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utah-firearms-digest      Thursday, May 28 1998      Volume 02 : Number 064




----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Thu, 28 May 98 07:00:00 -0700
From: [e-mail] (SCOTT BERGESON)
Subject: Extreme Gun Control

From composite of sources. - Scott

Is this where we're headed? - Ed Wolfe

26 HELD AFTER WATER PISTOLS BATTLE
25 May 1998 19:52

Twenty-six people were arrested during the Bank Holiday weekend's
annual Run to the Sun rally, attended by thousands of Volkswagen
Beetle and camper van enthusiasts in Newquay, Cornwall, police said
today.

The arrests were mostly for offences of drunkenness and disorder.

Once again a major feature of the event was the running water
pistol battle in the streets by those taking part in the rally.
This year more than 100 water pistols were confiscated, said police.

⌐ 1998 Press Association

- --
Nation In Distress
http://www.involved.com/ewolfe/distress/

As we watch the complete moral decay and destruction of
our society by those who refuse to see the consequences
of their failed socialist policies, we are next forced to
accept their more extreme, socialist policies as solutions.
- --

This is the only link I could find, but it's one of those where you
have to register to get in. The article was taken from Sky News, so
you may find a link to that somewhere.

(I swear I am not making this up, Britain really is this stupid these days)

http://www.lineone.net/freesite/l1login.cgi

Goldie the Yob
Leicester
England
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/mark.goode/
ICQ# 4691481
Shoe size: 9



- -

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Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 08:58:14 -0700
From: DAVID SAGERS <[e-mail]>
Subject: Extreme Gun Control -Forwarded

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Subject: Extreme Gun Control
From: [e-mail] (SCOTT BERGESON)
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Date: Thu, 28 May 98 07:00:00 -0700
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From composite of sources. - Scott

Is this where we're headed? - Ed Wolfe

26 HELD AFTER WATER PISTOLS BATTLE
25 May 1998 19:52

Twenty-six people were arrested during the Bank Holiday weekend's
annual Run to the Sun rally, attended by thousands of Volkswagen
Beetle and camper van enthusiasts in Newquay, Cornwall, police said
today.

The arrests were mostly for offences of drunkenness and disorder.

Once again a major feature of the event was the running water
pistol battle in the streets by those taking part in the rally.
This year more than 100 water pistols were confiscated, said police.

# 1998 Press Association

- --
Nation In Distress
http://www.involved.com/ewolfe/distress/

As we watch the complete moral decay and destruction of
our society by those who refuse to see the consequences
of their failed socialist policies, we are next forced to
accept their more extreme, socialist policies as solutions.
- --

This is the only link I could find, but it's one of those where you
have to register to get in. The article was taken from Sky News, so
you may find a link to that somewhere.

(I swear I am not making this up, Britain really is this stupid these days)

http://www.lineone.net/freesite/l1login.cgi

Goldie the Yob
Leicester
England
http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/mark.goode/
ICQ# 4691481
Shoe size: 9



- -



- -

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 09:31:25 -0700
From: DAVID SAGERS <[e-mail]>
Subject: [Fwd: Dr Laura's monologue on the Oregon Shootings]  -Forwarded

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Subject: [Fwd: Dr Laura's monologue on the Oregon Shootings]
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This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
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- --
Steve Silver
Proud Member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy & Vice President,
The Lawyer's Second Amendment Society, Inc.
18034 Ventura Blvd., No. 329, Encino, CA 91316 * [phone]
For a complimentary copy of the LSAS's newsletter, "The Liberty
Pole," e-mail your snail-mail address to: [e-mail]
The LSAS is a 501(c)(4) non-profit corporation
              * * *
Self defense is not a crime.
Firearms: They save lives.


