score, with Utah getting zero and Idaho getting 2 in a score of 100. Utah and Idaho have more firearms between them even than New Hampshire, and a massively armed populace with the right to carry concealed weapons. Why so little violent crime? Northern Utah and Southern Idaho are places full of Caucasion upstanding god-fearing teatotaling Mormons. In Memphis, well, let's just say that it isn't full of such people. But gun laws (or lack of them) are not the problem. Culture is the problem. Culture is the reason New Hampshire looks like Canada, and Louisiana looks like the Third World. This article hardly acknowledges that. S B H arris 05:06, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
I'm not sure you can successfully argue a point regarding gun deaths by comparing rates for countries with rates for individual US states. As you point out, there are more variables at play than individual states' approaches.
However, as you also point out, this isn't the page for state-by-state analysis. That has its own page. This is a presentation of the overall view for the US as a whole. Obviously (to me, at least) there must be a discussion of state approaches here, but the whole article is an attempt to provide a relatively concise overview of the problems with gun violence in the US, with sources.
As to NPOV, I'll just point out that this is a page outlining the many problems with gun violence in the US. There are no such pages for any other country - it is a uniquely US problem, and it is a serious problem. Therefore, it would be nearly impossible not to treat the manifold issues as problems, with an attendant risk of negative connotations.
Also, I don't believe that taking commonly-understood phrases like "essentially eliminated" and requiring that they be sourced or defined is helpful. This just introduces a layer of pedantry that merely confuses the casual reader. I do agree that comparisons should be sourced, but those may be able to be introduced in a less obfuscating way. These rules aren't generally applied unless there is a clear comparison being made. There are enough statistics in this page as it is!
I think I understand where you're coming from, and I agree that in such an emotional issue we need to be quite clear. But introducing decimal points where a simple English sentence makes the same point is getting pedantic, and that's the last thing we need!
Cephas Atheos ( talk) 23:32, 2 August 2013 (UTC)
So what is the purpose of this article? Developed countries with strict gun laws may have eliminated gun violence, but that's not the only path. One path is that a country can develop instead of continuue in sloth and corruption, but I suppose that's not a liberal idea. However, liberal or not, and it's grossly unfair to suggest that Utahns live with Mexico's gun laws just because low-class people kill each other in (say) New Orleans. And certainly unfair to suggest that New Hampshire and Vermont need to toughen their gun laws when they do as well as Canada, violence-wise without gun laws. Indeed, this is an argument that Canada might look at Vermont and New Hampshire and loosen its laws. Most of Canada looks more like Vermont and New Hampshire than it does like Louisiana anyway. And has a culture to match. So they don't kill each other? Well, it's not because of pistol ownership or not. It has to do with what kind of people they are, and what they'll put up with. Same goes for Mexico. S B H arris 02:06, 3 August 2013 (UTC)
Everything in these sections comes across as WP:POV (starting with their inclusion) because no connection has been established with their relationship to gun violence. There is a lot of information that deals with "guns", but very little that deals with "violence" either the psychology behind it or research on its causes. -- Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... ( talk) 15:04, 18 August 2013 (UTC)
I propose removing all of the off topic content. This article is about "gun violence" (if the Lead is its summary) and seemingly violence related to criminal activity with the exception of suicide which used to be a crime, but is no longer in Western societies. That said the Lead needs to be edited and reduced along with the rest of the article. The "gun ownership" section is just a conglomeration of statistics and does not directly address any actual gun violence. The "Public policy" section is much the same. It appears to be attempting to answer a question that is not present in the article.
Cited or not, much of this information is just unrelated fluff that some are trying to pass off relevant content. Worse yet, the inclusion of it amounts to sythesis with no claim or connection made for why the information is stated. For example, the first two paragraphs of the gun ownership section have nothing to do with gun violence or criminal use of guns, its just raw statistics in prose form without explanation of its significance to the article subject. The self protection section that follows is about the lawful use of firearms for the prevention of crime. This is interesting information, but it seems to have little to do with "gun violence". The same goes for the Public policy section, it talks "around" the subject, but not specifically "to it".
