Talk:Gun control

Progress?

Can we finally get rid of the templates at the top? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 00:24, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Obviously not, considering that User:North8000 and User:Gaijin42 just removed the merge template through edit warring. This article is clearly a POV fork of gun politics.

Why is there a history of gun control in Germany both at this article and at Gun politics in Germany? Because certain editors find it amenable to their ideology to paint supporters of gun control as Nazis, which is propaganda straight out of the NRA playbook. Shameful. — goethean 00:52, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Stop with the false accusations against editors.North8000 (talk) 14:41, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Gothean, wait a minute, we've debated, lambasted, argued, cajoled, and ridiculed that subject to death. There's no clear consensus (or apparently compelling evidence) that either is a fork of the other or that either is a distinguishable sub-topic of the other.

Are there subjects regarding gun politics that have nothing to do with "control", yes. Are the subjects related to gun control all "political" in way or another, yes. We all seem to agree on this, but it doesn't get us any closer to a solution. Interested in trying to take a strictly clinical approach to this? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 01:32, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

How about starting by providing a reliable source that explains why and how discourse over the regulation of firearms can usefully be subdivided into 'control' and 'politics'? Or is asking for a source too 'clinical'? AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:23, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

@Andy, just curious, but how much effort have you put into finding one since you are the staunchest of the editors asking for it? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 17:23, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Agree with Andy. TFD (talk) 04:35, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Or, conversely, ask for one that says they are the same topic. WP:RS's do not write about Wikipedia disputes, which is what such a specialized question would be. North8000 (talk) 13:37, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Since clearly there is still a dispute over whether the articles should be merged - and there will continue to be unless and until it is demonstrated in reliable sources that there are two different subjects - the templates must remain. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:43, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Andy, probably inadvertently you have tried one of the oldest tricks in the talk page book. Which is to try for "my/a view automatically/by default stands unless the other guy meets a very high bar for proving his". And to illustrate, I stated the equally (in)valid converse. North8000 (talk) 13:50, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I am not the slightest bit interested in responding to your repetitive stonewalling BS. It is a fact that there is a dispute over whether the subject of the regulation of firearms can legitimately be subdivided in the way it is - and therefore the templates must remain. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:57, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Why don't you not be so nasty and rude? Including mis-stating and mis-characterizing my comments. North8000 (talk) 15:31, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

In addition, your demand is backwards. Sources do not address the infinite pairs of topics that are disparate. Can you find a wp:rs source that says that a Ferrari is a different topic than a goldfish? A claim that they are one and them same is what would need to be supported by sources, and such would plausibly exist if such were the case. North8000 (talk) 15:38, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

This article clearly not a POV fork. Type Gun Control into Google and you get 700million returns! How can anyone for a second, with a straight face, attempt to argue that this does not merit it's own article????? All the major newsinfotainment providers have sections dedicated to gun control. It's a POV push to try to delete or fold this article into something else. Some people out there are trying to rebrand themselves as "gun safety" and the term "gun control" doesn't quite fit with their new brand. Tough, it's what society calls this to the tune of 700million articles! The template can go, this is an established topic and it is stand alone. Now even if in some bizzaro world this were a pov fork, it's big enough and diverse enough to merit it's own article. Look at Climate Change there is an article for global warming and an article for global cooling and an article for global warming politics. I mean, seriously, can we stop this nonsense. Gun Control is an article. It might be related to gun politics but it merits its own article.-Justanonymous (talk) 14:18, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Then it needs to follow WP:SS rather than creating a hodgepodge of NRA propaganda bullshit in an attempt to paint supporters of gun control as Nazis. — goethean 15:45, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

In fact, I've been advocating a significant rewrite of this article for some time - just look at the archives. The problem is that it's very contentious and editing this is difficult. As an aside, I just reverted your removal of 4,000+b of data from the article. Please get consensus on the talk page before starting to make radical edits, especially deletions of this magnitude. Please don't edit war. Let's figure it out here.-Justanonymous (talk) 15:50, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

We could rename this article "gun control conspiracy theories", then we could keep the nazi stuff and add door-to-door gun confiscations. TFD (talk) 15:52, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

This is a serious forum about improving this article. I'm for rewriting the article. Let's get consensus on the direction of the article here and then we can edit. Ridiculous statements are not constructive. Let's be constructive.-Justanonymous (talk) 15:57, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Okay, let's be constructive. I removed the Nazi material from the article. You added it back in and (somewhat hilariously) accused me of vandalism. If I vandalized the article, then you need to start a WP:AN/I thread on my vandalism. Otherwise, I will regard your accusation as just another piece of nonsensical rhetoric.

The addition of the material is indefensible. It was added in order to paint supporters of gun control as Nazis. It is NRA bullshit propaganda. Anyone replacing that garbage is guilty of flagrantly violating the Wikipedia neutral point of view policy. Removal of the Nazi material is non-negotiable. — goethean 16:16, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

No, my statement was that your actions could be described as "close to vandalism" -- let's be precise but they were inappropriate because you didn't have consensus here. There are other editors here who value the large block of information you deleted summarily without consensus. Let's get consensus. Please feel free to open up a talk section on the edits your propose and see what the other established editors here have to say. Have a good day. Note, my talk page is off limits to you for use of profanity and vulgar language. Please discuss the article improvements here. -Justanonymous (talk) 16:20, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Apparently you didn't see the letters NYC is sending out confiscating .22 bolt action rifles then. The information is sourced. MANY MORE sources are readily available User:Gaijin42/GunControlArguments There have been multiple RFCs none of which indicated support for removal of this information, except for the cabal of you 3. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:02, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Agreed, that's well sourced Gaijin42. It's happening in NYC. Thank you for your patience in dealing with these contentious articles. -Justanonymous (talk) 16:11, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

NOT THE NYC BOLT-ACTION RIFLES!! OH THE HUMANITY... — goethean 16:17, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

WP:NOTAFORUM. This is not a forum for your general comments goethean. Please discuss article improvements.-Justanonymous (talk) 16:22, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Justanonymous, you have clearly demonstrated what I've been arguing for some time - that this article, which purports to be giving a multi-national perspective on the issue, is instead driven exclusively by U.S. discourse. This is clearly contrary to Wikipedia policy, and a further reason why this article is problematic. We already have two U.S.-based articles on the subject, and there is no justification whatsoever in having more. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:43, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Authoritarianism and gun control RFC

1. Are authoritarian uses of gun control (in particular Nazi, but others as well) sufficiently sourced by reliable sources (See list of possible nazi sources [[1]])
2. Is coverage of such gun control appropriate for inclusion in the Gun Control article

Survey

• Yes and yes, as nominator. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:26, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
• Yes to both, at least a paragraph. With all those refs it could have it's own article. Though a lot more links to (or, if not available, quotes from) sources on your talk page would help advance your argument. Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 16:35, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
• 1. Yes and 2. Yes - Well sourced examples of gun control in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes (all regimes for that matter), both present and historical, are appropriate in an article of this nature.-Justanonymous (talk) 16:32, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
• Yes and yes. Well sourced and relevant. --GRuban (talk) 16:38, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
• Nein & Nyet. SPECIFICO talk 16:42, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Comment This is the english language Wikipedia. Please use english language. Also the use of German and Russian in a topic that touches the holocaust could seen as an affront and be misconstrued or construed as a hate speech. We might want to remove this vote in a non English language. -Justanonymous (talk) 16:44, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

That's ridiculous. It would take a seriously warped mind to construe an emphatic "nyet" as "hate speech". No one is being oppressed here. Drmies (talk) 17:58, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Ditto. Chill out. a13ean (talk) 19:08, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

• No. Wikipedia is not a platform for propaganda put about by fringe elements of the NRA. The suggestion that firearms regulation was in any way a significant issue in the establishment on Nazi control of Germany is entirely rejected by all serious historians - and the efforts of crude pro-gun propagandists to imply a linkage should accordingly be treated as the pseudohistorical fringe viewpoint it is. Which is to say, ignored entirely. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:52, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

gee, look at all those contemporary news sources like the new york times and le monde discussing jewsish disarmament. I had no idea the NRA had such influence back then! Gaijin42 (talk) 16:54, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Why is the NRA being mentioned? Andy you wouldn't be looking to suppress historical facts just because you don't agree with them would you? THis is not about politics. It's about an article, the facts, notability, and Wikipedia. If you have an agenda, please leave it hanging on the hook by the door when you came in.-Justanonymous (talk) 17:05, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I have an 'agenda' - to see that Wikipedias coverage of firearms regulation issues isn't abused by factions of the U.S. gun lobby, as has repeatedly been the case here. And as for history, you appear not to know the slightest thing on the subject, otherwise you wouldn't be repeating the falsehoods already made regarding Nazi Germany - where the Nazis actually relaxed firearms regulation, except as part of a general process of removing citizenship rights from specific sectors of the population. That is the real history, as written by real historians, rather than by pro-gun propagandists. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:54, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

• Yes & Yes It should be straightforward coverage of history and situations. North8000 (talk) 17:01, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• Obviously not. Anyone remotely familiar with the topic can see that the "History" section was put together in order to paint supporters of gun control in the worst light possible. This is not how Wikipedia should be written. The section clearly needs to be completely re-written from beginning to end with the goal of neutral description and the use of good sources rather than the indefensible hack job we have now. — goethean 17:04, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

The need for a rewrite and editing is an entirely different topic than that under discussion in the RFC which is if the information should be included (or as you argue, excluded by policy). That the current content may be poor is not a valid reason the say the information cannot be included in some other form. Gaijin42 (talk) 17:08, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, what we have here is a piece of shit article written with the very worst of intentions and which flagrantly violates Wikipedia's core policy. You insist that the very worst part of it must stay. Your insistence on keeping the very worst of a very bad article is what is standing in the way of a better article. — goethean 17:27, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• Yes - and so noted in many reliable sources [2], not even listed so far and Yes for that same reason. Ascribing scholarly articles and authors to being from "fringe elements of the NRA" would require specific and strong sourcing per WP:BLP. Collect (talk) 17:13, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Collect, you know who Stephen Halbrook is, right? (...not really considered to be a neutral player in this game, to put it mildly.) Drmies (talk) 18:02, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Welcome to the discussion Drmies ;) As you are no doubt aware, reliable sources are not required to be neutral or objective, but in any case, per the link in my RFC post halbrook is but one of the many sources discussing this topic :) Gaijin42 (talk) 18:05, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

...and you seem to have deliberately avoided using neutral sources when plenty are available, instead using one which supports an extreme political ideology. — goethean 18:15, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks Gaijin. But let me note that my "opposite" of "the Nazis used gun control to oppress the Jews" isn't "the Nazis didn't use gun control to oppress the Jews, but rather "I don't see how it matters". For starters, wouldn't we need to know what gun ownership among German Jews was, relative to that among non-Jewish Germans, so we could figure out if any of that mattered in the first place? One of your sources in that list notes that Nazis went around doing house searches for "guns and papers"--wanna guess what they were most likely to find, and what was more dangerous to own and to be caught with? (And seriously, published in a real journal or not, we should avoid citing clearly and self-identified partisan sources.) Drmies (talk) 18:52, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

It is not up to Wikipedia to say why something matters or does not matter to any observer -- only that if a scholarly source states that it appears to matter to the source, and that such a position is given due weight in the article. In the case at hand, the person does not appear to be an "NRS nutcase", and thus the claim must be presented in the article. And IIRC Wikipedia does not require all sources to be "neutral" so if you find that a strong reason, then I suggest you try amending WP:RS - I think the exercise might have interesting results. [3] presents the view that Hitler actually eased gun restrictions ("The law did prohibit Jews and other persecuted classes from owning guns, but this should not be an indictment of gun control in general. " sure looks like a large percentage of the population was outright banned from gun possession from here, but YMMV). The comment about the Versailles Treaty-imposed confiscation of guns seems a tad useless in this argument, to be sure. Cheers -- WP:RS is policy whether one likes an author or not. Collect (talk) 21:03, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• Yes --but it would have to be rewritten to include non-authoritarian regimes that practice gun control. Markewilliams (talk) 17:41, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• Clearly not Wikipedia is not an advocacy platform for fringe NRA elements trying to sell historical revisionism about gun control. MilesMoney (talk) 17:40, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• Yes & Yes. There are two approaches to gun control. One approach would be to simply outlaw types of firearms much as land mines are being outlawed. The second is to restrict ownership and/or use of such firearms to a privileged class of individuals. Where the second type of gun control is utilized, it is entirely appropriate to describe the origins of the class differentiation and any subsequent class behavior modifications of the armed and disarmed populations. The second type of gun control will inevitably generate divergent points of view depending upon perception of the privileged class by the person stating that point of view.Thewellman (talk) 17:44, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
• No and well that depends. See below. Drmies (talk) 18:06, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
• Recuse: My only previous involvement on this topic was as a Dispute Resolution Noticeboard Volunteer, and I only volunteer to work on cases where I am neutral. I really do not favor one side or the other in this dispute. I do, however, insist that whatever the result of this RfC is, all sources used must conform to WP:RS and the article must conform to WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT. These are community standards and can not be overridden by an RfC on a particular dispute.