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From: Jack Perrine <[e-mail]>
To: "Jack Perrine (E-mail)" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Dr Laura's monologue on the Oregon Shootings
Date: Wed, 27 May 1998 13:00:37 -0700
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Dr Laura's monologue on the Oregon Shootings
Dr. Laura Schlessinger
5/21/98


I have something I think is very important to say. This seems kind of stupid
because, frankly, every time I open my mouth I'm trying to be important. But I
think you better listen up. It's one of those situations where when you look
at a unique event, one raindrop falling from the heavens, you go, "It's a unique
experience."

If you stand back and see that there are 40 million scrillion raindrops falling
from the heavens with a big wind behind them, you have a whole different
perspective. When you stand back and look at the whole of it, you see you're
in a hurricane and the top of your house just went. So perspective is
everything. So sometimes when you just look at each event, define it and put
it away, you can feel very safe, but you're not. You better stand back and see
that it's one raindrop in a hurricane.

On my way to work today, I heard about the student in the public high school in
Oregon, killed his parents and his sister, somebody else at school, and a score
or two of other children are seriously hurt. If you look at each one of these
events, kids doing drive-by shootings. Just take one event in the newspaper on
one day, you go, "Bad kid." Shooting each other in schools. Isolated event.
Bad kid. Kids committing suicide at rates unknown in modern times.

Well, listening to bad music. Kids having babies at 11 and 12 and 13 and 14 and
15 and 16,
and killing them, or wrapping them up in a towel and burying them in the earth,
or flushing them down a
toilet. It's an isolated event.

The kids on drugs and alcohol at levels I never heard of when I was a kid. If
somebody sneaked a beer, and it wasn't me because I couldn't even stand the
smell. But if somebody sneaked a beer, that was a big deal. And if you
listen to this program at all, you can tell that there are very few parents out
there who feel any sense of authority with their children. The children rule.

So if you stand back and look at all of these things, not as an isolated
raindrop, you see an apocalypse. And I am really dead serious about this, and
it would seem lately, more and more, dead is the operative term. I perceive this
as the ultimate in backlash and revenge of the children brought up by a
generation who invented a whole new way of life.

New and improved way of life. And these are the improvements. Commitment is
temporary. We've redefined it. There are even books out called A Good
Divorce. We've got people shacking up, making babies, moving on, making
babies, moving on, not seeing their kids, moving away. Judges saying, "Not
a problem. You want to move your kids away from their dad? Honey babe, you
deserve to be happy. Screw the kid." Got women living with guys they're not
married to who are molesting their children, at much higher rates than marital
situations by far. We have daycare. That's new and improved. Women have
the right to abandon their children, and their children will be happy about it
as long as the mommies are happy. Whose moronic idea is that?

Abortion is commonplace. You get pregnant, you don't want it, you suck it into
a sink. No problem. It's
not a person. You don't think all this mentality gives a complete irreverence
for life? How do children
feel important when they're not? Whether you stay married. Whether you are
married. It's all
unimportant. The children don't matter. It's your happiness. So we have
chaos in the home. We have, therefore, chaos in society. My children are not
safe from your children any more.

These are not isolated raindrops. And the best, the best new and improved idea
in our society is to remove God as an issue in the family, so that all holidays
we now have magazines and news articles extolling the virtues of interfaith-less
marriages, where we eat a little matzo and paint a few eggs and call it a
holiday. It is so cute! It's adorable! See how tolerant we are? But you
better keep God out of the holiday. But as long as we have a little matzo and
a little eggs that we can paint, we think we've brought God to our kids and our
lives. We've more and more become unwilling to study, to pray, to observe
because, you know why? It's time consuming and annoying and it's not really
necessary
anyway. The most important thing is my fulfillment.

Damn backwards! Damn backwards! So generation provided this chaos, lack of
home, lack of parents, lack of family, lack of stability, lack of reverence for
life, lack of God, and we have a big hurricane. Now I was on Meet the Press and
something else when other kids killed in other schools and I don't think anybody
heard me clearly. Maybe I said it too tactfully, so I'm going to be a little
less tactful now.