All in all, very little of this article corresponds directly with its stated topic unless the strategy behind its editing is just to throw an inordinate amount of data at the reader and let them figure out has merit. As it stands now, I can't see how this article attained Good Article status. --
Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (
talk) 22:30, 22 September 2013 (UTC)
I was merely trying to answer your last question: Non-hypothetically, it wouldn't matter if you couldn't demonstrate the notability of "Rolling pin violence in the United States". So lets start there, why is non-military, criminal and non-criminal (since suicide has been decriminalized) related "Gun violence in the United States" worthy of an article?
The basic question, is why any X and Y type thing that has an article on WP, is worthy of such an article? The answer is always notability. There's a literature to be sumarized. Why do we have (for example) articles on Homosexuality in ancient Rome, LGBT topics and Hinduism, and HIV/AIDS in China? In many cases it's because some topic is notable because there are many articles published positing some kind of cause-and-effect relationship, like Health effects of tobacco. In others, the authors are summarizing a literature that posits a relationship betweeen a state or its laws and some other problem, such as Torture and the United States. Again, the literature makes for notability.
In the present article, we have a little of both, with the argument made that easier access to guns in the US (as compared with developed countries) has resulted in greater gun violence in the US. The statistician I mentioned, Hemenway, has specifically made that argument, and he is quoted in this article. So, that's the reason and the reasoning. Hemenway believes that gun violence in the US would drop to Canadian levels if the US adopted Canadian-style gun laws. Personally I don't believe this would happen, as Vermont and New Hampshire already have Canadian levels of gun violence, while having laws similar to the rest of the US (they achieve their results by being nearer in culture and distance to Canada than to the rest of the US). But that's a fault of this article, not a reason to delete the article's summaries of the gun-law advocate's arguments. Such epidemiologic arguments would be more valid if we didn't have good control groups showing that Canadian levels of gun violence can be acheived with US gun laws: For example, if we had some US state where most adults smoked 3 packs a day of cigarettes and yet had the same lung cancer rates as (say) Utah, that would constitute a sound argument against those wanting to levy higher cigarette taxes in the US, in order to prevent lung cancer. We could certainly point out that it's possible to smoke a lot and yet have low lung cancer rates, so perhaps some other way can be explored. Alas, no such state exists, because smoking IS the prime cause of lung cancer in the US (that's one reason why we know it is). The reason we do have such outlier state cases in the US when it comes to firearms, is that gun-violence is NOT primarily caused by access to guns, but rather by other cultural problems (sex, age, race, racism, the war on drugs, inner-city decay) that politicians would rather not talk about. Tell me what fraction of your state population is young male blacks who are out of work, and I'll predict your level of gun violence with a p value far better than any gun law or gun count can do. Sorry. It's a shame this article is so poorly written that it doesn't point that out. The solution, however, is not to emasculate the article by removing such correlative content as it DOES contain. S B H arris 02:21, 11 October 2013 (UTC)
Questions or comments about the Suicides involving firearms section? Please see the Suicide materials across articles discussion on the main Gun violence talk page. Lightbreather ( talk) 00:06, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
This article is very inconsistent in its use of "United States," "US," "USA," "U.S." etc. I am going to make the following style changes to make it look a little more professional. First occurrence in a section, spelled out "United States"; rest of section, "U.S." Lightbreather ( talk) 20:36, 3 March 2014 (UTC)
FYI: I am in the middle of updating the Cook Gun Violence: The Real Costs citations. I have a copy and I'm pinpointing the references (rather than "Chapter 2" or "Chapter 3". Lightbreather ( talk) 00:00, 4 March 2014 (UTC)
There are two RfCs in which your participation would be greatly appreciated:
Thank you. -- Lightbreather ( talk) 17:25, 21 April 2014 (UTC)
How many gun deaths are caused by police? How many are 'justified homicide'? Or are those numbers excluded from the total numbers reported here?
~ender 2014-05-03 10:54:AM MST
In the third sentence, an outdated text is quoted saying high-profile mass murder is rare. This book is from 2002. Twelve years later, they are not as rare. This should be changed. BenjaminHold ( talk) 08:44, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
Done
[2] --
Scalhotrod - Just your
average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy...