I would also strongly suggest that this should be evaluated and closed by an uninvolved administrator with experience in closing controversial RfCs, and that the closer also look at Talk:Gun control/Archive 3#RFC: Section on Association of Gun control with authoritarianism, Wikipedia:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Gun Control, Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Archive251#Conflict around Gun control, and Wikipedia talk:Dispute resolution noticeboard/Archive 13#Gun Control DR/N in order to get a fuller picture of what the community consensus is. --Guy Macon (talk) 19:07, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

In addition to the list of discussions given by Guy Macon I would recommend the previous RFC on almost the same topic Talk:Gun_control/Archive_5#RFCGaijin42 (talk) 02:16, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Good catch. I missed that one. Yes, it should be looked at as well. --Guy Macon (talk) 07:27, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

• No Gundamentalists in the U.S. routinely bring up the false view that the nazis came to power through gun control and people who support gun control are therefore like nazis. WP:FRINGE dictates that we do not provide parity of this view with what informed sources say. TFD (talk) 19:24, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

That's a very strong bias you have. I agree in part that there is a nuanced and complex story to be told regarding Nazi-ism and their slaughtering of 6million souls. We can't keep one aspect of this out just because it doesn't line up perfectly with our agenda.-Justanonymous (talk) 19:27, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• No. Goethean's first comment in the threaded discussion pretty much sums up my thoughts on this matter. Gamaliel (talk) 19:46, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• Yes the use of gun control by Nazi Germany (and other authoritarian regimes) is a historical fact, and we shouldn't censor history in order to try to paint gun control in a more positive light. Hitler and Mao are both on the record stating that the disarmament of their opposition was an important means to their political ends. ROG5728 (talk) 00:36, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Please cite that record, if you can. Drmies (talk) 04:38, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I already cited both of those quotes earlier in this discussion. ROG5728 (talk) 09:26, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

You're citing table talk there, for Hitler. And it works both ways: you focus only on denying guns to certain parties, where it's just as valid to point at the other side--allowing guns to other parties. On that same talk page you said "The fact that the Nazis relaxed their gun laws for the rest of the population is not relevant to the issue of the Holocaust or the massacre of the Jews," which is nothing but an opinion, and a rather baffling one at that. You'd have to prove, if you wanted to make this stick, that disarming Jews had some kind of relevant impact on the Holocaust. Drmies (talk) 16:20, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

• Duh and duh, otherwise known as yes and yes. Seriously? Nazis rather famously restricted the availability of guns, right? So is that not relevant to an article on policies restricting the availability of guns? Red Slash 01:09, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
  • They didn't--at least not as verified by reliable sources. Drmies (talk) 04:38, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Red Slash, even the sources cited here make it clear that the weapons were seized by pogrom, not "policy" in any civic sense related to what we call "policy". SPECIFICO talk 19:23, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
• Yes and yes per nominator Chris Troutman (talk) 19:02, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
• 1: No as regards Nazi Germany (as regards "other authoritarian regimes" see my comment immediately below). Any and all sources that I have seen refer to the restriction of the possession of guns by Jews in Nazi Germany, not to a general gun control policy. This is, of course, what is dealt with in the article, and this is reflected in the section heading: "Nazi disarmament of German Jews". 2: No. Keeping guns out of the hands of an ethnic minority for the purpose of their repression does not fall within the remit of the article as spelled out in the article lead. Scolaire (talk) 19:24, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
  • So it is your position that in general, laws about X that are discriminatorally targeted at group Y are not actually laws about X? Gaijin42 (talk) 19:28, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
    • That's a leading question and I decline to answer it. If you want to take it up in the discussion section, feel free. Scolaire (talk) 20:23, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
• Comment: The inclusion in the RfC questions of the phrase "in particular Nazi, but others as well" is a red herring. The ongoing discussion has hinged on Nazis and Jews, not on some vague all-encompassing concept of authoritarianism. In the article as it stands, Tsarist Russia is dealt with very differently to Nazi Germany. Whether the treatment of Tsarist Russia is appropriate is a question worthy of discussion, but the two should not be linked as they are in the two questions. Scolaire (talk) 19:24, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
• No Coverage of Nazi gun laws is inappropriate in this article per Drmies and others. GabrielF (talk) 05:46, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
• Yes - We've had this discussion before (I've lost count) and there are clearly reliable sources that talk about it. That there's a debate about the causal link between these regimes and their policies is not a reason to remove all mention of them, which is apparently the goals of some. Shadowjams (talk) 06:12, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
• Yes and yes. Documented well enough to include and relevant enough. Niteshift36 (talk) 13:48, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
• No and No This is a mischaracterization of gun control laws. The aim of the Nazis was to deprive American German Jews of all rights, not to restrict gun ownership among its population (it generally relaxed gun control laws). This is like saying that the Founding Fathers were adamant advocates of gun control because they deprived blacks of gun ownership. The issue is the ant-Semitism, not the guns. Steeletrap (talk) 19:55, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Did you mean to say "deprive German Jews of all rights"? Scolaire (talk) 20:14, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
• Strong yes to both Meets all relevant criteria for inclusion, the sourcing is especially solid, and would make a useful addition to this topic area. Roccodrift (talk) 23:21, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
• Yes...sort of ... Some, at least, of the secondary sources listed, principally, Halbrook, meet Wikipedia's low threshold for consideration as reliable sources. The mass of other primary documents (including contemporary newspaper reports) really don't belong in that list and are not useful in this context. However, the interpretation of Halbrook has to be treated with extreme care especially as it has not been published in any peer-reviewed history journal and it has not been examined by those with true expertise in the history of the holocaust and independent of the US gun control debate. Nor can one find Halbrook's work, or that of any other author advancing such an analogous theory, cited in any significant treatment of the holocaust. This is not surprising as Halbrook's work is not really an engagement with the history of Nazi Germany and the holocaust so much as its instrumentalisation to meet present-day political needs in an American context. For what its worth, his thesis looks extremely weak to me as, so far as I can determine, it doesn't seem to provide a realistic estimate of the actual amount of firearms surrendered by German Jews following the enactment of the 1938 law nor the likihood of an uprising or of its success in a period well before the actual genocide had commenced. As to the second question, No, unless or until ... it can be properly determined what the actual subject of this article is and, if included, these sources can be properly contextualised. While the title seems clear enough, the actual content doesn't appear to correspond. If you consult a scholarly citation database like Web of Knowledge, the most significant publications in this area deal with topics like the impact of gun control on suicide and homicide rates (fairly recent studies available for the US and Austria) or various social and cultural correlates with advocacy for "gun rights". So I think the first thing that should be done is a weighting of the sources, especially scholarly sources, to determine the proper content of this article (once it is worked out what the actual subject is). Also, Halbrook et al., and the general invocation of Nazism as a historical analogy for proposed US firearm regulation should be understood and contextualised as a relatively parochial debate with limited application outside of the US (some limited applicability in Brazil and Switzerland, perhaps). In most other countries it just doesn't have the same political saliency and is largely irrelevant to the question of gun control in these regions. It would seem to me, therefore, to be most appropriate for an article on the US gun control debate rather than anything else. Further, if these sources are to be included they need proper contextualisation in terms of the US gun control debate (e.g. when did the Nazi historical analogy first enter the American debate - 1968?) they need to be attributed to specific authors and, where appropriate, advocacy groups. That would mean locating reasonable neutral independent sources that evaluate the whole gun control debate in the US (and elsewhere where appropriate - can't really think of anywhere else barring Brazil) that would guide editors in constructing content. The current placement of this historical material in the article is really inappropriate. Saying it is "factual" misses the point that the way facts are assembled, contextualised (or not) and related presents a certain interpretative narrative of events in what is an argument about gun control (rather than the holocaust or whatever). FiachraByrne (talk) 00:35, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
• Comment- Issue 1:- Question one seems to make little sense in light of the use of the Nazi state as the example. It appears from the sources that the Nazi's liberalized gun laws; rather, the Nazi state would be an example, in this sphere, of being less authoritarian but racist -- in the extreme -- in thier poilcy. Issue 2: For issues of weight, we generally turn to high quality WP:Tertiary sources to come to some consensus on weight. Unfortuantely, I see little discussion of such literature above. Note, there is at least one general audience encyclopedia article [4]; the editors here might want to find other tertiary sources (high quality general reveiw articles, general histories and the like) and particiapte at the dispute resolution noticeboard to come up with something you can all live with. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:56, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually we assign weight based on all reliable sources, not by attempting to mirror other encyclopedias. Gaijin42 (talk) 18

17, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

And tertiary sources are used as reliable sources, to among other things come to consensus on undue weight, per WP:Tertiary sources. Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:58, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

• No. The article has broader problems; this cherrypicking of history to fit a contemporary POV is just one of the more obvious symptoms. bobrayner (talk) 16:23, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
• Do you know who also banned guns? The Nazis. That this kind of reasoning isn't something we should have should be obvious. The sources are pretty good, and inclusion is ok, but it is a question of due weight. If we don't apply due weight, we're pushing a POV - and the way it looks now is almost as I just phrased it. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 16:59, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

• Comment - The Jews' weapons and other property were confiscated by force. To call that "gun control" policy is like calling referring to abortion as "birth control". Anyway, could you please indicate your yes or no for this poll? Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 17:20, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

• not really, because this is not a simple yes or no answer. Would you prefer it if I moved it down to threaded discussion? Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 18:52, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, keep in mind that although it may not be simple, the WP:BURDEN is on those who would vote "yes". Thanks. SPECIFICO talk 18:59, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

• As a side track, you may want to take a look an essay I strongly agree with, meta:Polls are evil. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 19:12, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Polls may be evil, but if you ignore !votes such as this one, the article's content may be determined by those who do not ignore them. — goethean 19:31, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

That's a big if. I am going to assume that the poor sod who's going to have to close this discussion is going to read what is written, and not ignore !votes like this one. Martijn Hoekstra (talk) 19:38, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

• No and no. It would have been better to raise the sourcing issue at WP:RSN. The sources listed are virtually all primary ones. Due weight would need to be shown and I can't see that this is relevant. Itsmejudith (talk) 18:16, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
• Yes and yes. The first question in this RFC is: "Are authoritarian uses of gun control (in particular Nazi, but others as well) sufficiently sourced by reliable sources?" Let's consider this sentence: "Gun regulations were among the anti-Semitic laws, regulations, and acts of civil violence enacted by the Nazi regime against Germans whom it considered Jewish,[20][21][22] and were used by Hitler's government to disarm the Jewish population.[21][22][23][24][25][26][27]" That's certainly a lot of sources, but let's look at the sources specifically:

• Bernard E. Harcourt, April 5, 2004: Hitler and Gun Registration p671 Retrieved 2012-12-16
• Rummel,RJ, Death by Government (1994) Transaction Publishers, New Jersey, pp. 111-122, ISBN 1-56000-145-3.
• Stephen Halbrook, 17 Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law, 2000: Nazi Firearms Law and the Disarming of the German Jews p509-513 Retrieved 2012-12-16.
• Courts Law and Justice. p. 119. Retrieved 2013-06-18.
• A Complete History of the Holocaust. Retrieved 2013-06-18. page68.
• Geoffrey, Mitchell. 48 Hours of Kristallnacht.pages 9,33,82.
• Polsby, Daniel. "Of Holocausts and Gun Control". Washington University Law Quarterly.p1237.
• Guns in American Society, An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture, and the Law. Sec 2.

Most of these seem like reliable sources. The most interesting and controversial question would be: "Was the Nazi disarmament of the Jews a significant factor contributing to the holocaust?" That question does not seem to be addressed by the present Wikipedia article, nor by this RFC, so I venture no opinion about it.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:15, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

• Yes and no The sources seem fine, but to me, it's a question of due weight. Given the length of the section already, and the apparent number of interested editors, I think someone should consider starting an article on the history of gun control, where discussion of Nazi Germany laws would of course be totally appropriate. On another note, one thing that I think would help the current article would be to switch the first two sentences of the Nazi Germany section. Orser67 (talk) 15:52, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
• No and No What the Nazis did is not what is generally considered to be gun control - it was restricted to one persecuted section of society. And No to its inclusion for the obvious reasons so well stated above - basically this article shouldn't be used to push the NRA position in this way. Dougweller (talk) 16:07, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

The gun restrictions of the Nazis were certainly not what we today would consider acceptable gun control, but nevertheless they were literally the "control" of "guns". I don't see any reliable sources that say that a law isn't "gun control" as long as it allows someone to still carry a gun. I must also say that I find it rather propagandistic to suddenly adopt some extremely narrow definition of gun control just so that the Nazi actions don't fall under it. (This is quite similar to Wikipedia's decision to adopt an unusually narrow definition of "abortion" that excludes post-viability abortions from the definition.) Make no mistake, there is propaganda coming from both sides of this gun control thing. The best solution here ultimately will be to have a comprehensive article on the History of gun control that takes a thorough approach with appropriate balancing of POVs, and then this article can have a brief summary of that article, with or without a mention of the Nazis. And, incidentally, I do think it's very plausible that more Jews would have assassinated more Nazi officials if they had not been disarmed, but it's impossible to say with certainty whether that would have even slightly reduced the Jewish bodycount.Anythingyouwant (talk) 09:11, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

• No and No. Having now perused a couple of recent books specifically about gun control none of them mention Nazi germany with more than a sentence. There is a lot more information about contemporary gun control policies in Germany and other European countries. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:34, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
• No, No and No Responding to the invitation to participate in this discussion, I was appalled by the insistence of some editors that a comment about Nazi Germany and gun control be included. Godwin's Law lives, it appears. When I just searched I found there wasn't a single reference to Native Americans or Indians in the comments, though that disarmament was far more germane than what the Nazis did to Jews, which was an insignificant feature of the Holocaust. Most Native American tribes were dependent on firearms for food, clothing and housing, especially the Plains tribes, yet had them confiscated by the U.S. Army. It didn't take a second to find this cite: Activist (talk) 08:21, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal Vol. 2 (1991): 67. GUN CONTROL AND RACISM Stefan B. Tahmassebi*

That all such free Mulattos, Negroes and Indians . . . shall appear without arms (Virginia Colony First Legislature 1619 statutes)

INTRODUCTION The history of gun control in America possesses an ugly component: discrimination and oppression of blacks, other racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants, and other "unwanted elements," including union organizers and agrarian reformers. Firearms laws were often enacted to disarm and facilitate repressive action against these groups.

The first gun control laws were enacted in the ante-bellum South forbidding blacks, whether free or slave, to possess arms, in order to maintain blacks in their servile status. After the Civil War, the South continued to pass restrictive firearms laws in order to deprive the newly freed blacks from exercising their rights of citizenship. During the later part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century, gun control laws were passed in the South in order to disarm agrarian reformers and in the North to disarm union organizers. In the North, a strong xenophobic reaction to recent waves of immigrants added further fuel for gun control laws which were used to disarm such persons. Other firearms ownership restrictions were adopted in order to repress the incipient black civil rights movement.

Another old American prejudice supported such gun control efforts, then as it does now: the idea that poor people, and especially the black poor, are not to be trusted with firearms. Even now, in many jurisdictions in which police departments have wide discretion in issuing firearm permits, the effect is that permits are rarely issued to poor or minority citizens.

Blacks, and especially poor blacks, are disproportionately the victims of crime. Yet, these citizens are often not afforded the same police protections that other more affluent and less crime ridden neighborhoods or communities enjoy. This lack of protection is especially so in the inner city urban ghettos. Firearms prohibitions discriminate against those poor and minority citizens who must rely on such arms to defend themselves from criminal activity to a much greater degree than affluent citizens living in safer and better protected communities.