This is a lab experiment that failed! We've created international Lord of the
Flies. Kids have no respect for life. They know they're not important.
They don't see any purpose. They don't see any security. They don't
ultimately see any love because we have no time and no interest in anything but
acquisition. That's what's important.

Character, fidelity, stability, the preciousness of life, God - these are not
relevant as long as the
economy is okay. Isn't that indicative of "we don't care"? I am not the
slightest bit surprised, although I am beyond myself in grief for the parents
who are losing children this way. I mean I can't imagine the pain of sending
your kid to school and having this happen. Even having the threat of it. But
our kids are going to continue to do drive-bys, to blow away mass murder in
school, to kill themselves, to make babies, kill them and abandon them and abuse
them, be on drugs, be on alcohol and scare the crap out of you and everybody
else and each other because we taught them that they don't matter and nothing
else does. This is the revenge for our new order. You still want to argue with
me? How foolish can you be?

- -



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- -

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 11:15:43 -0700
From: DAVID SAGERS <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Are we surprised? NOT! -Forwarded

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From: [e-mail] (Neil Dickey)
To: Multiple recipients of list <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Are we surprised? NOT!
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Bruce Stanton <[e-mail]> wrote:

>Could also mean that gunowners are getting smarter.  If some stranger
>called me on the phone and asked me if I had any guns, I'd tell him
>I don't know what he is talking about.
>
>It's best to keep quiet.  What is legal today may be illegal tomorrow.
>In spite of form 4473, a lot of people still have guns that the feds
>don't know anything about.
>
>> >Poll: Most Americans favor stricter gun laws
>> >     WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
>> [snip]
>> > The poll also said the percentage of gun owners has dropped in the last
>> >25 years. In 1973, 48 percent of of adults had guns in their homes compared
>> >to 32 percent today, down from 40 percent two years ago.
>>
>> Hmmm......If less homes have firearms, and we have more regulation than
>> before, then there would seem to be a correlation between more gun laws
>> and less homes with firearms.

I've had some training in statistics and know a bit about sampling methods,
random populations, and related issues.  I know that a random sample of a
certain size can be considered a 'statistically valid' representation of
a larger, or much larger, population, and have studied the arguments which
are used to support the notion.  However, it is a characteristic of random
populations that they clump, and, modern demographic databases being what
they are, it would be child's play to design a 'statistically valid' sampling
of a random population the size of our country which could produce virtually
any desired result.

It is common to read of polls in which the database is something like
1000 to 2000 persons, and the results are extrapolated to the 350 million
or so inhabitants of the nation.  In order to reach valid conclusions
regarding the results of the poll it is necessary to know the sampling
distribution at least, and I have never seen it given.  Pick your 1-2000
persons from YuppieGhettos or perhaps the faculty of the University of
California at Berkeley (Think of it!), and you can get one sort of result.
Pick them from rural communities in the south or west, and you'll get
another.

I think that Bruce may have a good point about gun owners choosing not
to reveal what they have in the house, because that bit about rates of
gun ownership dropping flies in the face of everything else I have seen
and heard on the subject for the last 10 years.  For example, I had a
friend (passed on now) who owned a gunshop in the area, and a bunch of
us used to go hang out there on Monday evenings.  When Bill Clinton was
elected President I noticed that the tempo of his sales increased, and
the 'regulars hadn't changed their habits.  After a few years had passed,
I asked him if my perception was valid.  He replied that it was, and that
the last few years had been boom years for him.  He had been in the
business for 40 years or more, and the year immediately previous had been
the best ever.  He told me that "Bill Clinton is the best gun salesman
[he'd] ever seen."

I personally think of it as my civic duty to lie to pollsters.

Gun ownership has *skyrocketed* in this country in the last 10 years.  Those
pollsters are engaged in wishful thinking at best, or are baldfaced liars
at worst.

The opinions which I have expressed herein are entirely my own, unless other-
wise noted.  No-one else should be held responsible for what I think.

- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| D. N. Dickey               |  Virtuous motives, trammeled by inertia and |
| Research Associate         |  timidity, are no match for armed and       |
| Northern Illinois Univ.    |  resolute wickedness.                       |
| [e-mail]    |                       - W. S. Churchill     |
| **Finger for public key**  |                                             |
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------


- -

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 11:25:49 -0700
From: DAVID SAGERS <[e-mail]>
Subject: Fratrum: The Looting of America (fwd) -Forwarded

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From: [e-mail] (Bill Vance)
To: Multiple recipients of list <[e-mail]>
Subject: Fratrum: The Looting of America (fwd)
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On May 27, Eugene W. Gross wrote:

[-------------------- text of forwarded message follows --------------------]

The Looting of America

 How over 200 Civil Asset Forfeiture laws enable police to confiscate your
home, bank accounts & business without trial.

by Jarret Wollstein

`A police dog scratched at your luggage, so we're confiscating your life
savings and you'll never get it back.' In
1989, police stopped 49-year-old Ethel Hylton at Houston's Hobby Airport
and told her she was under arrest because a
drug dog had scratched at her luggage. Agents searched her bags and
strip-searched her, but they found no drugs. They did find $39,110 in cash,
money she had received from an insurance settlement and her life savings;
accumulated through over 20 years of work as a hotel housekeeper and
hospital janitor. Ethel Hylton completely documented where she got the
money and was never charged with a crime. But the police kept her money
anyway. Nearly four years later, she is still trying to get her money back.

Ethel Hylton is just one of a large and growing list of Americans -- now
numbering in the hundreds of thousands -- who
have been victimized by civil asset forfeiture. Under civil asset
forfeiture, everything you own can be legally taken away
even if you are never indicted, tried or convicted of a crime.

Suspicion of offenses which, if proven in court, might result in a $200
fine or probation, are being used to justify seizure of
tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property. Totally
innocent Americans are losing their cars, homes
and businesses, based on the claims of anonymous informants that illegal
transactions took place on their property. Once property is seized, it is
virtually impossible to get it back.

Property is now being seized in every state and from every class of
Americans. Seizures include pocket money confiscated from public housing
residents in Florida; cars taken away from men suspected of soliciting
prostitutes in Oregon; and homes taken away from ordinary, middle class
Americans whose teenage children are accused of selling a few joints of
marijuana. No person and no property is immune from seizure. You could be
the next victim. Here are some examples:

- --     In Washington, D.C. police stop black men on the streets in poor
areas of the city, and "routinely confiscate small
amounts of cash and jewelry". Most confiscated property is not even
recorded by police departments. "Resident Ben
Davis calls it `robbery with a badge'."[USA Today, 5/18/92]

- --     In Iowa, "a woman accused of shoplifting a $25 sweater had her
$18,000 car -- specially equipped for her
handicapped daughter -- seized as the `getaway vehicle'." [USA Today,
5/18/92]

- --     In December 1988, Detroit drug police raided a grocery store, but
failed to find any drugs. After drug dogs reacted
to three $1.00 bills in the cash register, the police seized $4,384 from
cash registers and the store safe. According to
the Pittsburgh Press, over 92% of all cash in circulation in the U.S. now
shows some drug residue.

- --     In April 1992, Dr. Joseph Disbrow was accused of practicing
psychiatry without a license. His crime was providing
counselling services from a spare bedroom in his mother's house in
Monmouth, New Jersey. Counselling does not
require a license in New Jersey. That didn't stop police from seizing
virtually everything of value from his mother's
home, totalling over $60,000. The forfeiture squad confiscated furniture,
carpets, paintings, and even personal
photographs.

- --     Kathy and Mark Schrama were arrested just before Christmas 1990 at
their home in New Jersey. Kathy was
charged with taking $500 worth of UPS packages from neighbors' porches.
Mark was charged with receiving stolen
goods. If found guilty, they might have paid a small fine and received
probation. The day after their arrest, their house,
cars and furniture were seized. Based upon mere accusation, $150,000 in
property was confiscated, without trial or
indictment. Police even took their clothing, eyeglasses, and Christmas
presents for their 10-year-old son.