(Talk) 17:58, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
I am confused by the edit. The source is more current, and there is enough even in the snippet available without a paid subscription to update the material in question. But this:
Does not seem like an accurate, NPOV summary of this:
-- Lightbreather ( talk) 18:09, 29 May 2014 (UTC)
The titles of this Wikipedia article is: "Gun violence in the United States". Yet there is NO graph which shows homicide rates for all guns, unless you can figure out how to graphically add two chart lines together. The only graph in the article breaks down guns into constituent parts, which is not helpful, since no one could mentally create a mental picture of the sum of the individual chart lines. Could someone post a graph which shows homicide rates for the total of guns, all guns combined? Otherwise, the article needs to be titled, "Handgun, longgun, knife, and other weapon violence in the United States." Or perhaps we need a separate article on handguns, rather than lumping them in with the generic notion of "guns". I came to this article looking for the homicide rate for all guns, combined. — Preceding unsigned comment added by N0w8st8s ( talk • contribs) 08:34, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
I can see mentioning Heller and McDonald in the lead of Gun politics in the United States. I can see mentioning them in the body of this article. However, since they're about the right to own guns for self-defense in the home - and not about gun violence - I don't see how they merit inclusion in the lead. So I deleted mention of them from the lead [3] (not the body). However, they were restored. [4] I would like to read some feedback on this. Are Heller and McDonald lead-worthy in an article about gun violence? Lightbreather ( talk) 20:02, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
I don't come at this from any political side, but this article reads like amateur hour. Lulaq ( talk) 07:10, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
Please see related article Wikipedia:Good article help#How to determine an article's "good article" history? and below Article title - and relationship to Gun politics in the U.S. article. No matter which side of the debate one is on, there seems to be agreement that the article is no longer "good." Lightbreather ( talk) 19:15, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
While I agree with replacing the 1. McKinkley assassination illustration with something more current, I absolutely disagree that 2. the bell tower sniper's photo is the best replacement - or even a good replacement for that matter. -- Lightbreather ( talk) 19:08, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
Maybe the one of 3. President Bush after the Virginia Tech shooting? Lightbreather ( talk) 20:08, 18 June 2014 (UTC)
My recent post about Heller and McDonald in the lead brings up a bigger issue.
I've always thought about this article as an article just about... gun violence in the United States. In fact, the title would lead any reader to think the same thing. But it is as much about the policies/politics related to gun violence in the U.S. as it is about the violence itself. In fact, in Gun politics in the United States (GPUS), this article is given as the MAIN article under Public policy arguments > Gun violence debate.
So, I would like to discuss and come to an agreement about what information to put where.
Reviewing the hierarchy of these related articles and each article' scope is what I'm suggesting. Lightbreather ( talk) 19:08, 14 June 2014 (UTC)
I am a new user to Wikipedia, but found this article provided a lot of information, yet it lacked fluidity and structure which caused it to be confusing. The article lacks several necessary citations to some of the "facts" it provides. One of Wikipedia's policies is "no original research" can be posted to entries, but with the verbosity and lack of citations throughout the article, I found it to be somewhat opinionated information. I also sensed a disconnect in the writing because of the sporadic dates and locations provided in examples and it seems to include too many sections. Overall, though, the read was informative and did a good job covering the cause of why gun violence and how it happens in the US. Thank you for letting me share my thoughts in this new community! Megzmarie5 ( talk) 00:54, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, 467,321 persons were victims of a crime committed with a firearm in 2011. In the same year, data collected by the FBI show that firearms were used in 68 percent of murders, 41 percent of robbery offenses and 21 percent of aggravated assaults nationwide. Most homicides in the United States are committed with firearms, especially handguns. Homicides committed with firearms peaked in 1993 at 17,075, after which the figure steadily fell, reaching a low of 10,117 in 1999. Gun-related homicides increased slightly after that, to a high of 11,547 in 2006, before falling again to 10,869 in 2008. References:<Ref> http://www.nij.gov/topics/crime/gun-violence/Pages/welcome.aspx </ref> this is the most relevent informationI could find on NIJ.gov 72.224.171.98 ( talk) 22:12, 28 August 2014 (UTC)Wade Walling 72.224.171.98 ( talk) 22:12, 28 August 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wwalling ( talk • contribs) 01:35, 12 August 2014 (UTC)