Threaded discussion

I have notified previous RFC commenters (both pro and con), and will shortly also notify the relevant noticeboards and wikiperojects so to get a wider audience for this discussion. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:38, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I think a survey is a good idea. In addition there is well established policy such as WP:RS, WP:NOTABLE, and many others that support inclusion of relevant content regardless of what a majority survey would return. Frankly it's sad state of sophistry in the Wiki that we're having to talk about this.-16:40, 16 December 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Justanonymous (talk • contribs)

• Well, gee...let's see. What if we described Italian history by only talking about Mussolini? Would that be neutral? What if we described Spanish history by only talking about Franco? Would that be neutral? What if we described English history by only talking about the Boston Massacre? Would that be neutral? What if we only described the Republican Party by talking about Abu Ghraib? Would that be neutral? What if we described the history of the United States by only talking about My Lai? Would that be neutral? Well here we are describing the history of gun control by talking about gun control in the USSR and when the Nazis took guns away from German Jews before they gassed them in the Holocaust. And you think that that's neutral. — goethean 16:45, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Are you proposing that we add Nazi Pro Gun Rights for Jews in the 1930s? Can you add some links here to that research please? I think we might be able to get consensus on that but remember this article is about gun control. It might be more appropriate in a gun rights page. Also please remember that 4-6 million jews lost their lives during the holocaust. Let's be respectful in dealing with this subject. It touches the personal lives of many. Joking around and nontopical entries are very inappropriate. Some editors here might have lost a family member to the holocaust and WWII or some other genocide.-Justanonymous (talk) 16:48, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

'Respect' would start by not exploiting the deaths of millions for crude pro-gun propaganda purposes. AndyTheGrump (talk) 16:54, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

The majority of the Jewish community would ask that we remember these atrocities and to write about them so it's not forgotten. Regardless, according to Wikipedia rules, this merits inclusion. So your comment is irrelevant.-Justanonymous (talk) 17:01, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

What rule is that? Please link to the Wikipedia policy you have in mind. — goethean 17:18, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

No, I'm proposing that you consider beginning to follow Wikipedia NPOV policy rather than using this article as a propaganda tool. Get a history of gun control written by a neutral scholar, rather than some NRA-funded hack. Summarize it neutrally. Follow Wikipedia policy rather than taking a dump on it. — goethean 16:59, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

There is one section in the article. It would also be a noticeably lack of NPOV to describe italy WITHOUT mussolini, or spain without Franco, etc. You have repeatedly advocated the complete censorship of this material - there is the lack of NPOV. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:50, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

The section is not neutral. It was designed to propagandize, not to follow Wikipedia NPOV policy. It is unacceptable. Write a neutral history section, don't pick and choose things which support an extremist ideology. — goethean 16:59, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Disagree, the facts of history are facts and are notable. There is no NPOV violation just because you don't like it or it uncovers some part of history that you don't like or just because it doesn't fit with your little agenda. Noting historical facts are not an NPOV violation in and of themselves.-Justanonymous (talk) 17:04, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh, the facts of history are facts, huh? Mussolini was Italian. That's a fact. Therefore, all of Italian history can be summarized by talking about Mussolini. And that's neutral. No NPOV violation. Okay. — goethean 17:07, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

This article is just about gun control, you can't be serious about summarizing all of Italian history here? And no we are not defining all of Italian history as the history of Mussolini. There were just some things that happened during his time that might be notable here. -Justanonymous (talk) 17:14, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

My analogy is exactly spot on, if you will take the time to read it and understand it. This article attempts to tell the history of gun control. No neutral historian would ever list Nazi Germany in a neutral, balanced overview of the history of gun control. But there it is! Because we want to paint gun control supporters as Nazis! Let's just let Wayne LaPierre write Wikipedia articles, shall we? We'd end up with a better result than this garbage that you call neutral. — goethean 17:38, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

So add Australia or other places where gun control has brought about a more fruitful society. I don't care. I just don't want us to censor valid history. If there are peaceful stable societies under strict gun control regimes, put it in. Modern day Australia seems to come to mind. Is that in there already?-Justanonymous (talk) 17:52, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

NRA propaganda is not valid history. Start over. Use history books rather than political pamphlets. Stop defending garbage. — goethean 18:04, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Your garbage is another man's gem, who are you to decide -- who am I to decide. That's why we have WP:RS. If it meets the standard, it can go in.-Justanonymous (talk) 18:46, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Justanonymous, such a list would include just about every Western country besides the US--all of them with stricter gun laws, all of them with lower gun death numbers, and all of them with better cheese and better healthcare and happier people. Such is not the way to go, esp. not since it just leads to fights over who's got the better cheese. The mention of RS is kind of a ruse--lots of stuff can be reliably sourced, but not all of it is of encyclopedic value. Drmies (talk) 18:47, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Prove it Drmies, WP:RS statements please and let's make sure that the French aren't running the statistics because we can argue about methodologies, stratified random samples all day long here. You're injecting your limited Eurocentric worldview into this and it's coming across and is not helpful. Everyone knows the best wine is from Sonoma - Stags Leap and everyone knows that Wisconsin cheese is the best. Let's just try to make the article better.-Justanonymous (talk) 18:56, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Maybe I'm limited indeed, after fifteen years in Alabama. What isn't helpful is this constant and tedious hammering on RS. Of course reliable sources are going to show that the Nazis tried to take guns away from the Jews. Duh. What you need to produce, and that's what Goethean is rightly challenging you to do, are reliable sources (not partisan hacks who have a platform in a peer-reviewed journal) that this is in any way relevant to the topic of gun control. Plus, I haven't seen anyone say anything yet about the rest of that German legislation, though I thought I pointed out clearly enough that this wasn't simply "Nazis are taking Jewish guns". It's also "Nazis are giving everyone else free guns", so to speak. Drmies (talk) 19:02, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I certainly have no objection to including that the germans gave weapons to the favored group while taking weapons away from the jews, right before they conscripted all of those favored groups to go genocidal on the jews. Gaijin42 (talk) 19:05, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Drmies, A lot of smart people in Alabama, no need to bash the state. It's unnecessary, it's small of you - it's a great state filled with wonderful smart people. But, you can go back to wherever place you came from if you think Alabama is beneath you. Goethen is vulgar profane. It's hard to take him seriously. As to the WP:RS, how do you propose we do it? Make stuff up on the fly? I think your bias is clear.-Justanonymous (talk) 19:12, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Everyone here knows my bias, Justanonymous, just as everyone knows, I think, that I want what's best for the encyclopedia. I can't tell when you're joking or not, so I suppose your "make stuff up on the fly" is a joke too. I have given an assessment or two of the various sources proposed here, and I have given an assessment of what I think is an editorial problem with the section, which no one (besides Maunus), and certainly not you, has addressed. Your mantra of RS RS RS and "bring it!" is a clear indication of how seriously I should take your objections. Basically, your editorial attitude boils down to "I see something in a book that I like so I'll stick it in an article." What sucks for those editors who favor inclusion of the material is the association with such an attitude. Good day. Drmies (talk) 20:31, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Drmies, You don't know me so stop trying make false guesses about me. You don't know anything about my editorial attitude so don't try to paint a canvas of me here. You're unqualified to boil down JA. And my editorial attitude is unimportant. We're going to follow all Wikipedia policies here to include RS. If you take exception to that, file a complaint and include me on it. Yes the article needs work. The article is the result of polarized editors that come and sling their mud and then we wind up in these grotesquely useless time consuming discussions that count towards your edit count. Frankly we should only count clean edits. Jabbering on here adds no value. That's why I prefer to go edit and to follow the policies. Yes it needs work, got it. Let's go make it better then. Unless you want uselessly pour a few more ink barrels here.-Justanonymous (talk) 20:39, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• Depends entirely on how it is included. Disarmament of groups of citizens considered a threat to the state is much more widespread than just authoritarian states and Nazi Germany, this should be clear. As should the fact that arms are also restricted in many of the least authoritarian states in the world. most of the sources listed at Gaijin42's page are primary sources, and they would be good if Gaijon42 wanted to write abook about gun control - but they are of no value when trying to assess the notability of a particular fact. The only ones that should be counted are the ones in the section "Modern neutral gun control secondary sources", they are also the ones that should decide how the argument is included and the various views weighted. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:21, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Maunus With respect, contemporary secondary sources (the 10-20 newspaper articles) do not suddenly become primary sources due their age. You also skipped over the bottom academic section. Gaijin42 (talk) 17:25, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Historical newspaper articles are not secondary sources. They are historical primary sources. So yes they do, as any historian would know. As for the last sections they look mostly like series of polemic primary sources (research articles are primary sources for their own research and views (and can be used as secondary sources for the views of others), review articles are secondary sources).User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:27, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Maunus The academic thing I think needs to be discussed in two parts 1) factual analysis of history 2) implications of #1. There is basically ZERO disagreement that the disarmament actually happened, intentionally, as part of the oppression and eradication of jews. Harcourt, arguing against halbrook directly admits this in his articles (along with the other secondary sources) . 2) You are correct that the latter part (what are the implications of these historical facts) is a source only for the views of the author, but as those represent a significant minority viewpoint, including that content as their viewpoint is part of WP:NPOV. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:31, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

The question of course is not whether authoritarian (or non authoritarian) regimes have used guncontrol. The question is how relevant that fact is for the topic of guncontrol in general. The answer to this question should depend on how much coverage e.g. Nazi gun control gets in objective reviews of the field, and how it is treated. I can imagine two views, both of which are probably notable but the second of which I think is the dominant view, namely 1. that it is relevant because it suggests that guncontrol is a characteristic strategy of a authoritarian state, and 2. that it is relevant because it is a common meme used by American opponents of restrictive gun legislation. So, yes, I think it is probably relevant, but I think that the second view is likely to be the one that should characterize the coverage. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 18:39, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• It would help for those of us dropping by a diff or discussion link to the uses you want to make of this material that is different from what is in thearticle already. So many articles to comment upon, so little time. (Tripled my wikipedia budgeted time again today!) Carolmooredc (Talkie-Talkie) 17:02, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Per the discussion above the RFC, the opposers insist on the complete and permanent removal of the entire section and demand it not be mentioned again. More surgical changes are therefore irrelevant until the core question is answered. Gaijin42 (talk)

The history section needs to be re-written from beginning to end based on neutral sources rather than NRA propaganda. — goethean 17:12, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm all for rewriting and improving. I'm not for blanking without consensus like you did.-Justanonymous (talk) 17:16, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

You committed a flagrant violation of Wikipedia's core policy. That's what you did. Own it. Take responsibility for your actions. The history section of this article is a joke. It is a joke, and you are defending it. — goethean 17:33, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

No, I've been clear that there's always room for improvement. You blanking it summarily is unacceptable and borders on vandalism. Your profanity and vulgarity make it even more distasteful.-Justanonymous (talk) 17:41, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

You say that I vandalized the article? Report me. Escalate it. Let's go. WP:AN/I. Start a thread. I'm waiting. I say you're full of it. — goethean 18:06, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Do you have a reading comprehension problem? Read the note on my edit. I merely suggested that you were close to vandalism and you might have been over the line. It's nuanced. You gotta get better at this reading comprehension man, tone down the vulgarity and profanity, and take a chill pill -- don't blow another gasket.-Justanonymous (talk) 18:49, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

You're about as nuanced as brick. — goethean 19:06, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

The second question was about mere inclusion of coverage of gun control under those regimes....the arguments against mere inclusion so far have been quite telling, essentially these are:

• All kinds of nasty stuff saying that such mere inclusion makes the article a propaganda piece.
• Impugning the motives of any editor that wants to include it.
• Answering a question that was NOT asked as if it were answer the question that WAS asked, (raising straw-man concerns) about (farther reaching) statements that such control in significant in establishing Nazi control.
• An analogy that makes no sense...that this particular instance should be censored because failure to censor it is like improperly narrowing the coverage of a topic to one non-typical item. Huh?

Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 17:21, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

So, you are unable to recognize that the current version of the article is a flagrant NPOV violation. Is that what you're saying? — goethean 17:29, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Yup. And there is nothing 'ntasy' about describing crude pseudohistorical propaganda as crude pseudohistorical propaganda. And excluding propaganda from encyclopaedias isn't 'censorship', it is appropriate editorial control. Nobody is restricting anyone's rights to publish such material - but you have no 'rights' to use Wikipedia for such purposes, any more than any other political lobby. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:32, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

You have no right to redifine historical facts as propaganda because you disagree with their implications. Gaijin42 (talk) 17:35, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Andy and Geothean don't like it because of the points raised above. Their arguments are weak. All articles can be improved but summary blanking like Goethean did followed by profanity and vulgarity on my personal talk page is just distasteful. Now we're wasting time here. If you have RS statements and good contributions, let's discuss them here and then let's add. None have been forthcoming. The survey above is very telling. It speaks to the inclusion of this content and per Wikpedia policies it's notable. Andy and Gethean don't like it.....tough.-Justanonymous (talk) 17:37, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Andy, you must have posted in the wrong section. The RFC question is about mere coverage. North8000 (talk) 17:42, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

(ec) @Goethean, responding, that's actually a falsehood stated as an implied premise, and then a claim that failure to agree with the falsehood means "unable to understand" And all about a diversion to something that is not even the topic of the RFC. North8000 (talk) 17:40, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• I'm also concerned with the objectivity of this article. I'm not going to throw around accusations about NRA membership and stuff, but I think Maunus's objections, above, are relevant. Moreover, the current note on restricted gun ownership for Jews in Nazi Germany is indeed easily read as an indictment of gun control (suggestion 1: Nazis proposed gun control, so gun control is evil), but Gun_politics_in_Germany#The_1938_German_Weapons_Act is insightful: if that article is accurate (who the hell knows, it's Wikipedia), then the restrictions on Jews owning guns really takes a serious backseat to the loosening of rules for many categories of citizens: "Gun restriction laws applied only to handguns, not to long guns or ammunition. The 1938 revisions completely deregulated the acquisition and transfer of rifles and shotguns, as was the possession of ammunition"; the legal age was lowered from 20 to 18; permits were valid for three times as long as before; and many groups were exempt from having to acquire a gun permit. In other words, there's another quick conclusion to draw, with much more meat to it: suggestion 2: Nazis proposed gun deregulation, so gun control is good. Both suggestions are invalid, of course, but the way I see the article suggestion 1 is right there, front and center, because our article only includes one out of five main points of the 1938 law. Drmies (talk) 18:12, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't disagree with your analysis of the loosen/tighten situation, which indeed is directly discussed by halbrook and harcourt's articles (harcourt arguing against halbrook) - however, easing weapon restrictions on a favored group (like the SS and SA who were completely exempt from the regulations) and then sending those same groups after the recently disarmed doesn't seem like an argument that the nazis did not in fact disarm the jews as part of their oppression. Part of the issue is the current state of the article - Older versions (say here [5] attempted to put this into context as a presentation one of the notable POVs of gun control, but certain editors continued to delete everything that was an actual argument, and left us with the abbreviated history. (And certainly that POV should be balanced by POVs about how gun control has ushered in golden eras of peace into Australia and the UK (which are ALREADY in this article!) Gaijin42 (talk) 18:23, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Admitedly, there are significant issues with the older revision I linked to there, but at a minimum the nazi-control meme is a significant minority viewpoint on gun control and excluding it is also a violation of npov (how that pov should be worded is of course a matter for the consensus to decide, but first we must settle the issue of inclusion at all) Gaijin42 (talk) 18:27, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