The incentive for government agencies to expand forfeiture is enormous.
Agencies can easily seize property and they usually keep what they take.
According to the Pittsburgh Press, 80% of seizure victims are never even
charged with a crime. Law enforcement agencies often keep the best seized
cars, watches and TVs for their "departments", and sell the rest.

How extensive are seizures in America today? In April 1990, The Washington
Post reported that the U.S. Marshals
Service alone had an inventory of over $1.4 billion in seized assets,
including over 30,000 cars, boats, homes and
businesses. Federal and state agencies seizing property now include the
FBI, the DEA, the U.S. Marshals Service, the
Coast Guard, the IRS, local police, highway patrol, the Department of
Housing and Urban Development, FDA, and the
Bureau of Land Management. Asset forfeiture is th industry. Seizures have
increased from $27 million in 1986, to over $644 million in 1991. In 1992,
seizures may exceed $1 billion.

Civil asset forfeiture defines a new standard of justice in America; or
more precisely, a new standard of injustice. Under civil seizure, property,
not an individual is charged with an offense. Even if you are a totally
innocent owner, the government can still confiscate your "guilty" property.

If government agents seize your property under civil asset forfeiture, you
can forget about being innocent until proven guilty, due process of law,
the right to an attorney, or even the right to trial. All of those rights
only exist if you are charged with a criminal offense; that is, with an
offense which could result in your imprisonment. If you (or your property)
are accused of a civil offense (offenses which could not result in your
imprisonment), the Supreme Count has ruled that you have no presumption of
innocence, no right to an attorney, and no protection from double jeopardy.

Seizure occurs when government takes away your property. Forfeiture is when
legal title is permanently transferred to the
state. To get seized property returned, you have to fight the full
resources of your state or the federal government;
sometimes both! You have to prove your property's "innocence" by
documenting how you earned every cent used to pay
for it. You have to prove that neither you nor any of your family members
ever committed an illegal act involving the
property.

To get a trial, you have to post a non-refundable "bond" of 10% of the
value of your property. You have to pay attorney
fees -- ranging from $5,000 to over $100,000 -- out of your own pocket.
Money you pay your attorney is also subject to
seizure (either before or after the trial) if the government alleges that
those funds were "tainted". And you may be forced to
go through trial after trial, because under civil seizure the
Constitutional protection against "double jeopardy" doesn't apply.

Once property is seized, expect to spend years fighting government agencies
and expect to be impoverished by legal fees -- with no guarantee of winning
- -- while the government keeps your car, home and bank account.

As bad as current asset forfeiture laws are, far worse is just ahead.
Hundreds of expanded asset forfeiture bills are pending before Congress and
state legislatures. The 1991 Omnibus Crime Bill (passed by Congress, but
vetoed by President Bush for being "too soft" on crime), increases from six
months to six-and-one-half years the time officials have to return
"improperly seized" property to its rightful owners.

The 1992 Omnibus Crime Bill extends civil asset forfeiture to political
dissent. Under this Bill, if "violence" occurs during a
political activity, the assets of the sponsoring organization are subject
to forfeiture. If a fist fight broke out during a union
picket, all of the union's assets could be seized. Even before this Bill
has passed, cars belonging to Operation Rescue
demonstrators are being confiscated.

Civil asset forfeiture is the beginning of the end of justice in America.
Current and pending laws give government agencies the legal right to loot
at will. The threat of asset forfeiture can be used to intimidate
businesses, silence dissent, and destroy families.

Some people are fighting back. A New Jersey-based group, Forfeiture
Endangers American Rights (FEAR), is lobbying
Congress and creating a national network of forfeiture defense attorneys.
The Drug Policy Foundation and the Criminal
Justice Policy Foundation (both based in Washington, D.C.) are fighting
existing and proposed asset forfeiture laws. These groups need your help to
succeed.