Please stop undoing the deletion of that 1,232 byte section. It's far from meeting encyclopedic standards and has a washington post opinion blog as a source. It needs to major reworking and proper sourcing before it's appropriate for an encyclopedia. 72.224.171.98 ( talk) 22:14, 28 August 2014 (UTC)
I have been noticing that one user has been adding that section on Obama and opinions with the source from the WaPo opinion page. To me it appears that this is someone who is using multiple ip's because for example one IP created a new section in the talk page and another referenced it in a response to a user in the talk page. Also their have been multiple different IP's reverting the removal of that information from the page. I don't know how to deal with them, any suggestions? SantiLak ( talk) 22:16, 29 August 2014 (UTC)
The counterpoint of Swiss Gun Ownership to me feels shaky at best. For one it's devoid of context. Outside of the army and police, a lot of guns are banned that are allowed in the US. Automatic weapons (including those converted to semi-auto or handguns) are completely banned and everyone who purchases a gun must have a weapons purchase permit for most guns. And private sales require a written contract. And carry is entirely forbidden without a permit. So it's a lot stricter than most of the US and applies country wide. 216.163.254.2 ( talk) 19:31, 11 June 2014 (UTC)
President Barack Obama has a huge right to Express their opinion with respect to any laws and research on the use of firearms in the United States because he is a lawyer of the highest level in the field of constitutional law, and for several other reasons. In any relevant articles about weapons in the United States (he can be represented with his opinion and related facts). - 37.144.114.16 ( talk) 20:36, 29 August 2014 (UTC).
I took out this whole section. It's not about gun violence, the program is already mentioned in the previous section, it's undue weight, and it's basically an NRA feel-good project. 162.119.231.132 ( talk) 16:04, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
This is clearly on-topic, as it addresses one approach to addressing gun violence among children. It should remain in the article, where it has been for several years now. Miguel Escopeta ( talk) 17:08, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
The article has not been reassessed since 2006 and there've been a lotta changes since then. Two big problems: the intro doesn't summarize the article, and some editors keep reinserting repetitive, non-neutral text. Felsic ( talk) 15:16, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
.
McDowall's study for the American Journal of Public Health contrasted with the 1993 study by Kleck, who found that 2.45 million crimes were thwarted each year in the U.S. by guns, and in most cases, the potential victim never fired a shot. [2]
Is this really the best source for the contents of an academic study? Is it even reliable for anything besides La Pierre's opinions? [5] I don't think so, but I'd be amused to see someone make that argument. Felsic ( talk) 19:55, 23 February 2015 (UTC)
The intro to this article is crap. "Gun violence is an issue"?! What isn't an "issue"? The whole thing looks like it was written to push a POV rather than summarize the article. Start with the main points first - like the fact that gun violence is the source of thousands of deaths and injuries annually. 162.119.231.132 ( talk) 15:32, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
Why is suicide considered "gun violence" at all? The use of suicide to fluff up the numbers for gun "violence" totals is nothing more than equivocation and alarmism. This is stupid. This entire article should be deleted as it is nothing more than an opinion piece. Thaskyshark ( talk) 20:45, 9 February 2015 (UTC)
All while the article is one of the Social sciences and society good articles. Hmmmm. Yet, gun violence is clearly a widely debated issue, perhaps the most important to many in the Social Sciences. The cites clearly establish that it is widely debated. The sources determine what goes into articles. It is not POV to go with what cited sources claim. Miguel Escopeta ( talk) 17:07, 22 January 2015 (UTC)
The core metric indicates a major and sustained plunge. It needs to be right up there first sentence of that lede graph dealing with gun murder. Also since 2/3 of gun violence in the US is suicide, suicide needs to be ahead of murder in the lede and subsequent graphs, along with the estimates of gun suicide attributable to gun availability, which is way lower than those where the means is guns. Aeo1987 ( talk) 17:26, 24 February 2015 (UTC)