The version you linked to is obviously even worse than the present version, which is a POS. "The History of Gun Control" including a large section on...."Gun control's association with totalitarianism" Gee, so gun control is associated with authoritarianism, you say? Shucks, that sounds pretty bad! Oh, and Nazis had gun control and communists did too? That does it! I hate gun control! Gee, thanks Gaijin42! You've really set me straight! I'm going to run out and buy a Luger right now! — goethean 18:28, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

That's pretty creative....you get all of that out of mere coverage of instances of gun control. North8000 (talk) 18:32, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, Goethean probably put too much sarcasm in their morning coffee but, North, I don't disagree with the basic sentiment: those inferences are clearly easy to draw, even from our current version. You wouldn't want another section added, one which argued that eminently wonderful and reasonable countries like The Netherlands have very strict laws on gun control, since the suggestion clearly is that rationality favors gun control. (Which is true, of course, but that's another point!) Or, Goethean, please take it easy: no need to hand them more ammo. And that's my final lame joke for the day. Drmies (talk) 18:36, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm for tightening the article up and for improving it reasonably. I'm not for deleting valid historical information even if one party here thinks that it's propaganda. I will acknowledge that we have a challenge because much of the research that is being conducted today is not being conducted dispassionately. For better or worse, many of the notable researchers have a political agenda. So we have to be very careful. That said, we shouldn't just arbitrarily delete valuable content without us reaching consensus here. That is what Goethen did that started all of this - that and a bunch of expletives from him on my personal talk page. He simply blanked 4,000+b of WP:RS content. That's not the way to do it. If it's loose, let's tighten it up. If it's biased, let's make it neutral. But we can't just blank the page and then blow a gasket when their edit is reverted.-Justanonymous (talk) 18:34, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

we have a challenge because much of the research that is being conducted today is not being conducted dispassionately

That's simply false. There are many, many neutral, mainstream, non-ideological books available on gun control. The problem is that the authors of this article decided to use none of them, instead depending on extremely ideological, non-neutral material, and writing a history of gun control that is almost funny in its departure from reality. — goethean 18:44, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

did you bother to actually check any of those sources? I think not, as The #2 book on that list (Gun Control, O'Niel) includes a chapter on the Nazi disarmamemnt.Also mentioned in the book by fisanak, and the one by davidson, so thanks for proving the point that it is covered by common gun control sources! Gaijin42 (talk) 04:16, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree. The amount and kind of coverage to be given to "authoritarian gun control" should be based on that kind of literature.User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:03, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

WP:RS statements please. If you got it, bring it. Anger, accusations, mean spiritedness, blanking sections, vulgar profanity are not helpful and makes it hard to take the editor seriously. Open a talk section below and start discussing your edits. Vs this incessant, nonconstructive back and forth. Let's edit. Bring it!-Justanonymous (talk) 19:08, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

• I think all those editors who are so concerned with Nazi gun legislation should probably work on the relevant sections in Gun politics in Germany--as they should on every article on gun control. After all, there is no reason to look at Nazi Germany or the USSR and exclude others unless one has already made up their mind that there is something to see there (the synthesized statement, for instance, that "authoritarian regimes use gun control to silence their opponents"). So yeah, each and every country ought to be listed, and comprehensively: there is no reason to pick one particular period over another, if one wishes to be factual and complete, and not some cherrypicking coatracker. (And this is where the RS argument is bollocks: RS doesn't allow us to select from among reliable sources.) Now, if I can assume that Gun politics in Germany is correct (and no one has said otherwise), then a "summary" of Nazi gun politics which is more representative of what that article says should run something like this:

  The 1938 German Weapons act confirmed the requirement that citizens needed permits to carry and acquire firearms. The Nazi legislature tightened the law for Jews, who were no longer allowed to manufacture and trade in firearms and ammunition. On the other hand, many requirements were lowered or relaxed: the legal age for carrying a firearm was lowered from 20 to 18, the law covered only handguns (rifles, shot guns, and ammunition were no longer regulated), issued permits were valid three times as long, and many groups (including holders of annual hunting permits, government workers, and NSDAP members) were no longer subject to restrictions.

  Now, the article in its current state has something along those lines but still overplays the gun control angle ("... were used by Hitler's government to disarm the Jewish population"): the crucial citations are to Rudolph Rummel and Stephen Halbrook, and neither of these are acceptable, IMO, as objective and neutral. (One wonders whether we can't get some non-English sources: surely German and French historians have written on the topic--if Nazi gun control is really a topic at all.) That guns were confiscated from Jews afterward in itself is hardly surprising: I'm sure the Nazis confiscated lots of things from Jews.

  BTW, that section is a mess. I see the Harcourt citation three times in there, but cited in two different formats. Note 21, to an Alan Steinweis book, is a bare URL linking to a page among the notes that simply doesn't verity the text (on the confiscation of ammunition). Note 14 is a horribly incomplete citation to an article in a textbook of sorts which can't even avoid weasel words: "It is frequently argued that these laws...", without specifics, without citations, without anything (and look at the vagueries of the next paragraph, "Stalin and Mao are also reported to have disarmed their political opponents..."--"reported"? We can't get cold hard facts here?). Note 15, A Complete History of the Holocaust, that's a "Juvenile Non-Fiction"--not to be cited here. Note 16 is to an "oral history" (48 Hours of Kristallnacht) published by Globe Pequot Press--go look at our article and see if we should cite this here in this article. Seriously, Collect and others, RS? Have you all even looked at what is being cited in this encyclopedic article? I could go on, but this is getting tedious. The sourcing is horrible, the cherrypicking is clear. Drmies (talk) 01:53, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

• One more thing, on the same topic--the Alan Steinweis link. I don't know who put this ridiculous search string, [6], in the article as a reference--an amateur, I'd say (note that they inserted the title of the NYT article cited in the previous reference into the Google Book search--weird, to say the least). Now, that book is supposed to verify some numbers on confiscated weapons, but it doesn't: as far as I can tell, those numbers don't appear in that book. What is in the book, on page 39, is a brief note on the Berlin police order, November 1938, that all Jews were to hand over their weapons to the authorities; Steinweis notes that the overwhelming number of weapons in Jewish homes were daggers and pistols, mementos from WW1, and that the proclamation was really nothing but harassment and an excuse to break into Jewish homes and ransack them.

  So, what we have here is another example of synthesis, where a book (amateurishly cited and probably not read at all) is yoked to a claim of weapon confiscation. The book does not verity the stated claim in the article, and what it says on the subject has no bearing on "gun control" at all, since it concerns a police order, not a law, whose goal was not to control guns but just to harass one particular segment of the population. To use the term "gun control" when it only affects one segment of the population is ludicrous: it's not gun control, it's just antisemitism. Drmies (talk) 02:20, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

But Drmies, denial to one segment of the population is a common feature of gun control, e.g. in the USA. Persons who have been convicted of certain offenses, who are mentally ill, in the country illegally etc. Sincerely, North8000 (talk) 02:53, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Neither you and I nor the Nazis thought that "Jewishness" would be in the same category as "mentally ill" or "illegal"; the legal status of Jewishness (pace Nuremberg) is simply not that of "having been convicted of a crime of moral turpitude" or something like that. They were simply trying to harass. But that's not my main point anyway; I made some others that I hope someone will address. Drmies (talk) 03:30, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Drmies unequal application of laws as a form of discrimination is quite often a very notable part of the laws. For example Suffrage#Forms_of_exclusion_from_suffrage . surely you would not argue that jim crow voter registration laws were not actually registration laws, or that dont ask don't tell wasn't discrimination because it only applied to gays? There is a very long history of gun control being used as a tool of discrimination and opression - the nazi thing certainly, but also the extensive use in the US from slave days until very recently (and ongoing) - for example, even pro-control sources describe things like the saturday night special bans as being specifically targeted at blacks (the n-town special) See our article Saturday_night_special which covers this. Gaijin42 (talk) 04:00, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

• "There is a very long history of gun control being used as a tool of discrimination"--I hope you have better sourcing for that claim than this current article. You certainly can't prove it for the Nazi period--not with a bunch of articles from the NYT about what the Nazis did on this and that day. Again, cite me a neutral (better yet, non-US) scholar of Nazi history who verifies that claim. You can't synthesize it from one single item pulled from much more comprehensive legislation coupled with some cherrypicked quotes about some guns confiscated in Berlin. (And for the US, I think it's a crock of BS, but I also think we should cite neutral scholarship, not the Holbrooks of the world.)

  But again, that wasn't my main point. I find it remarkable that no one addresses them. Do I need to repeat? a. the sourcing is atrocious; b. the section places undue weight on one particular aspect: the control, rather than the utter relinquishing of gun control for others. c. there is no rationale for focusing on gun control exclusively in authoritarian states unless your POV gives you that rationale. With your claims about gun control in the US being used as a political tool you're pretty much a self-identified conspiracy theorist, and it seems clear to me that you're looking to make a statement about Nazi Germany to lend credence to a political point of view. For the record, I'll state my POV: I do not believe that gun control has been used by the state to further political goals. I also do not believe that relaxing gun laws has been used by the state to further political goals. Drmies (talk) 04:35, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Drmies, I think that you made many good comments regarding improvement of / issues with article quality. You also expressed hope that they would be addressed. I think that blending them into an RFC that is on a different narrower topic (mere inclusion vs. exclusion of certain instances of gun control) is giving them a higher risk of not getting utilized, but I think that we should do so, even if not within the RFC. North8000 (talk) 11:33, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

North, you know I like you--probably because you're not just "North", but North eight fucking thousand! You put the pedal to the medal, BOLDly. I hope my main objection is clear: the statement is made a couple of times, off-hand and unverified, that dictators use gun laws to enforce their politics, in one shape or another. Note the easy comments about Mao and Hitler and all. But this general claim needs serious and impartial verification. A person can make a biased claim in an otherwise reliable source: "reliable" points to fact checking and such, and a statement like "dictators use gun laws etc." is always going to be a matter of interpretation based on historical data. It has to be, unless a dictator comes out and says it explicitly, which they haven't done AFAIK. So reliability is one thing, but neutrality is another--and it is one of our pillars. That's why I can't accept Halbrook et al.

Lost in the mix, though I tried to bring it up, is that loosening gun restriction could conceivably used in the same way as tightening them. Given the historical circumstances (as indicated by Steinweis), Jews in Germany, 1938, simply didn't have large amounts of firearms, and what they had was memorability (obviously I'm giving a shorthand summary, painting with a somewhat broad brush). So restricting Jewish gun ownership is probably a minor issue. Much more important, it seems to me, is loosening regulations on certain groups, and I'll synthesize a bit to show you why: hunters in Nazi Germany are much more likely to be politically aligned with the regime, since hunting traditionally is a matter of an upper class ("hunting" in the 20th century simply doesn't mean the same thing in Europe as it does in the US; for the Nazis, hunting was a way of expressing an aristocratic, Germanic heritage: see this study, pages 22, 60, 97); more importantly, the NSDAP is by definition the ruling regime. Again, loosening gun restrictions for Nazi party members is a big step, and much more important and threatening to the Jewish population. We should not forget that "gun control" doesn't just mean "restricting access": it means "governing access", and exempting certain groups from having to get a permit is a part of that governance. Which is why the summary of the 1938 law I gave above includes those points as well. If we restrict our summary to the Jews and prohibitions on gun ownership, we are slanting the historical record. Drmies (talk) 16:11, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

(added later)Drmies (how 'bout Drmies9000?) I agree with almost everything that you just said, but it seems to be addressing questions other then mere inclusion of this as an instance of gun control. North8000 (talk) 13:21, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Gaijin42, you mentioned a prohibition on slaves owning guns in the US as an analogy earlier on. A full analogy would be that US slaves (analogous to Jews) were not allowed to have guns, but slave hunters and owners (analogous to NSDAP members) (or card-carrying KKK members?) could own anything they wanted. Which part of that analogy is more important? Remember that guns cost money and that NSDAP members came from a militaristic gun culture, or at least ascribed to it. I think that's what Goethean was hinting at earlier with the Luger--an officer's weapon. Drmies (talk) 16:28, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about slaves. As far as I know there were no laws specifically targeting gun ownership by slaves (while they were considered property, I doubt it even occurred to anyone to try and limit via legislation ANYTHING as they were non-people). I was talking more about reconstruction/jim crow/civil rights era laws that were used as tools of discrimination/repression post slavery. If the default case is "allowed" then obviously the important part of the analogy is who is not allowed. Everyone can marry, except teh gays. Everyone can vote, except the women. In saudi arabia, everyone can practice their religion (as long as its Islam). everyone can own guns, except the jews/blacks. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:39, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