The fight against civil asset forfeiture is a battle against tyranny in
America. If forfeiture squads continue to expand, liberty
and justice in America will become a fading memory. We must stop government
looters and restore the rule of law now.
Tomorrow will be too late.

Jarret B. Wollstein is a director of ISIL and the author of 300 published
articles.

                            GROUPS FIGHTING ASSET FORFEITURE

Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, 2000 L Street, NW, Suite 702,
Washington, DC 20036 [phone]. $90 per
year.

Drug Policy Foundation, 4801 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Suite 400,
Washington, DC 20016 [phone]. $35
per year.

Families Against Mandatory Minimums, 1001 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite
200 South, Washington, DC 20004.
[phone]. $35 per year.

FEAR (Forfeiture Endangers American Rights), P.O. Box 5424, Somerset, NJ
08875 Tel: [phone]. $55 per
year.


                       RECOMMENDED READING

                       The Closing Door by Dan Rosenthal
......................... $30.00
                       Presumed Guilty by Schneider/Flaherty
..................... $6.00
                       Spectre of Forfeiture by Judy Osburn
...................... $14.95


For these and other books and tapes write: Freedom's Forum Books, 1800
Market Street, San Francisco, California
94102. Add $2.50 P & H for 1st book and $1.00 for each additional item.


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[------------------------- end of forwarded message ------------------------]

- --
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
           *****       Blessings On Thee, Oh Israel!        *****
- ----------------+----------+--------------------------+---------------------
An _EFFECTIVE_  | Insured  | All matter is vibration. | Let he who hath no
weapon in every | by COLT; |         --   Max Plank   | weapon sell his
hand = Freedom  |   DIAL   | In the beginning was the | garment and buy a
on every side!  | 1911-A1. | word.   --   The Bible   | sword.--Jesus Christ
- ----------------+----------+--------------------------+---------------------


- -

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 28 May 1998 11:43:58 -0600
From: [e-mail] (Charles Hardy)
Subject: Hidden bias in statisticians

I found this in my old emails and thought you might find it
interesting.  I'm sure it applies in every area, not just guns/crime
research.

- ----BEGIN FORWARDED MESSGE----
- ---------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi guys;

In response to the Pearson/ Spearman debate going on around here, I decided
to do a little experiment.

I took the data set from Killias's study, and made a copy.  For the copy, I
re-labelled the "% of households with a firearm" to "% of households with a
TV set."  I changed the names of countries to names of American states. I
plotted both sets of data, but I changed the axis orientation, and the
units, so that it was not obvious at first glance that the numbers were
identical. I increased the least significant digit of all data by one unit,
so that the numbers were not clearly identical when looking at a chart.
"Total" and "with gun" was changed to "Daytime" and "Nightime."

I then presented these two data sets to a professor of statistics at a
major university.  His name will remain confidential, for reasons to soon
become clear.

What was interesting is that this professor had very different feelings
about which method was preferrable ( Spearman or Pearson ), and what
constituted an outlier, and what predictive value the model had, *DEPENDING
ON WHAT HE THOUGHT HE WAS MEASURING*.

When he thought he was looking at TV data, he rejected both the "US" data
and the "Northern Ireland" data as being outliers. We then calculated rho
values, using Pearson.  I asked him about Spearman, and he said that
Spearman would be misleading here.  Spearman, he said, tends to ignore
outliers, and while it was a useful tool when the data set is noisy,
Spearman is so powerful and robust at finding correlation that it can find
one where there is no actual correlation. His conclusion was that TV
prevalence was not correlated with homicide at any hour, and had no strong
affect on suicide during the day, but that for some reason, TV seemed to
increase the incidence of suicide at night. He offerred a theory about TV
keeping people up at an hour when fewer people are around, and thus there
was no one around to interfere with any suicidal tendencies.  He suggested
that TV makes it more likely that a suicide will be attempted at night,
when it is more likely to be successful.