I see there are statistical graphs for weapon type, and age of the perpetrator, but what about the gender and/or ethnicity of the perpetrator ? Having such information would garner a more precise picture of the "homicide problem" and thus probable solutions to such problems. Gizziiusa ( talk) 05:54, 11 March 2015 (UTC)gizziiusa
The article presents a lotta info in the intro that isn't in the rest of the article. You don't have to look farther than the first section, on suicide. It never says how many suicides with firearms there are. It's in the intro, but not in the section that talks about it. Another big omission is accidental death and injury from firearms. Partisans may enjoy writing about groups and proposals and all that stuff but the article oughta stay focused on the topic - gun violence in the US. Where, why, what, when: cover the basics first. Felsic ( talk) 18:21, 30 January 2015 (UTC)
Started an accident section. It oughta have more recent data covering more accidents. Felsic ( talk) 16:01, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
Higher gun-related death rates can be found in developing countries and countries with political instability. [1] [2] [3] However, some developed countries with strict gun laws have almost eliminated gun violence. [4] [5] [6] [7]
NAS-ch3
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).{{
cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
I don't see nothing in this about the gun violence in the US. It oughta go in some other article. Felsic ( talk) 21:27, 6 February 2015 (UTC)
I have looked at articles such as "defensive gun use" and "justifiable homicide" and found that no articles of this nature exclusively deal with shootings undertaken by law enforcement officials.
I came here looking for a statistic on the number of shootings carried out by law enforcement officers, resultant deaths and the ratio of shootings which resulted in charges compared to those which were deemed lawful. Perhaps there is an article which already deals with this. If there is not - I suggest its inclusion in this article as a subheading, "Gun violence involving law enforcement".
I would include Number of recorded shootings by officers (with breakdown by state) Number of recorded shootings of officers (with breakdown by state) Statistics on the resultant legal and medical follow up
Many thanks for giving this suggestion your consideration.
Elliott, Shanghai 180.173.86.61 ( talk) 06:30, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
Lede is supposed to be a summary and therefore contain no footnotes (because the body contains the footnotes). Instead, there are 20 footnotes. There is too much data, which normally belongs in the body. There are 322 million people in the United States. .003571% of the population is killed annually by homicide. 4 out of 100,000 or so. Student7 ( talk) 22:42, 21 September 2015 (UTC)
Demographics are given based upon gender and age, but not race. Since there are differences based upon all three, shouldn't all three be included? 72.218.218.34 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 16:48, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
It looks like there's a lot of "noise" editing going on here - changes made by users without an account, subsequently reverted. I imagine that this has to do with the sensitive political nature of the article, and subsequent increased attention. I think that this is a high importance article, and is likely viewed very frequently, thus quality is a priority. Perhaps edits should be locked to signed in users only? Test35965 ( talk) 09:21, 11 October 2015 (UTC)
Someone (or more than one) editor has structured this article. It looks pretty good, except that reasons for violence are omitted. This gives the casual visitor to the article one impression (which happens to be that of the media): the country owns a lot of guns. There is a lot of gun violence. Therefore, the best way to eliminate gun violence is to do away with guns.
First off, the media would love this approach since it would give them hours of reporting, all underwritten by ads, of course. A significant plurality would hate it and oppose it at every opportunity (which it does already). So the role that media plays should probably be a separate subsection.... They like to pretend that "they just report", but they clearly do more than that. They have a dog in the fight too.
Reasons for violence needs a subsection as well, most likely. The media would hate this because it is difficult to report. Not something you can "break news" on at 7 with "news at 11". They like the quick and dirty. No one listens to talking heads. A lot fewer paid ads. The media would rather say, "Who knew that this quiet, unassuming young man would do this? Everyone is wringing their hands." Pretty much it for analysis! Television can't be too deep; no one would watch it!