But even that analogy is incomplete: not everyone in Nazi Germany except Jews could own guns: if our article is correct, most citizens would still require permits for handguns, but not Nazi party members. To stick to your other analogy, all straight citizens can marry, but Republican (or Democratic, or whatever) citizens don't have to pay for their marriage license, or even get one. Drmies (talk) 16:43, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

based on your comment, I did a quick bit of research and was somewhat surprised. nazi party membership peaked at about 7% of the population, I had thought at by the end practically everyone was a member (if nothing else just to avoid suspicion) - However, I disagree that there is a flawed analogy. Nazis don't need permits. General public needs permits. Jews cannot get permits and weapons are actively confiscated. There is no argument from anyone here, nor anyone in the literature denying the basic facts: Jews had their weapons confiscated as one of the tools of repression and genocide by the Nazis. Certainly there can be disagreement as to the importance of this fact (above somewhere you attempted to argue the counterfactual of something along the lines of did it make a difference). For the most part that argument is irrelevant - is a significant minority viewpoint on the topic of gun controlthat this is a notable bit of history and should be included. The repeated accusations of fringe are ludicrous - even the detractors agree with the basic facts! Regarding the selective choice of facts in history - converting the section to actually present the POV of those who hold the position would deal with this, they made the selection of facts notable, not us. You may dislike or disagree with Halbrook, Kates, Polsby, etc - but it is undeniable that they are notable minority voices on the topic of gun control (How many cases have your preferred sources argued and won in front of SCOTUS, on the topic of gun control?, How many briefs on the topic of gun control were joined and signed by a majority of congress that they wrote?) Gaijin42 (talk) 17:33, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

You may dislike or disagree with Halbrook, Kates, Polsby, etc - but it is undeniable that they are notable minority voices on the topic of gun control

So what? There are hundreds or thousands of other notable minority voices on the topic of gun control. We need to try to write a decent article rather than inserting our pet issue into the article, whether it fits or not. We need to summarize the most neutral and most authoritative sources rather than "Hey this one guy wrote this thing and I think it's just swell, so I'll insert a section about how gun control is authoritarian". — goethean 20:39, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually no, "Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic." we do NOT pick just the one view, but represent ALL views. That you do not like sources or their POV does not make the not WP:RS and as you have already admitted, I have many sources. Your continued effort to whitewash this topic of any possible negative information is a travesty of wikipedia's pillars. There are pros and cons to every policy and listing only the pros is not neutrality. Gaijin42 (talk) 20:52, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Please spare me your fake outrage. We do not need to include the theories of your pet right-wing author. This article needs to be a balanced account, rather than the atrocious right-wing view of history that you and your RFC buddies have foisted on this page in direct violation of Wikipedia's core policies. — goethean 21:02, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

It is curious that this article discusses several examples of gun laws in certain authoritarian countries which are typically used as exemplars of evil but doesn't discuss gun laws in most contemporary nations. It is also curious that the article barely describes one of the distinctive pieces of Nazi weapons policy - that they banned Jews from owning all weapons, not just guns. I knew a man who was a kosher butcher in Germany in the 30s. He had to surrender his butcher's knives to the local officials and he was thrown into Buchenwald, although he was able to emigrate to America before the war started. After the war he wrote to the local government and asked for his knives back and, amazingly, they found them and sent them back to him. Such is German efficiency. A good story, but I think the broader point is that Drmies expresses a valid concern, if we're going to discuss Nazi weapons legislation, we should describe all of its aspects, and not just those that seem to inform contemporary debate. GabrielF (talk) 18:59, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

This RfC appears to be invalid

Afterlooking in detail at Wikipedia:Requests for comment, I have come to the conclusion that this RfC is malformed, and consequently invalid, for the following reasons:

(a) The subject matter, 'Authoritarianism and gun control', appears not to have been the subject of discussion on this talk page since July. The RfC was opened out of the blue, without any prior discussion. RfCs are intended as a mechanism to involve others in an existing discussion, when debate is deadlocked. Opening one at random for no obvious reason seems to me to be an abuse of process.

(b) THe RfC statement makes no pretence at neutrality. It cites a list of 'sources' compiled entirely by the RfC opener without any prior discussion whatsoever, and asserts as fact the very issue which appears to be under debate - the degree to which there is any correlation between the regulation of firearms and authoritarianism. It should be noted that Gaijin42 is well aware that in the case of Nazi Germany, it has repeatedly been pointed out that the Nazis relaxed firearms control for large sectors of the population, and yet the RfC wording implies entirely the contrary. A RfC based on a falsehood cannot possibly be acceptable.

Given these concerns, I have to suggest that the RfC should be closed forthwith. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:35, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

What you are claiming as being an "assertion of fact" is not, it is posed as the first question, put into Wikipedia content terms. Whether not it exists in a suitable amount in sources. Second, it looks like what sparked the RFC was Goethen's recent attempted large deletion of this material, as the RFC followed right after that attempted large deletion. North8000 (talk) 11:45, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Nice try. Answering the last cavil first -- I see no reason to argue that the matter is phrased in a non-neutral manner, nor has that been found a valid cause for closure historically on Wikipedia. The first cavil likewise fails -- as long as the RfC is widely responded to, the issue of whether it ought to have been "pre-discussed" is moot -- the general rule is that the broader the range of participants, the more readily WP:CONSENSUS is met, and it is that policy which is the basis for RfC n the first place. The idea that a "pre-discussion" is needed before a "real discussion" occurs has not been used in the past, but is a novel argument here. Cheers -- it looks from here that there is broad participation here, and the goal well ought be to achieve a consensus rather than make legal arguments about what is a "discussion" and what is a "pre-discussion." "RfC" means that a discussion is requested, and nothing more. Cheers. Collect (talk) 13:11, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

There is nothing 'novel' about suggesting that the subject of a RfC should have been discussed first, in order to ascertain what exactly should be asked. As for your ridiculous claim that the phrasing isn't "non-neutral", are you seriously suggesting that a complete misrepresentation of historical fact is appropriate in an RfC? AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:35, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

The query is 1.Are authoritarian uses of gun control (in particular Nazi, but others as well) sufficiently sourced by reliable sources

If you feel that they are false, then you likely feel that the claims are not sufficiently well-sourced. That you resort to calling the phrasing "non-neutral" because you know the material is a "complete misrepresentation of historical fact" is, unfortunately not an exactly neutral phrasing. Would you find "Should the complete bullshit about Nazi and other authoritarian regimes using gun control be put into this article?" to be "neutral"? Cheers. Collect (talk) 14:24, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

The article fails NPOV miserably. That's the point. In fact, it doesn't even try. A group of editors argued furiously for months to get the article to a slightly less obviously extremely biased place. Gaijin42 and North8000, of course, kicked and screamed the entire way, strongly preferring a version that was clearly an inaccurate, and false version of history.

Gaijin42 has made a few of these RFCs and they are invariably and obviously phrased to his advantage. This time it's no different. He knows that he's got dozens of RSs to back up the "facts" that he uses to buttress the extreme right-wing version of history, so he asks if he has RSs. And he asks if the section should be removed entirely. Removing the section would actually improve the article dramatically, but it's clear that that's off the table due to a bloc of editors who are determined to keep this article as some kind of talking points memo for an anti-gun control ideology. There are very serious issues with this article, and Gaijin42's RFC neatly side-steps these very serious issues, as they always do. The article is in terrible, terrible shape, and Gaijin42's RFC merely compounds these issues rather than attempting to resolve anything, as usual. — goethean 15:58, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I quit this article in disgust over that section months ago, and when I was notified of this RfC I was amazed to find the text in even worse shape. There's not a shred of value to it. It's all SYNTH and POV spin. This entire article should be blanked and started from scratch in an orderly way. Why not? SPECIFICO talk 17:26, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I find this kind of procedural attempt to shut down a discussion that's not going in Andy's favor surprising even from Andy. This sub-thread is just a distraction, especially when I;ve heard some interesting arguments above but I've also seen some familiar names repeat the same dug-in statements over and over. Shadowjams (talk) 05:00, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I think we've moved past it at this point. We seem to be making some headway with reformatting the sections (see below) to lessen the POV creep and if nothing else, put the more controversial content into a section with better context. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 05:24, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

How were nazi gun control laws considered "authoritarian" compared with the stricter laws of the Weimar Republic? TFD (talk) 05:33, 20 December 2013 (UTC)
Seems like a valid RFC to me. I wouldn't have given a !vote otherwise. I don't think it would have been proper for me to have given a !vote if I thought the RFC was invalid. That would have been rather contradictory.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:28, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Japan

The history section is light. I attempted to add the beginnings of a section on the firearms control of Japan's Shogunate. It was well referenced and is notable. While I hadn't added more to the detail of the total elimination of the firearm from Japan begining in 1607, it is inappropriate to remove well referenced material like this. There are entire histories of the shogunate and its suppresion of firearms. Capitalismojo (talk) 19:16, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I removed the section because it had one sentence on gun control, and several paragraphs on just the use of guns in Japan. I have no objection to inclusion of gun control in japan (historical or modern) but the content must be actual on the topic of gun control, not the general history of guns. Gaijin42 (talk) 19:18, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Can we add that section here so we can decide? We have gun articles that need additional material. Maybe it can go in one of those?-Justanonymous (talk) 19:22, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Also, content may be more appropriate in List_of_gun_laws_and_policies_by_country (in a subsection under Japan) - as I think the intent of this article is to be more an overview of the concept of gun control, rather than a description of specific gun control policies. (The above discussion notwithstanding, which is less about the actual use of gun control in Nazi germany, and the use of nazi germany as the most notable example of gun control as a tool of authoritarianism) Gaijin42 (talk) 19:26, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Well unless this is supposed to be titled "Gun control in 20th century western countries" perhaps we should broaden the history section. I think it is entirely appropriate to add bit on Japan to the historical section. I would note that since this has nothing to do with current law (1607), it doesn't fit at all in a list of gun laws by country. How can we not have an article overviewing gun control and not mention Japan's shogunate which is the only society to have largely eliminated (even for a time) guns? Capitalismojo (talk) 19:41, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Lets be clear, Japan of the Edo period was a tightly regimented and centrally controlled society, an island kingdom, culturally homogenous and geographically isolated. I think there is a reason why they controlled widespread gun use sucessfully, the fact they did should be included. Capitalismojo (talk) 19:47, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

This is a general topic of gun control. To an extent, there's a richer history of arms control that stretches back into antiquity that can and should be covered somewhere if not here. Guns only go back a few hundred years. At the end of the day, so long as it's on point regarding gun control, we can include an aspect of this. As I recall only Samurai could have swords in ancient times and they were at liberty to kill any peasant that gave even the most trivial of offenses....the same was true in Europe of knights and the coat of arms is what gave the knight the right to have arms. Arms control and gun control have been with us for a long long time. It's hard to talk about it because of the politics but I wish we could treat it more sensibly here. Very hard to write a quality article when there is this much animosity though. Sad. -Justanonymous (talk) 19:56, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

In the "Terminology and context" section it addresses Arms control and explains that Gun control is a subset of that topic. I think if we get off that track, this is a lost cause. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 23:18, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

the first 3 paragraphs ( have nothing to do with gun control, they are a history of guns in japan, which is not the topic of this article. the 4th pagagraph is tangentally related to gun control (reasons samurai don't like guns) and only the 5th is actually about gun laws. Gaijin42 (talk) 21:08, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

This isn't the article about national gun laws. It is the broader article about gun control. In Japan guns went from virtually non-existent to the critical arms technology in 50 years and then were controlled and supressed by the state. I think its important to briefly put in the first part of that history because it informs the "gun control" aspect. That is to say you can't understand why and how Japan controlled guns unless you understand the background. Others may disagree. Capitalismojo (talk) 23:32, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

Neutral sources suggestion

I'd like to offer a source of a neutral (or at least not directly gun issue involved) source of references about gun control in Nazi Germany. Karl Dietrich Bracher is a very well respected author on the subject of totalitarianism and its application in Germany. Off the top of my head, I don't know if any of his books discuss the subject of gun control, but I'm going to start looking. If someone knows of a similar source for Japan, Russia, or anywhere else, please suggest them. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 17:27, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

My RFC linked to several such sources. Here are several neutral histories, discussing the Holocaust (some specifically Kirstallnacht) and discussing Jewish gun confiscation

• 48 Hours of Kristallnacht: Night of Destruction/dawn of the Holocaust : an Oral History pg. 11
• Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, Volume 1 pg. 507
• KRISTALLNACHT 1938 pg. 39
• The Complete History of the Holocaust pg. 68

I also listed several german language holocaust histories discussing disarmament. Gaijin42 (talk) 17:48, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

• Yes, it is undisputed that disarmament was an aspect of the holocaust, just as it is undisputed that lots of other states have controlled their citizens access to arms. But this article is not about the holocaust, but about Guncontrol. What we need are neutral sources about guncontrol, and then we'll see if they consider the holocaust to be a relevant aspect of a discussion about guncontrol. Looking for all kinds of sources that mention disarmament or restrictive gunpolicies and then inserting them here is OR, and not how we do things here. User:Maunus ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 17:53, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Great! How about

• Guns in American Society
• Open Fire: Understanding Global Gun Cultures
• Arming and Disarming: A History of Gun Control in Canada
• Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America
• (The #2 result on google book search for "gun control") Opposing Viewpoints Digests: Gun Control
• Encyclopedia of gun control and gun rights

Or the many others i already listed Gaijin42 (talk) 18:59, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Yup - Scalhotrod's overt admission that he is looking for sources to cherry-pick to support the dubious premise that 'gun control' equals 'authoritarianism' is entirely indicative of the whole way this article has been concocted. It is a disgrace to Wikipedia that such behaviour has been allowed to continue as long as it has. Blatant POV-pushing like this needs to be stopped. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:06, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

That's terrible behavior. Scalhotrod said that they were going to look for sources relevant to the question at hand, and you turn that into a big string of insults and accusations as if such were wrong behavior (which it isn't) . North8000 (talk) 18:29, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually I'm somewhat flattered and feel a bit vindicated. In order to earn that kind of rebuke from Andy, I must be on the right track otherwise he wouldn't be trying to undermine my idea so vehemently. I'm not insulted, I'm encouraged... :) --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 19:51, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

If he's not POV-pushing, then it's an potential WP:Competence issue (and not just on the part of Scalhotrod, but on the part of the authors of the Nazi material), as this is clearly not the way to write a neutral Wikipedia article on gun control. "Let's find sources that connect the topic to my pet issue!" Instead, we need to find good, general, neutral, authoritative sources on the topic of the article (i.e. Gun control), and summarize them fairly. If they don't mention your pet issue at all, then that's a great big clue that your pet issue should not be mentioned in the article. This is extremely basic and frankly weird that it needs to be explained. — goethean 19:02, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

I think a search for suitable sources (and thus also reflecting on whether or not they exist) is a very Wikipedian way to try to address the question at hand. North8000 (talk) 20:01, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