I asked him about the "US" outlier.  He said that the point was clearly off
the linear curve.  I pointed out that the relationship between TV and
homicide might not be linear, it might be, for example, Quadratic.  He said
that if the relationship is not linear, then there are an infinte number of
curves that could be drawn through those points, and that the data set was
not strong enough to decide between them.  So, if the relationship is not
linear, then there is no telling what it might be, and so the data has no
predictive value as to what might happen if we reduced the prevalence of TV
in a particular state.

When I switched to the "Gun data", his story changed.  He wanted to include
the U.S data, but he didn't like the Northern Ireland data very much.  We
cranked out the Pearson rho, and he frowned.  He then switched to Spearman,
and got numbers he liked better.  When I asked him why, he hemmed and
hawed, and said that Spearman can be better for social research because all
social research numbers are noisy. When I asked about the US data as an
outlier, he said that the US data was not so far off as to be excluded. He
said that the relationship between guns and homicide was probably not
linear, and that the US point may represent the upward curve of a Quadratic
function.

At this point, he went back to the TV numbers, looked them over, cleared
his throat, and asked me if they were the same data.  I admitted they were.
 He looked back and forth at the data, looked at me, became very
uncomfortable, and told me that he was expecting a grad student in for an
appointment soon, and that I had better go.

This same professor once told me that statistics can easily reveal far more
about the statistician than they do about the data being examined. And that
it is *VERY* easy for a statistician to tell him/herself lies, without ever
realizing it. It would seem that, when debating various statistical
methods, it would be useful to remember the human factor of the
statistician.  It is very easy for statistics to be like Pooh and Piglet
finding their own tracks. If I had not presented this professor with two
such blatantly similar data sets, I don't know that he would have ever
noticed that he was using a double standard.

We perform double blind tests on test subjects, to check for biases, all
the time, but we seldom perfrom double blind tests on the statistician to
check him/her for biases.

It has gotten to the point, in all research concerning firearms, that I
don't have to actually read a study in order to figure out its conclusions.
 All I have to know is who wrote it.  Everyone seems to find exactly what
they expect to find. Some of Kleck's research is questionable, but
Killias's, and Kellermans's is even more so.  Everywhere I find people,
even statistics professors, accepting logic on the topic of firearms that
they would not accept on any other topic.

- ------------------------------

Killias's data

                  Homicide          Suicide     % Households
                All    Gun       All       Gun   with guns
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Australia     19.5     6.6      115.8      34.2    19.6
Belgium       18.5     8.7      231.5      24.5    16.6
Canada        26.0     8.4      139.4      44.4    29.1
England/Wales  6.7     0.8       86.1       3.8     4.7
Finland       29.6     7.4      253.5      54.3    23.2
France        12.5     5.5      223.0      49.3    22.6
Holland       11.8     2.7      117.2       2.8     1.9
N. Ireland    46.6    35.4       82.7      11.8     8.4
Norway        12.1     3.6      142.7      38.7    32.0
Scotland      16.3     1.1      105.1       6.9     4.7
Spain         13.7     3.8       64.5       4.5    13.1
Switzerland   11.7     4.6      244.5      57.4    27.2
U.S.A         75.9    44.6      124.0      72.8    48.0
West Germany  12.1     2.0      203.7      13.8     8.9

My "doctored" data


                  Homicide          Suicide       % Households w/
             6AM-6PM  6PM-6AM   6AM-6PM  6PM-6AM   multiple TV's
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alaska         6.8     0.9       86.2       3.9     4.8
Arizona       46.7    35.5       82.8      11.9     8.5
Colorado      18.6     8.8      231.6      24.6    16.7
Florida       12.2     2.1      203.8      13.9     8.0
Kansas        26.1     8.5      139.5      44.5    29.2
Maine         29.7     7.5      253.6      54.4    23.3
Michigan      16.4     1.2      105.2       6.0     4.8
Montana       19.6     6.7      115.0      34.4    19.8
N. Carolina   12.2     3.7      142.8      38.8    32.1
Nevada        11.8     4.7      244.6      57.6    27.3
New York      75.0    44.7      124.1      72.9    48.1
Oregon        11.9     2.8      117.3       2.9     1.0
Rhode Island  13.8     3.9       64.6       4.6    13.2
Tennesee      12.6     5.6      223.1      49.4    22.7

Of course, the exact numbers don't matter.  The idea is to create a data set
which is fundamentally the same, but which is not easily identifiable as
identical.  I just took Killias's data, changed names of couintries to name of
states, changed with total and with gun to daytime and nightime, and switched
from guns to multiple TV's.