As everyone has pointed out, gun ownership in Israel and Switzerland is high, murder rate low, so an objective person cannot automatically correlate gun ownership with violence. Student7 ( talk) 19:39, 24 October 2015 (UTC)
Is there a particular justification as to the practice of not quoting the entire forth article of the second amendment to the US Bill of Rights? It reads as follows: Fourth Article: A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
After some research, I have been given to understand that it is meant to either defend a just government or remove a corrupt one. It isn't simply a right to own and carry Arms.
This is an observation I've made regarding any political or private quote on the article. The 6th Republican Presidential Nomination Debate dated Jan 14, 2016 is a good example where the complete sentence was not quoted. Torontofred ( talk) 19:06, 15 January 2016 (UTC)
I was having a look at this article [7] --- Does anyone have the time/interest to reconfigure some of these graphs and use them in the article? -- Somedifferentstuff ( talk) 18:36, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to 3 external links on
Gun violence in the United States. Please take a moment to review
my edit. If necessary, add {{
cbignore}}
after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{
nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}}
to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true to let others know.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— cyberbot II Talk to my owner:Online 05:54, 18 January 2016 (UTC)
The first sentence in the entire article is Gun violence in the United States results in thousands of deaths and thousands more injuries annually". The tone of the article, especially the lede, is now heavily weighted to "guns are bad" histrionics and not to science and NPOV. At one time, this was rated a good article, but it looks like the gun banners have gone in and turned it into yet another polemic. That sentence is not appropriate as the first in the article whatsoever. Kindzmarauli ( talk) 18:00, 12 November 2015 (UTC)
I agree with Absoluetlypuremilk and others. Statistics are statistics. It's not disruptive to ask relevant questions that you are unable to answer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SombodysDad77 ( talk • contribs) 20:47, 17 November 2015 (UTC)
This reads like an editorial rather than a researched topic with a "neutral point of view" which is what Wikipedia has requested. The title kicks off with the slant "Gun Violence in the US" and there is little recovery from that point forward. One could substitute other nouns in for "Gun" and it becomes quite apparent the problem. For example "Car Violence, Knife Violence, Football Violence, White Violence, Black Violence, Cat Violence, Dog Violence" and everything that follows, whether factual or not, will be written to support that point of view. This article/document needs to be rewritten with objectivity and a larger context. The larger context cold be "Gun Ownership in America" and then Gun Homicides, Gun Suicides, Legal/Illegal ownership, are subsections, hunting in American, etc.
Tsk1989 (
talk)tsk2000 —Preceding
undated comment added 19:07, 6 December 2015 (UTC)
The article quotes statistics from different years, and from different sources, often juxtaposed in the same graf. There needs to be better consistency - particularly in terms of the quality of sources. For example, the CDC, FBI, and the BBC are used as sources for homicide numbers, each using differing years, and differing numbers. Not to even mention that raw numbers are considerably less informative than rates. Some effort needs to go into vetting the accuracy of sources relative to one another. The FBI and US Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics are largely the 'go to' sources for data on violent crime; the BBC, while unquestionably a reliable news source, has their numbers wrong on the numbers quoted in the lede (they are listing total homicides, not the fraction committed using a gun). I'm hoping to find some time soon to work on this, but in the meantime it would be good if others began comparing values against sources to determine whether the source is accurate. Anastrophe ( talk) 15:27, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
There's been quite a few articles on some notable mass shootings that are lacking the details to make it complete. I wanted to give you guys the heads up to see if your ok with that. He are the changes.