WP:OR engaged in to promote fringe perspectives is not 'the Wikipedian way'. It seems evident from this thread that elements of the pro-gun lobby active here are entirely unwilling to comply with NPOV - which would start by looking for sources discussing the subject matter in general, to see how much (if any) emphasis was put on any supposed link with 'totalitarianism' - and is instead engaging in systematic behaviour to promote the views of a minority unsupported by mainstream historiography. If such behaviour continues, I have little doubt that at some point sanctions will have to be applied. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:48, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Use of Peer Reviewed Sources

Some editors here don't want to accept WP:RS from reputable journals that are peer reviewed. That's plainly unacceptable. They're labeling some of those authors as "ideologues." We have to be very careful what to decide there. Some people label scientists like Professor Michael Mann as an ideologue over on the Climate change articles but if he's published in Nature or some other reputable journal, his work is accepted into the Wiki. It's not like we're accepting Professor Mann's personal blog into the Wiki, but when his work makes it through the gauntlet of the journals Nature or Science, he and his rigorous work is most welcome. I don't understand why we're trying to establish a double standard or why one editor without any backing comes on and starts labeling articles published in journals as not meeting the standard simply because he personally doesn't like the author, even if the author is a respected authority on the subject. These articles do clearly meet the standard. The particular editor doesn't like it, so he's just POV pushing. That's also unacceptable. I'm opening this up on the talk page in the hopes of avoiding yet another edit war on the article page. Can we all agree that Peer Reviewed, Reputable journals are fine as WP:RS even if the author might be seen by some opponents as biased? To an extent we all carry our biases with us but Here, we're supposed to be Wikipedians First. Or should I go tell the esteemed editors over at Global Warming that their pro AGW, peer reviewed, academically credentialed and sound sources are just ideologues and that their work doesn't merit inclusion too!? --- I'm sure they're going to come out swinging!-Justanonymous (talk) 17:44, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

It would help if you made clear (a) what the source cited is, and (b) what it is being cited for. It is certainly not the case that all peer reviewed journals are considered automatically reliable, and nor is it the case that everything cited to a reliable source is itself automatically considered reliable. It all depends on context. I suggest that you first provide the relevant details here, and if we can't come to an agreement, take it to WP:RSN. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:35, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I think it's fairly obvious he's talking about this edit. --Scolaire (talk) 18:45, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Do you think the work of Stephen Halbrook on the history of gun control is comparable to the work of Michael E. Mann on climate change? If so, then you are either lying or incompetent. Michael E. Mann is considered an expert in his field, although his work is derided by ideologues who are bribed by oil corporations. Stephen Halbrook#Criticism is a right-wing ideologue who is paid to produce anti-gun control articles. He got one published in a journal, so of course we MUST quote him in this article, because this article is a clearinghouse for all of the right-wing anti-gun garbage that certain editors feel like shoveling into it. Right? — goethean 18:47, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

He also argues and wins gun control cases in front of SCOTUS, writes briefs for SCOUTS cases that are signed by a majority of congress (that take the winning position), has written books cited and referenced hundreds of times by other gun control sources, and that receive international awards. So yes, within the topic of gun control, he is absolutely the equivalent to Mann. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:50, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Appearing before a court to make a partisan political point is not the highest honor a scholar can receive. In fact, it's not an honor or mark or distinction at all, and it doesn't mean that he's an expert. It means that he is politically useful to a group of politicians, just as he is useful to editors attempting to impose a certain ideology on this article. — goethean 19:07, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

And equating this nobody with Michael E. Mann's stature in climate is nothing short of hilarious. — goethean 19:08, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The nobody in question has gone before the Supreme court of the United States and won. Just because you don't know him, or don't like him is no reason to bash him-Justanonymous (talk) 19:20, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Please see my previous comment. That's not relevant in the evaluation of a scholar's level of expertise. It shows that he is particularly useful to partisan politicians, nothing more. — goethean 19:25, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

That's not the question, can we use peer reviewed academic journals? I know you don't like or value his contributions to society and the broader debate. The point is that there are many such people out there invested in what they do and sometimes like Mann, they are working at the cutting edge of their field and they do publish in top journals. Their work should be accepted per the standard.-Justanonymous (talk) 19:29, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

It is worth pointing out that this source has already been raised at WP:RSN - by Gaijin42. [7] It seems to me that, given Halbrook's overt advocacy of a particular perspective on the issue, he should be cited only as attributed statements for his own position. He can hardly be cited as an impartial scholarly source. General statements about what went on in Nazi Germany with regard to firearms regulation should be cited to sources without an axe to grind. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:09, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

As a suggestion, we're not going to win the author issue. It's clear that Andy and Goethean don't value Halstead's contributions while they love Mann. I'm sure I can find a sampling of editors that hold the opposite view. Personally, I have no issues with Mann or with Halstead provided that the work we cite is peer reviewed in a reputable journal. A diatribe from Halstead or Mann published in a CNN editorial or lifted from Greenpeace or the NRA page would probably be unacceptable for inclusion in the Wiki. The best consensus that we can reach is whether research published on peer reviewed reputable journals should be cited? That is the question at hand.-Justanonymous (talk) 19:16, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The next snide of-topic personal attack made by you is going to be raised at WP:ANI. I made no comment whatsoever on Mann - in fact I had to look him up to ascertain who exactly was being referred to - and your assertion that I 'love Mann' is not only obnoxious, irrelevant, and a clear attempt to sidetrack this discussion, but a violation of WP:CIVIL and WP:NPA. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:23, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Let's stick to the question at hand then and I'll ask for the same civility from you please Andy, " The best consensus that we can reach is whether research published on peer reviewed reputable journals should be cited? That is the question at hand."-Justanonymous (talk) 19:25, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Justanonymous is confusing "reliable sources" and "neutral point of view". Halbrooks's facts in his peer-reviewed article may be assumed to be reliable. In order to present his opinions, we need to assess the degree of acceptance they have in reliable sources. That is exactly the same case with Mann. Neutrality also determines what facts are relevant to the article, and that can be established by determining the weight that reliable sources provide them. You need to show that the 1938 firearms act in Germany has more significance then thousands of other firearms acts in order to single it out for inclusion. TFD (talk) 19:30, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

I "love" Mann? I "love" Mann? I don't know the guy. I was addressing his status in the climate field. You (apparently) think that Stephen Halbrook's status in the field of gun control is the same as Mann's in the climate field, which is hilariously wrong. Should I make some comment about whether you are fucking Halbrook or not, just to match your comment that I "love" Mann?

The best consensus that we can reach is whether research published on peer reviewed reputable journals should be cited? That is the question at hand.

No, the question is why a group of editors insists on defending and promoting a clearly false, inaccurate and one-sided version of history in this article, and how that group's desires, which run directly, precisely against Wikipedia's most central policy, can be corrected. That's the question, everything else is a distraction. — goethean 19:32, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

It depends on what is being supported. If a writer (with an axe to grind) said that 1. President Obama flew to Atlanta yesterday and that 2. The trip is basically a fund raising trip even though they claimed otherwise, they are probably suitable support for (unattributed) statement #1, but not #2. Similarly, straightforward coverage of gun control in Germany then vs. more ambitions statements like it being a tool for suppression etc. North8000 (talk) 19:34, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Neutral coverage of the history of gun control does not include a section on Nazi Germany. That is a sick fantasy promoted by an American gun promotion lobby, not by historians. — goethean 19:37, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

This is an author with a JD and a PhD, who was a long-time academic before becoming a widely published author and attorney. The ref is from a peer-reviewed RS. I understand that some on the left don't agree with him or his positions but that is really beside the point. Capitalismojo (talk) 19:41, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law is a recognised authority on the historiography of Nazi Germany? AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:50, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

No, he's apparently saying its an authority on gun control. — goethean 19:51, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

You are right, that is beside the point of fixing this hideously unbalanced article. Halbrook shouldn't be cited, because neutral coverage of the history of gun control does not include a section on Nazi Germany. — goethean 19:51, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Uhmm. Why? Capitalismojo (talk) 19:55, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Never mind. It doesn't matter. This section is about a tag about reliability. The ref is RS. This other stuff is off point. Capitalismojo (talk) 19:58, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

@Goethean, on your previous post:

• As defined by dictionary.com Gun Control: "government regulation of the sale and ownership of firearms". And the others are all similar.

And you are claiming that it would take a "sick fantasy" to say that such occurred in Nazi Germany? I think that the fantasy would be to deny the obvious, that such did occur. North8000 (talk) 19:56, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

No, that's not what I said as you can see by reading my comment. Here, I'll link it. Neutral coverage of the history of gun control does not include a section on Nazi Germany. — goethean 20:01, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

we determine neutrality by using the reliable sources. Halbrooks MANY works are reliable sources. Excluding a particular POV which is describing an opinion about 100% established facts, because you disagree with it is the antihithesis of neutrality. You have provided zero sources to defend your opinion, just a lot of hyper melodramatic teeth-gnashing. meethings the lady doth protest too much. Gaijin42 (talk) 19:57, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

So why don't you take it to WP:RSN? Oh wait, you've already done that. Didn't like the answer, I assume... AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:03, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The sole comment RSN said "But the author of this article is a nationally known expert, though the position e takes is controversial. What he publishes anywhere can be used as a RS, though, as with anything in this debate, it can not be quoted as definitively settling the issue it discusses. " so no, I am quite happy with that answer. Gaijin42 (talk) 20:10, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Goethean, your linked post essentially says that gun control in Nazi Germany should not be covered, and that such is a "sick fantasy". Unlike what you implied in a subsequent post, I think that my post directly addressed that. If not, where is the disparity? North8000 (talk) 20:09, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

We've been over this many times. It is a deliberate distortion to call the Holocaust an example of gun control. The people using this language, like Stephen Halbrook, make the distortion in order to paint supporters of gun control as authoritarians. How many more times would you like to go over this? — goethean 20:15, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

There is absolutely nobody who disagrees with Halbrook on the fact of gun control being used as a tool of the holocaust. EVERY source. 100% that touch the issue admit the basic facts. Harcourt, Slate, Mother jones, take your pick. they may disagree on the effect of this within the holocaust, and may also disagree on what implications this may or may not have for modern gun control debate, but NOBODY disagrees that gun control was implemented against the jews as an intentional part of the holocaust. Gaijin42 (talk) 20:22, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The article in its present state is a hideous distortion of history. — goethean 20:36, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Goethean, Gaijin42 just gave you a great opportunity to present one single refuting fact and instead you retort with some vacuous curt statement, "The article in its present state is a hideous distortion of history". Very typical of you and I guess would have to take your word for it that the article is a hideous distortion Goethean and Andy because in all these posts, you've given nothing substantial except personal attacks, condemnations, threats and accusations. Unfortunately for you, we don't -- I'll take it then that peer reviewed articles used here that are well referenced and published in peer reviewed journals presented in NPOV and supported by WP:RS and that comply with Wikipedia policy are just fine here. Thank you. I think we're done-Justanonymous (talk) 21:52, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

If you seriously think that being 'peer reviewed' makes something automatically reliable for anything more than the author's opinions, take it to WP:RSN. Or would you rather not do that in case you get the same answer as the last time this exact same source was raised there? [8] If we cite Halbrook at all (for which we'd first need evidence from credible independant sources that the subject matter is actually relevant to the article in the first place), we can do so - as an attributed opinion. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:02, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

AndyTheGrump The section above lists at least4 of the neutral gun control sources which reprint or discuss Halbrooks article. There are a number more which are in the large list of sources I linked in the RFC. I loko forward to hearing your hand waving explanation about why they don't count. Gaijin42 (talk) 15:32, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Andy, the bare facts that are being referenced to Halbrook are not disputed Harcourt. Harcourt is the only source we have that questions Halbrook. In his piece, however, Harcourt acknowledges the basics of Halbrook's writing, it his conclusions that he he disagrees with. Harcourt says disarming the jews is orthogonal to the Nazi program. Harcourt disagrees vehemently with the overall argument and it's direction. In Harcourt's view Hitler is pro-gun because he lessened gun regulation for "ordinary Germans". That is an argument that we could have but it doesn't address the present issue. Even Harcourt acknowledges the core legal/policy statements of Halbrook as accurate. Capitalismojo (talk) 22:26, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

there is zero dispute of any of the facts, and we (or at least I) are more than happy to accept the source as backing merely the opinion of the authors regarding those facts. The opposers have repeatedly stated their objection to including these opinions - if that objection is removed than certainly we have room to build consensus on how exactly to correctly attribute the opinions represented in these sources. You are proposing a bar that does not exist - There are dozens and dozens of books and articles discussing this meme - the notability of the viewpoint is inherent to the sources being published, no tertiary coverage of the source is required.Gaijin42 (talk) 22:06, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

There are 'dozens and dozens of books and articles' discussing flying saucers. We don't cite them regarding facts. And no, I'm not asking for 'tertiary sources'. I'm asking for independent sources for the assertion that Halbrook's opinions on Nazi Germany are relevant to a general discussion on firearms regulation. Without that, there is no justification for including his opinion at all. Find the credible independent sources covering firearms regulation in general that cover the topic on Nazi Germany in any depth, and we can then discuss whether Halbrook needs inclusion. Without such sources, the issue is moot. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:20, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

That is the very definition of a tertiary source. Halbrook is a secondary source. The other gun control books are secondary sources. They are published reliable sources (at a minimum of their authors opinions) . The shared opinion is inherently notable by the publication of those multiple sources. Tertiary notability is NOT required by WP:NPOV. Gaijin42 (talk) 22:23, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Utter bollocks. 'Sources covering firearms regulation in general' cannot possibly be 'tertiary' in an article on'firearms regulation in general'. Please at least attempt to present a rational argument... AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:31, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

The appropriate way to mention Halbrook is that he speaks for American anti-gun control groups. But that's not a sufficiently notable episode in the world history of gun control to mention in this article. Out of hundreds of historians in dozens of countries, this American conservative says that the Holocaust was an example of gun control. It's simply not appropriate for an article on a worldwide phenomenon to discuss at length the theories of American anti-gun control politicians on the Holocaust, esp. when a more neutral version of the history is available already at Gun politics in Germany! It's like mentioning debunked Serbian nationalist theories in the article on the Siege of Constantinople. The article would need to be book-length for inclusion to be appropriate. — goethean 22:27, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Halbrook is not the only ref in that section that is dealing with the Holocaust in terms of the gun control issue. Harcourt's paper does as well, suggesting that this is a recurring theme in gun control policy discussions. It should be noted that one of Halbrook's book on this subject has been published in four languages and that he has written articles on this issue in European law journals. So I would submit that perhaps this is a significant disussion in the issue of gun control and not just in the United States. Capitalismojo (talk) 22:56, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Oh, you mean RJ Rummel's book, Death by Government, which is also cited in the article? That definitely sounds like the most neutral and authoritative source on the history of gun control. Definitely. — goethean 23:04, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Ha ha, no. I was thinking Polsby, Daniel. "Of Holocausts and Gun Control". Washington University Law Quarterly.p1237 and The Complete History of the Holocaust Capitalismojo (talk) 23:08, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Does the The Complete History of the Holocaust ever mention the phrase "gun control"? — goethean 23:15, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