Also key is the presentation.  If you ask the question too forcefully, or in a
challenging way, you'll put the person on their guard.





*************************************************

In some ways, the emphasis on statistics is predictable.  When a topic is
subject to such intense emotion, it can be tempting to reduce the topic to
numbers, in the hopes of getting some handle on it.  But, this may be like
the proverbial joke about losing one's keys in the alley, but looking for
them in the living room because the light is better there.

All of this statistical analysis is very interesting, but it focuses on
those things which are easy to count. Which in turn means that it focuses
on crime.  However, gun control is not just about crime, it is also about
politics.  Pim does some interesting manipulations of data.  Maybe they are
valid, maybe they are not.  But while he places a statistical magnifying
glass on deaths resulting from the citizen ownership of firearms, he
resorts to intuition when it comes to predicting how oppressive a
government will become if it is unopposed by armed citizens.  He says that
a people should be able to trust their government.  Perhaps, they should,
but they should also be able to trust their neighbor.  Based on Pim's data,
it appears that we *can't* trust our neighbor.  How, then, does one
conclude that one can trust the government?  Suddenly the discussion
switches from hard ( if controversial )anaylsis of statistic methods, to
cloud-shaped drawings, statements about what it means to be civilized, and
accusations of paranoia.

It may very well be that individual citizens malfunction in a different way
than government does.  Citizens kill 30,000 people a year.  Governments can
go for decades without killing anyone, and then kill 6-10 million over the
course of 4 years.  If a citizen homicide rate of 30,000 per year continued
unabated for 200 years, it would only just match the low estimate of the
Jews killed in the Holocaust.  Since the citizen murder rate is less
variable, it is more adaptable to statistical analysis.  But, what kind of
statistics could get a handle on the irregular fashion in which governments
malfunction?  Is the Holocaust an outlier, or is it on the normal curve for
government behavior?  How many times would one have to have a Holocaust
before one decided that it wasn't an outlier? How many hundreds and
thousands of years of data would you need in order to weight the "social
cost" of gun ownership, or gun controls?

Crime statistics are interesting, and useful, but they are the easy part of
the gun control discussion.  The other, more important part, is power
politics.  Statistics won't help us much here.

************************************************************************
Brian Delaney              [e-mail]
farallon != Me
Any Society Which Requires Disclaimers Has Too Many Goddamn Lawyers
************************************************************************
- --
John De Armond, WD4OQC, Marietta, GA    [e-mail]
Performance Engineering Magazine.  Email to me published at my sole discretion
"If we let this leak, it'll just kill him"  Clinton about Vince Foster




- --

Charles C. Hardy        | If my employer has an opinion on
<[e-mail]>            | these things I'm fairly certain
801.588.7200 (work)        | I'm not the one he'd have express it.

"Disperse you Rebels - Damn you, throw down your Arms and disperse." --
 Maj. John Pitcairn, Lexington, Massachusetts, April 19, 1775


- ----END FORWARDED MESSAGE----

- --

Charles C. Hardy        | If my employer has an opinion on
<[e-mail]>            | these things I'm fairly certain
801.588.7200 (work)        | I'm not the one he'd have express it.

"Disperse you Rebels - Damn you, throw down your Arms and disperse." --
 Maj. John Pitcairn, Lexington, Massachusetts, April 19, 1775

- -

------------------------------

End of utah-firearms-digest V2 #64
**********************************