I'm going to be adding a picture of the location of the shooting complete with a map of where the shooting took place. I'm going to start with the Stockton Schoolyard shooting, the 101 California street shooting, and the Luby's shooting. /info/en/?search=Cleveland_Elementary_School_shooting_(Stockton) /info/en/?search=101_California_Street_shooting /info/en/?search=Luby%27s_shooting
I'm also going to try and rename some of the articles for the more high profile shootings since right now their pages are oddly named after the perpetrator. /info/en/?search=Mark_O._Barton /info/en/?search=Charles_Whitman
As for the Stockton Schoolyard shooting and the San Ysidro Mcdonalds massarce, I honestly think that the perpetrators to those event's should have their own article seperate from the shootings since both of those are extremely I profile incidents much like the Virginia Tech Shooting and the Charleston shooting have a lot more notoriety. On the other hand i'm not shure of the details that require the perpetrator to have his own wikipedia page seperate from the shooting article. /info/en/?search=San_Ysidro_McDonald%27s_massacre#Perpetrator Any help would be greatly appreciated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Graylandertagger ( talk • contribs) 22:22, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
I'm unclear why this, and the next section, are on this article's talk page - shouldn't they be on the talk page for the article you are planning to make changes on? Anastrophe ( talk) 15:42, 13 July 2016 (UTC)
We could merge the two at the top or something, but this seems like an easy fix. Darknipples ( talk) 00:40, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
Done
Darknipples (
talk) 02:23, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
I think GV makes a lot more sense than The Sandy Hook article, for the term 'Gun Violence Task Force'. [9] Darknipples ( talk) 01:10, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
I am removing context originally cited from a blog post by John Lott in 2013 [11], by what seems like a random IP.
Not only is the quality of this source (blog) poor, this claim by Lott has often been refuted.
Darknipples ( talk) 08:59, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
Not really sure what is going on, or what the point of these sections is. Please share your thoughts as to how they can be improved. Darknipples ( talk) 11:55, 15 August 2016 (UTC)
Anastrophe, with regard to your recent edit to the lead (without consensus) [16], I feel this warrants some actual discussion. Here are some cites I found after only a brief search. Please take some time to look at them. Instead of omitting this context all together, perhaps we can come up with an alternative.
Darknipples ( talk) 10:36, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
Gun violence in the United States is characterized as an epidemic by those who wish to impose more gun control laws. There is no actual epidemiological basis for the characterization. If we want to add a section to the article discussing the misrepresentation of criminological and sociological problems as an epidemiological problem by those intent on promulgating false narratives, I have no problem with working on such a section. Nevertheless, science trumps ideology, rhetoric, and propaganda every time, and Wikipedia has an obligation not to promulgate falsehoods without describing their nature neutrally. Stating that gun violence is "considered" an epidemic is a falsehood - it is *characterized* as such by partisans. There is a meaningful difference. And it absolutely has no place in the lede where it is not discussed in the article. Anastrophe ( talk) 18:18, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
Anastrophe, you keep making changes like this while we are in the middle of a discussion about it [29]. Your most recent edit removes context sourced from the cite on page one of the introduction, which says...
Also, just a quick reminder WP:BRD -- Darknipples ( talk) 20:05, 14 August 2016 (UTC)
I've been trying to change the frequency section of the Wikipedia article on mass shootings. Right now the article says that the United States has 33 percent of all mass shootings in the world which has been debunked constantly.
There's a few more things I found on mass shootings that I think might be worth looking at. The first two are articles regarding the frequency of mass shootings in the United States compared to it's population size along with mass shootings from other countries. The United States is one of the most densely populated countries on earth with a population of 320 million people which is the main factor that influences all these mass shootings. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/jun/22/barack-obama/barack-obama-correct-mass-killings-dont-happen-oth/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/12/03/obamas-inconsistent-claim-on-the-frequency-of-mass-shootings-in-the-u-s-compared-to-other-countries/
Compared with India which has a population of 1.2 billion I believe that India has more mass shootings because of it's population size, but since India's homicide rate is only 3.5 where the United States is 4.5.
The Crime Prevention Center is where I discovered the US State Department report on mass killings around the world. I understand that Wikipedia isn't supposed to accept sources that side with either side of the debate, but much of the statistics could be used to create a list on the frequency of attacks. Sadly I don't know how to make a group on Wikipedia. http://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-mass-public-shootings-in-the-us-and-europe/ While the State Department's report only focus's on terrorism, it proves that the United States doesn't have more mass shootings than any other country. Part of the problem is that in many countries mass shootings tend to go unnoticed due to ineffective law enforcement lack of a definition on a mass shooting. As a result I would recommend either removing the CNN report source that states the United States has the most mass shootings or show that most countries themselves don't even report mass shootings.