You got me. We are supposed to be discussion the tag in the section and you moved the discussion back into a broader discusion about whether there should even be such a section at all. I thought that was what the RfC above was to decide. I haven't weighed in up there yet. Lets finish the "unreliable source" tag on the law review article issue first shall we? Capitalismojo (talk) 23:27, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

You are a veteran editor. You know well that if the cited reference does not mention the topic of the article, it violates WP:OR. And yet you don't know if the book that you just added a page number to[9] mentions the topic of the article. The cited books.google.com URL is a search on the word weapons in the book. Is the implication here that if a book on the Holocaust mentions weapons, then it can be cited as an authoritative source for the idea that the Holocaust is an example of gun control? That's a stunning violation of both the spirit and letter of Wikipedia policy. — goethean 00:21, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

The proper course is to ask at RS/N whether the cite given supports the claim made. If you wish to accuse any editor of "violating Wikipedia policy" then post at AN/I. The article talk page is not the place to make such claims. Cheers. Collect (talk) 00:28, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

What? Let's go over this conversation again. Capitalistmojo adds a page number to a citation. I ask him if the book mentions gun control at all. He doesn't know. Your position is....is what? Take it to a noticeboard? The reference is a fraud. I have removed it. — goethean 00:44, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

you are a vandal. the reference cited linked directly to a discussion of the Nov 11 law which prohibited jews from owning firearms and other weapons. You either clearly did not bother to read the source on the exact location linked, or deliberately chose to ignore the relevant content. Gaijin42 (talk) 01:08, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Then take me to WP:AN/V. Or answer the question why we are using sources that don't mention gun control when a plethora of good relevant sources are available. — goethean 13:07, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

WP:GAME WP:DE

Yah, deleting the section under discussion of an RFC that has been in the article for many months is totally not disruptive gaming. You are not a winner. Please play again! Gaijin42 (talk) 20:07, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Grow up. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:46, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Peer Reviewed Law Journal as "unreliable"

The key thing is that Harcourt is the source of the idea that Halbrook is unreliable on this issue. Deeper in his piece, however, Harcourt ackowledges Halbrooks basic facts. It is his overall conclusions he disagrees with. In his paper he says essentially "Yes, the Nazis disarmed and killed the jews but Hitler was actually pro-gun for the average German." He then explains why. He is in this argument suggesting that the pro-gun argument using the Hitler/Nazi policies won't wash.

My point here is that we have a ref from:

• a specialist lawyer,
• PhD,
• former academic,
• who has written broadly on the subject
• writes frequent academic peer reviewed articles (7 in recent years I found)
• won before SCOTUS on the issues being discussed,
• whose main critic ackowledges he got the basics right,
• writing in an academic peer-reviewed journal

Are we really having a debate about whether this law review article is an "unreliable source"? Capitalismojo (talk) 23:04, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

No, we're trying to explain to you why the Holocaust has nothing to do with gun control. Which is what you just explained. Which is why the section on the Holocaust is inappropriate to this article. — goethean 23:06, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

You repeating your argument over and over again without giving it any backing is not explaining or debate, especially when your opponent has said something new. Shadowjams (talk) 07:22, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

No this has been about (or was supposed to be about) the tag "unreliable source" put on a law review article. Apparently you have been talking about something else. Why don't you agree that the law review ref is RS and we can start a new section on the larger issue. Capitalismojo (talk) 23:16, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

As a reminder "This tag is intended to be used when a statement is sourced, but it is questionable whether the source used is reliable for supporting the statement." The tagged ref is being used to support the statement: "Shortly thereafter, with the addition of the Regulations Against Jews' Possession of Weapons of November 11, 1938, Jews were forbidden from possession of any weapons at all." This law review article is in fact reliable for this bare recitation of historical fact. Unless there is disagreement I will remove this tag for this statement. Capitalismojo (talk) 00:03, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Frankly, after my above conversation, the next thing that needs to happen is that all of the references need to be examined to see if they are as fraudulent as the one I just removed.[10] — goethean 00:39, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

The question is not whether the sources are reliable but what weight should be assigned to the opinions expressed in them and, also a matter of weight, how important the 1938 act is to the overall subject. For example, the 2003. ‘Special Provisions for Shot Gun Certificates.’ in the Local Government (Firearms Control) Regulations of Pitcairn Island may be interesting, but not necessarily important enough to include. TFD (talk) 09:13, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

That may be a question. Lets resolve this specific little tiny gnomic question and everyone can get back to the vast delete/not-delete section debate. This small matter can be resolved if people will show good faith. Whether the entire subject should be removed is a different matter. Capitalismojo (talk) 15:23, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I notice that both TFD and goethean strongly believe that this section should not be in the article but neither expressed the thought that the law review was in fact unreliable for the specific bare historical fact. Given that, does anyone disagree with the removal of the tag (as opposed to the section)? Capitalismojo (talk) 15:33, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I had said earlier that it was rs. That means, assuming we used the source, we can assume the facts are accurate, unless proved otherwise. TFD (talk) 16:30, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Great, excellent. Somehow I missed that. Its good to get agreement on this most difficult of articles. Capitalismojo (talk) 16:34, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Note. It has now come to light that, contrary to claims above, the journal in question is not peer reviewed - see the thread below: [11] AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:53, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Removed Bolshevik Russia, should we add a section on the UK

Bolshevik Russia section had no accessible RS refs, I have removed it. Looking at the lede, we mention the UK but there is no section in the body of the article. Should one be created? There are a variety of news and academic articles out there on gun control in the UK. I remember reading (some of) them. If we mention something in the lede generally we should have further detail in the body. Capitalismojo (talk) 16:45, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean no accessible refs? Were they all dead? . The issue with per country sections is that we already have List of gun laws and policies by country in adition to the Gun politics in the United Kingdom article. the Nazi section above may superficially appear to be in that same grouping, but it is here as part of an argument about gun control in general. (I agree it should be moved from the history to the arguments section - as long as it is clear that the historical factsare uncontested). Information about the UK may also be relevant under a similar rationale, discussing the effectiveness or not of gun control (similar to the AU content) Gaijin42 (talk) 17:14, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I mean two things. First: the refs were in russian. Second: After a fair amount of searching I found no comparable english refs to validate or verify the section. Capitalismojo (talk) 18:28, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Article format and sections

Not that I want to deter any of the spirited discussion regarding specific topics, but I'd like to start a conversation regarding the overall format of the article. Currently we have:

Lead

1 Terminology and context

2 History

2.1 Japan of the Shogunate

2.2 United States

2.3 Australia

2.4 Nazi disarmament of German Jews

3 Studies, debate, and opinions

4 3D printing

5 See also

6 References

7 External links

8 Further reading

I'd like to propose the following sections and order. Subsections have their own discussions, this is just for the sake of article cleanup and organization:

Lead

1 Terminology and context

2 Legal/Legislative basis (Magna Charta, Blackstone, 2nd Amendment, worldwide gun laws, etc.)

2 Opinions, beliefs, and factions (the main sides of the debate and/or an explanation of the continuum they represent)

3 Studies and debate (why they believe what they believe)

3 History

3.1 Peace time (legislation, rulings, and SCOTUS)

3.2 War time

3.3 Association with Totalitarianism

4 Implications of firearm development

4.1 Firearm evolution (firesticks to match/flint/caplocks to cartridge guns to machines guns/assault weapons)

4.2 [Related development] or some other/better title (smokeless powder, self contained metallic cartridge, changeable magazines, etc.)

4.3 3D printing

5 See also

6 References

7 External links

8 Further reading

And before anyone asks, yes, these sections are based on the references that we already have or that we know exist in related articles.<br?> Your (constructive) thoughts? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 18:18, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Interesting. Would you consider working on this version in your sandbox so we could see what it might shape up to? Capitalismojo (talk) 18:29, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Normally I'd be happy to, but I think I'm considered (regardless of my efforts or intentions to be neutral) one of the "pro-gun nuts". It might better if someone "more neutral" took a stab at it assuming the format makes sense to others. Any takers? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 19:01, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

It's like shoving your hand in a meat grinder. Capitalismojo (talk) 20:00, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

• Well, "Association with Totalitarianism" is a problem, isn't it. Let us not presuppose that there is such a connection. To give examples of totalitarian regimes banning guns (or something like that--"exercising rules on gun ownership" is more accurate) is no more valid than giving examples of non-totalitarian regimes banning guns, and including the former while excluding the latter (a long, long list) is lending UNDUE weight to an issue that we know is contentious--indeed, is fodder for propaganda. Drmies (talk) 19:45, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Agreed about the title. "Restrictions on gun ownership for political purposes" would seem NPOV and apt for the cites given. Non-totalitarian regimes properly sourced as having controls for "political purposes" (I suggest disarming political opponents would generally fall into that category) would be then added with appropriate reliable sourcing. As long as all which use the controls for political purposes are allowed, there ought be no problems. Collect (talk) 20:10, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

• Collect, it almost sounds as if you're agreeing with me at least partly! Keep up the good work--you'll go far! Drmies (talk) 20:42, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I never choose my opinions on the basis of what someone else thinks -- you will find grumpy Andy noting this peculiarity of mine -- my positions, as best I can, are based on policies and guidelines the community establishes. I am, if anything, consistent in how I treat the rules, though I suspect some others make up their minds on the basis of what their friends think. Cheers. Collect (talk) 20:51, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Drmies and Collect, that's brilliant analysis, thank you! I'll stand by my original sections "Peace" and "War time" and leave it at that. All of the historical subjects we've been discussing fall under one or the other sub-topic and with better context. And with any luck will keep them brief, but accurate. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 20:47, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I am not sure "peace" and "wartime" will work -- the Nazis were sorta at peace but definitely preparing for war in 1938, so dealing with that as a dichotomy is gonna be tough. Your system would require them in both sections, I fear. Collect (talk) 20:51, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I understand your point, but I picked those terms for a couple of reasons. One, they are fairly clear delineations IMO to the average reader (yes, people can debate specific dates, but I'd argue that most people understand even historically "when war time is imminent", "war is happening", and "war time is over") and, Two, its a loosely chronological schema that provides a framework far less determined by opinion and less likely to be obfuscated (whoo hoo, don't get to use that one often) by WP:UNDUE sections. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 21:10, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree in principle with changing the format of the article, but I think an important prerequisite is to decide on the scope of the article, and to provide some sort of coherence. It seems to be accepted that "gun control" is a different thing from "gun legislation" or "gun politics", but there doesn't seem to be any consensus on what "gun control" actually is, or how it is distinguished from the other two concepts. The History section illustrates this perfectly. "Australia" deals with the reaction to two crimes involving guns, in 1996 and 2002; "United States" deals with 19th-century laws aimed specifically at slaves, then at blacks, before moving on to 20th-century laws that regulated certain kinds of gun or certain kinds of people, without providing much by way of rationale; "Nazi laws regarding ownership of arms", well, we know what that deals with; "Bolshevik Russia" (now deleted) talked about the fact that the Tsarists allowed revolutionaries to get guns, but the Bolsheviks made sure that counter-revolutionaries couldn't; and "Japan of the Shogunate" talks about the jealousy of 17th-century samurai! I can't see any connection whatever between these, apart from the similarity between American oppression of blacks and Nazi oppression of Jews. Simply changing the subsection headings to "Wartime", "Peacetime" and (Whatever you decide the third will be) will not give us a coherent history of gun control, or even a coherent definition. In fact, even if you decided to (and you were able to) make this an article about all these different concepts, I don't think it's appropriate to have a History section at all, because such a nebulous concept doesn't have a history. Better to have

Forms of "gun control"

Control for prevention of crime

Control for prevention of revolution or counter-revolution

Control for oppression of minorities

Control for protection of elites

etc., and use the Australian, Russian, American, German and Japanese cases to illustrate these. When we've sorted these issues out in our heads, maybe we can better decide what other section headings to have. Scolaire (talk) 20:55, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Scolaire, excellent suggestion and I find those perfect additions to either the "Terminology and context" section or possibly the proposed "Opinions, beliefs, and factions" section. Please also see my reply to Collect above which take your analysis into consideration as well. But I do not find the history of this topic to be nebulous, its varied and complex, but it indicates two causalities. An event happens which triggers a reaction, or, there is a pre-emptory action to accomplish a certain outcome. You've already given examples of both. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 21:21, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I think that all of these directions is probably better than the current version, which could merit inclusion and consolidation of the disputed content in a way that gives it appropriate weight compared to other uses of gun control, and correctly attributes historical facts vs opinions regarding those facts. Between the 3? choices I think the generic "Gun control for political purposes" is probably the best. The more narrow groupings above I think will be subject to contention over how to characterize the policies correctly. The war vs peace thing I think does not provide a lot of value in its organization, and would prevent the grouping of the jewish issue with the US jim crow issue, which I think are good compliments for each other (and would possibly allow for condensation (improving the WP:WEIGHT) of the content since much of the argument regarding the two sets of policies is similar and from similar sources). Gaijin42 (talk) 22:17, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Hey Gaijin (Welcome back!), so if not War/Peace, then "Gun control for political purposes" along with...?? Alternatively, what do you think of my "causality" delineation: An event happens which triggers a reaction, or, there is a pre-emptory action to accomplish a certain outcome. Both involve "control", but separate them by their intentions. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 22:31, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

I think political purposes, vs crime & accident prevention perhaps as the obvious alternative. Obviously there could be conflict even with these two broad categories but most historical things will be easy to drop in one bucket or the other at this point. (Certainly even the opossers above would not argue that the nazi gun laws were for cime/violence/accident protection?) For modern issues where there is live debate, we can place the arguments of each side in the appropriate section (with appropriate WP:DUE weight of course. Gaijin42 (talk) 22:36, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

Makes sense, so maybe...

