Deltoid

Nosy wrote:

Saying all firearms are phallic symbols is stupid and a lie.

Bizarre. Nosy is apparently unaware of the difference between a phallus and a phallic symbol.

No, the whole concept of a “phallic symbol” is discredited and worthless concept. I’m not aware of any respectable schools of psychology that still teach it, except as an example of bogus methodology. The concept seems to survive only in non-scientific circles such as feminist literary criticism. To apply a term that is known to be meaningless is “stupid and a lie.”

Let me get this straight: You claim

1. The term “phallic symbol” is meaningless. and

2. Therefore, to apply it is a lie.

Statement 1. is false and even if it were true, statement 2 does not follow.

Statement 1 is false:
You yourself admit that the term is used in literary criticism. If the original post had been to sci.psychology you would arguably have a point, but it wasn’t so you don’t. Furthermore, everyone seemed to understand that by talk.politics.phallic-symbols Ted meant talk.politics.guns. If “phallic symbol” was as meaningless as you claim, the reaction would have been “Huh?” instead of the silly flames that we saw.

Statement 2 does not follow from statement 1:
The term “sdfsdfdsf” is meaningless. According to you, the statement “Sdfsdfdsfs are green.” is a lie. Nope. The statement is merely meaningless.

As for your claim that it was “stupid”, the effect of that one line seems to have been to make several pro-gunners look stupid, so “part of Ted’s devious master plan to make pro-gunner’s look like idiots” might be a better description :-)

Michael J. Phelps writes:

Wright (1983) compare handgun attacks with long bladed knife attacks; as do Wilson & Sherman (1961 p 643) with findings of:

mortality rate for handguns: 16.8%
                  ice picks: 14.3
             butcher knives: 13.3

Kleck has made a dishonest selection of data from Wilson & Sherman: from the same table that the figures above were plucked from:

                       rifles: 7.7

Unless you think that handguns are twice as deadly as rifles, this should be a clue that something is very wrong. (Another clue, free of charge: 2/15=13.3% and 2/14=14.3%)

[note that these rates don’t address untreated woundings, so the 16% handgun mortality rate correlates well with Cook’s 15%]

They also don’t address untreated DEATHs, so the comparison is bogus.

Nate Lund said:

Point Blank, by Gary Kleck, page 134:

“From October 1966 to March 1967, the Orlando Police Department trained more that 2500 women to use guns. Organized in response to demands from citizens worried about a sharp increase in rape, this was an unusually large and highly publicized program.

“An interrupted time series analysis of Orlando crime trends showed

The reference cited by Kleck does not contain an interrupted time series analysis. McDowall et al (Criminology 29:4 p541-559) did an interrupted time series analysis. They did find a reduction by 11 rapes in 67, but this was NOT statistically significant.

that the rape rate decreased by 88% in 1967, compared to 1966, a decrease far larger than any previous 1-year period.

False, there was a larger percentage decrease in 1963.

The rape rate remained constant in the rest of Florida and in the United States. Interestingly, the only other crime to show a substantial drop was burglary.

Interestingly, Kleck does not mention the crime that showed a substantial INCREASE.

I suppose that you feel Kleck is not a credible source?

Well, since you asked…

Frequently, when I check the sources Kleck cites, I find that they do not say what he says they do. The “errors” all seem to be in the same direction. So, no, I don’t find him trustworthy.

Joe B. Simpson said:

The New England Journal of Medicine. 1991 Dec 5. 325 (23). pp 1615-1620. Special Article: Effects Of Restrictive Licensing Of Handguns On Homicide And Suicide In The District Of Columbia. Loftin-Colin. McDowall-David. Wiersema-Brian. Cottey-Talbert-J.

Note that the study showed an immediate decline in homicide and suicide rates after enacting the ban.

Which is a LIE, because the suicide RATE in DC was the same after the ban as it was before the ban, though the rate in surrounding areas not affected by the ban fell 10%. The GUN suicide rate in DC fell more than the GUN suicide rate in the other areas, but the fact that the overall suicide rate in DC remained constant illustrates perfectly the substitution principal.

So that we can see who is lying, here are the changes in the rates (data from Appendix B of Loftin et al’s article):

DC (age adjusted rate per 100k population)
                 before after
Suicide          11.4   10.5
Gun suicide       4.1    3.5
Non-gun suicide   7.3    7.0

Maryland-Virginia (rate per 100k pop)
                 before after
Suicide          10.6   10.0
Gun suicide       5.2    5.0
Non-gun suicide   5.4    5.0

This certainly does NOT support the substitution hypothesis, which predicts an increase in DC non-gun suicides to compensate for the decrease in gun suicides. The decrease in overall rates was also larger in DC than in the surrounding areas, falsifying your other claim.

pim writes:

Are you arguing that the increase in D.C.’s suicide and homicide rates is related to a law passed 12 years earlier ?

Thomas Grant Edwards said:

I don’t see why this is difficult to imagine. It might have taken 12 years for most of the legal grandfathered guns in the hands of average citizens to filter into the hands of criminals, seeing as how it is impossible for a D.C. resident to legally sell his gun.

1. Is it? Why can’t they sell it outside DC?

2. Are you saying that it takes 12 years to illegally sell a gun?? If you are saying that this supposed transfer happened gradually over 12 years then surely your theory predicts a gradual increase over 12 years, rather than a decrease for ten years and then a sharp increase (which is what actually occured).

3. The sharp increase also occured in the suburbs of Washington outside DC. Did the DC law cause this too?

I will add that I think the Drug War is the main cause of high crime in D.C. But the gun ban removed an important crime deterrent.

Perhaps it did, but there is no evidence to support this claim.

Frank Crary said:

The correlation with gun ownership is equally easy to explain. In the neighborhoods studied, a large fraction of the gun owners are either criminals (confirmed by the study’s correlation previous convictions)

The study found a correlation between criminal record and homicide, not between criminal record and gun ownership. In any event there was a higher risk of homicide associated with gun ownership even after controlling for criminality.

or purchased a gun in reaction to threats of crime and violence.

This is unproven.

Both criminals and people threatened by criminals have a much greater chance of being murdered than the average person.

The study also controlled for a history of violence in the home. It is possible that some small number of people threatened with violence where the threats had not spilled over into actual violence may have acquired guns for self defence and the guns failed to prevent a homicide. This number is probably small, or else the data would have shown a correlation between gun ownership and non-gun homicide.