Aside from that I also found some articles from politifact on Mass Shooting Tracker that you might be interested in reading. http://www.politifact.com/rhode-island/statements/2015/nov/01/david-cicilline/david-cicilline-mixes-shooting-data-call-stronger-/ http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2015/oct/08/debbie-wasserman-schultz/how-many-americans-have-been-killed-mass-shootings/
Also take a look here http://www.npr.org/2015/12/05/458492474/how-many-mass-shootings-this-year-theres-no-consensus
Keep in mind, that as far as referencing Shooting Tracker on the Wikipedia page, i'm perfectly fine with that so long as we include the criticism that it's received. As of now the Wikipedia article on Mass Shootings does include the criticisms towards Shooting Tracker. I just want to keep it that way. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Graylandertagger ( talk • contribs) 22:41, 27 May 2016 (UTC)
The article vacillates throughout in dependence upon FBI or CDC data regarding firearm homicides. CDC numbers are generally higher than FBI numbers. It wouldn't be appropriate to choose one data source or the other for this article, however, I think a brief discussion - early on in the article - would be appropriate to explain these differences. I found an excellent article by the DOJ Bureau of Justice statistics that explains these differences. I may make a go at summarizing this and adding it to the article. Anastrophe ( talk) 18:41, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
An edit that seemed well-sourced was reverted, with the summary "The results of these studies are based on an interval far too long ago to have current validity. The most recent data presented is 19 years old. No current relevance for the correlations." [34] I'm not sure I understand why we'd substiture our own judgment for that of the authors and editors of the studies. If the only issue is that the studies are old, we can add the dates. For example, "Studies published in 2002 and 2007 found that..." This article should include history and trends, etc., not just the up-to-the minute info like a medical article. Are there newer studies which contradict these? Felsic2 ( talk) 19:44, 28 August 2016 (UTC)
The sourcing and citation of statistics on homicide have become a mishmash, bouncing around year to year and source to source, to the point that anyone reading with any attention will ask themselves which, if any, are accurate.
It would look far more encyclopedic if the article stuck to _one_ count for homicides, and one reliable source, and one particular year throughout - obviously, the most recent statistics are the most relevant, except when discussing historical trends. The FBI has been accumulating violent crime statistics for more than seventy years, and their numbers have never been called into question (at least, outside of the tinfoil hat crowd). They are the gold standard. The FBI just released their 2015 data a week ago, and unless we are trying to suggest wildly varying firearm homicide counts in a very narrow number of years, the most current data seems to me to be the best. As well, the FBI numbers are the most consistent over recent years - see https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015/tables/expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2011-2015.xls , rather than the wildly varying counts from other sources. If firearm homicides had dropped from 11,078 in 2010 to 8,855 in 2012, it would have represented a gigantic drop in the actual rate, which would have been front-page news coast to coast. Likewise if the number had increased back up to 11,208 in 2013. It's fairly obvious that the other sources are counting total homicides in inaccurate ways, rather than firearm homicides. Again, the FBI expanded homicide data shows the most rational dataset, particularly against the rates with growing population. And in the balance, it provides a far more consistent and encyclopedic attention to details. As the numbers above show - we are only confusing readers with these different sources. I would propose cleaning up the article with the FBI figures. Anastrophe ( talk) 04:16, 5 October 2016 (UTC)
"The National Crime Victimization Survey, which relies on self-reports of victimization, is an ongoing annual survey conducted by the federal government (i.e., the Census Bureau on behalf of the Department of Justice) that collects information from a representative sample of nearly 100,000 noninstitutionalized adults (age 12 and over) from approximately 50,000 households. It is widely viewed as a “gold standard” for measuring crime victimization."
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 3 external links on Gun violence in the United States. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 14:23, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
Page watchers may be interested in " Thoughts and prayers". Thanks, -- Another Believer ( Talk) 20:00, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified 5 external links on Gun violence in the United States. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.
This message was posted before February 2018.
After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than
regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors
have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the
RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{
source check}}
(last update: 5 June 2024).
Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot ( Report bug) 02:55, 26 October 2017 (UTC)