Lead

1 Terminology and context

2 Legal/Legislative basis (Magna Charta, Blackstone, 2nd Amendment, worldwide gun laws, etc.)

3 Opinions, beliefs, and factions (the main sides of the debate and/or an explanation of the continuum they represent)

4 Studies and debate (why they believe what they believe)

5 Implementation Causes(not in any particular order)

5.1 Crime prevention

5.2 Political purposes

5.3 Safety and consumer protection

5.3 Other (revenue, ecological, etc.)

6 History

7 Implications of firearm development

7.1 Firearm evolution (firesticks to match/flint/caplocks to cartridge guns to machines guns/assault weapons)

7.2 [Related development] or some other/better title (smokeless powder, self contained metallic cartridge, changeable magazines, etc.)

7.3 3D printing

8 See also

9 References

10 External links

8 Further reading

? --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 22:50, 19 December 2013 (UTC)

For #5 I would say "uses", perhaps, but not "causes". Gun control, however we decide to define it, is not "caused"; it is implemented by somebody for some purpose.

I still can't see how you're going to write the History of gun control. "Gun control first arose in the 17th century when Japanese samurai whinged about the downgrading of swordfighting, developed into a slavery mechanism in 19th-century America, served as a medium for exterminating Jews in Nazi Germany, and emerged as an insidious tactic to infringe the civil right to bear arms / a policy for reducing epidemic levels of gun crime in late 20th-century America and Australia"? I could write a section on arms control in Ireland during the Home Rule Crisis, 1912-14. It would be impeccably referenced, completely in line with current Irish historiography, and add another layer of utter confusion onto an already utterly confusing narrative. Better to integrate the historical material into the discussion of the varieties and uses of gun control. Scolaire (talk) 00:14, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Even better wording... As for the history, I'd like to not be mired in the various rhetoric that's been tossed about. We can craft a couple of basic paragraphs explaining that its been used as a political tool as well as reactionary means over the decades, centuries, or whatever using the uncontentious examples of the lot. I'm not trying to provide an outlet for every claim. --Scalhotrod - Just your average banjo playing, drag racing, cowboy... (talk) 03:42, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I would agree with such a section if it could be fully inclusive as to time and place and it could be fully sourced from scholarly works that deal with the history of gun control as such. The state of the article at present strongly suggests to me that that will not be doable. Scolaire (talk) 12:31, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Scolaire that it is likely impossible to write such a history in a coherent fashion from the available sources. It might be possible to write a history of this US debate on gun control and the use of (instrumentalisation of) history and holocaust imagery, etc, within it, but I think that that is all. FiachraByrne (talk) 12:58, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I think the whole article should be about this US debate on gun control and the instrumentalisation of history and holocaust imagery etc. within it. Everything else that's in it at the moment is just for show, to pretend that this is some global historical subject when in fact pretty well all the editors are interested in just this one thing. Scolaire (talk) 15:17, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I've repeatedly made the same suggestion: except that we already have an article on that subject: Gun politics in the United States. There is no need for another article on the same debate, though expansion may be an option, if proper sourcing from academic literature discussing the subject of the U.S. gun debate as a wholecan be found to avoid the WP:OR issues the article is currently burdened with. Given the subject matter, I'm sure such sources exist. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:26, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I presume the implementation of that suggestion would require a RFC on an article merge/delete? FiachraByrne (talk) 17:34, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Although it might theoretically fall under one of the headings, to me it seems to give short basic straightforward coverage of significant instances of gun control. This would probably be best done by countries. And when there is significant history, that would usually fall best under the country. North8000 (talk) 13:08, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

The way it "falls under the country" at the moment, you mean? Because I thought the idea was to improve the article. Scolaire (talk) 15:09, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

That sort of implies the "under the country" is bad, but I don't know why such would be. Either way, that would be just one way to organize it. But I would think that straightforward coverage of significant instances of gun control would be central to the article. North8000 (talk) 17:36, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

See my two posts above for what I think about the current "under the country" format. Scolaire (talk) 22:24, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Guns and Germany, reboot

I've been reading Bernard Harcourt, "Hitler and Gun Registration" (it's linked in the article). Interesting stuff:

But even before the Treaty [of Versailles] was signed, the German parliament of the Weimar Republic enacted legislation prohibiting gun possession: on January 13, 1919, the Reichstag enacted legislation requiring the surrender of all guns to the government. This law, as well as the August 7, 1920, Law on the Disarmament of the People passed in light of the Versailles Treaty, remained in effect until 1928, when the German parliament enacted the Law on Firearms and Ammunition (April 12, 1928)—a law which relaxed gun restrictions and put into effect a strict firearm licensing scheme. (Page 8)

In other words, gun laws in Germany were much stricter in the time period before Hitler's rise to power: Hitler's restrictions had nothing on those of the Weimar Republic. If Hitler's supposed tightening (which we now all know was only one of a number of measures) of gun laws is worthwhile mentioning, then certainly Weimar's draconian gun laws are worth mentioning. So why don't we? Because the Weimar Republic is not a totalitarian regime--when the good guys enact strict gun control, we don't mention it, it seems. I don't know if all editors here have read Harcourt; they should. For the sake of NPOV, I'll order one of these shooting targets tonight. Drmies (talk) 00:33, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

My suggestion is that if we want a fork that goes into all the conspiracy theories then we should follow WP:FRINGE, which allows that, provided we have a neutral title. There are articles about how the moon landing was faked, 9/11 was an inside job, etc. Why not have an article about what extreme gun people think? TFD (talk) 01:10, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

One really ought to follow AGF -- the "reductio" argument that all who believe Nazi Germany did, indeed, disarm the Jews are "extreme gun people" and that it is like saying the moon landing was faked is not really going to gain any traction in a reasoned discussion about gun control history. Cheers. Collect (talk) 01:32, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Who says that, Collect? TFD isn't saying what you say they're saying. They're pointing at the well-known conspiracy theory about authoritarianism and gun control, I think, not about basic facts (which are a lot more complicated than has been proposed on these pages). Drmies (talk) 01:36, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

In which case - read my comments above - and note what I consider a neutral section title, and that it could easily cover the topic properly. When aiming at a straw man, it helps to make sure it is actually made of straw. Collect (talk) 01:42, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I gotta say, I was already very wary about the inclusion of this stuff in the first place--reading what a real historian has to say is very insightful. Above, in the ole RfC, someone says "sure Hitler was all about gun control", so what Harcourt signals has been very effective. He also discusses that famous quote:

This year will go down in history! For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!

And that quote turns out to be, basically, bogus--unattested, unverified, incongruous with the time and the events, etc. So by now I'm dead-set against its inclusion: it's not just cherrypicking from the 1938 legislation or from the historical record of all countries in all of the world, it's marred by basic errors, misreadings, and inconsistencies. Drmies (talk) 01:36, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

By the way, Harcourt is another law professor - this gun control argument has, not surprisingly, yet to make any kind of impact on the scholarly literature dealing with the history of holocaust. The fact that no historians address it (the argument and interpretation rather than the fact that there was such legislation) is a measure of its significance in the historiography of Nazi Germany. In my opinion, Halbrook et al. belong on WP, if at all, only in article dealing with the gun control debate in America (possible Brazil too) and only with proper contextualisation that traces the introduction of this historical analogy with the passage of the US 1968 Gun Control Act which it was alleged (by the advocacy group, Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership) was a direct copy of the 1938 Nazi legislation. FiachraByrne (talk) 01:58, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

See Talk:Gun Control Act of 1968, and the recent history of that article, where this came up and has now gone the way of other conspiracy theories. Drmies (talk) 03:47, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't advocate the inclusion of a JFPO source or the treatment of their allegation regarding the 1968 legislation as in any way credible. The JFPO are fringe, no doubt. Rather, I think it would be valuable and informative to trace the origins and development of the analogy of firearm regulation with Nazism in American political discourse. Harcourt provides a lot of this context and, as with other sources [12], he indicates that the JFPO are part of the relevant context. The earliest reference I can trace for the comparison of firearm regulation to Nazi policies is to some militia periodicals in the early 1970s [13]. There are other reliable sources on the use of "holocaust imagery" in the US gun control debate that could also be used for context [14]. There have also been interesting treatments on the attempt to export US gun lobby rhetoric to Brazil [15] and (far less successfully) the UK [16]. FiachraByrne (talk) 11:51, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't know what weird sideroad you guys are going down with this Harcourt argument... but I agree with Drmies original post... the entire history of gun laws for the relevant regime should be included. That's a far cry from Drmies "very wary about the inclusion of this stuff" comment, but we already knew that's how you feel Drmies. There's obviously going to be battles over the language of that, but I think this is a no brainer resolution. Shadowjams (talk) 07:17, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

On this, see Scolaire's excellent post above. FiachraByrne (talk) 12:01, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

The "weird sideroad" is the Halbrook argument, "First they came for the guns." Harcourt merely writes about Halbrook's argument. Take out Halbrook and there is no need to add Harcourt. TFD (talk) 15:48, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Shadowjams, that the entire history for the relevant regime should be included is pure rhetoric: it cannot be done here, and if it's done anywhere it should be done in Gun legislation in Germany, which might be an interesting thing to write up. There is no rationale whatsoever to write up Germany here and not every other country in the world. You can give no reason for including Germany (and possibly Edo-Japan or Mao's China?) and excluding Finland, England, Swaziland, Mauritius, Mongolia, and every other country in the world--unless your argument already is that "totalitarian regimes restrict guns for blah blah", a presupposition previously made true in our article by cherrypicking and poor reading. So no. Harcourt is not a sideroad: the article clinches the scholarly assessment that the dictatorial gun controller thing is a myth (FRINGE). That's important here: Harcourt provides the rationale for excluding any partial mention of German gun control. Drmies (talk) 16:31, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

drmies We currently have two overview articles This one, and List of gun laws and policies by country. This article should be an overview of the concept, not details on individual countries implementations. However, there are different types/puropses of gun control. (general) crime prevention, accident prevention, stopping spree killings. Other types oand purposes of gun control are obviously political - stopping revolution, class/race warfare, etc. It is entirely appropriate to have examples of each type for discussion in the overview article here, and the NAZI use (along with the weimar use, and perhaps others) are legitimate uses of illustrating and exemplifying the archetypes of gun control implementations, or as arguments for/against gun control (just as we include quotes and examples of how nifty it is at reducing crime in some place, but not others). Gaijin42 (talk) 16:39, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

drmies I think the harcourt article is excellent, both because it provides additional context (particular in regards to the '19 and '28 weimar law), and in fact directly agrees to the basic premise of the argument.

It is widely accepted (harcourt, library of congress) that the early laws were targeted directly against the Nazis, and other paramilitary groups that were threatening, and attempting to overthrow the weimar republic. (The government having effectively disarmed by the surrender terms of wwI was unable to control the armed groups engaging in what we today would probably term gang warfare). As late as '32 Heinrich Bruening attempted to ban the SA and SS (see rise and fall of the 3rd reich) (Ironically setting up the situation that enabled the Nazis to legally take control).

The subsequent laws enacted by Hitler were to a) rearm the nazis, in particular the private army SAs. 2) ensure familiarazation of the about to be conscripted public with firearms usage. 3)ensure the disarm all political opponents, specifically calling out jews. Harcourt repeatedly and explicitly gives up the game - sure he disagrees with the NRAs use of nazi imagery in modern debate. Yes he says "the nazi's were not in general pro gun control".

Both of those prior arguments are straw men, which do not in any way disprove the core history being argued - the core history which Harcourt specifically and explicitly admits to "Hitler imposed regulations prohibiting Jewish persons from possessing any dangerous weaponsincluding firearms. The Nazi regime implemented this prohibition by confiscating weapons, including guns, from Jewish persons, and subsequently engaged in genocide ofthe Jewish population" or "To be sure, the Nazis were intent on killing Jewish persons and used the gun laws and regulations to further the genocide".

Nobody on either sidedisagrees that Hitler armed his private army (SA, party), while disarming the people he was about to exterminate. So the fact that the nazis armed themselves and the "loyal" german public is really not an argument against the meme! Harcourt discusses this directly as well, quoting The Nazi minister of the interior "“If these provisions guarantee that no enemies of the National Socialist state possess any weapons, then it is justifiable and appropriate to relax the current limiting provisions of the Weapons Law for the population faithful to the state".

To AndyTheGrump (Saul)WP:FRINGE You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. (/Saul) What part is fringe? That the nazis implemented gun control? That the gun control specifically targeted Jews? That there are a plethora of memos, diaries, and documents saying "Go attack the jews, they are disarmed so you shouldn't have any resistance"? That the jews were later exterminated? Please identify the specific facts which you think are fringe. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:06, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

• What is fringe is the implication in this article that Nazi firearms regulations are in any way whatsoever central to an international overview of firearms regulation. You have been asked on countless occasions to provide sources to demonstrate that anyone but a minority of U.S. right-wing pro-gun activists consider it significant. You have entirely failed to do so. You can't because it doesn't exist. But again and again you resort to every tendentious and policy-violating trick in the book to promote this pseudohistorical propaganda. Either produce the sources required under policy to justify the inclusion of such material in this article, or find another platform to peddle this horseshit. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:28, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I disagree with your assertion, but in any case it is irrelevant. Neutrality says we represent ALL POINTS OF VIEW. Not just the ones you like. Not all points except pro gun activists. It is a notable pov, it should be included. You have previously admitted that this opinion is presented in reliable sources. That is the end of the discussion. ALL POVS from RSs should be included. " We avoid advocacy and we characterize information and issues rather than debate them. In some areas there may be just one well-recognized point of view; in others, we describe multiple points of view, presenting each accurately and in context rather than as "the truth" or "the best view"" "As a general rule, do not remove sourced information from the encyclopedia solely on the grounds that it seems biased" "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources" "If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents" "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public" I note that your repeated accusation of fringe is entirely baseless - as you have yet to identify a single factual assertion you think is untrue. Gaijin42 (talk) 18:37, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

And yet again, you grossly misrepresent Wikipedia policy in order to promote your propagandistic hogwash WP:UNDUE is completely and utterly unambiguous on this:

Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources. Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views as much of, or as detailed, a description as more widely held views. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a "see also" to an article about those specific views. For example, the article on the Earth does not directly mention modern support for the Flat Earth concept, the view of a distinct minority; to do so would give undue weight to it.

Produce the evidence, from academic sources discussing the general topic of firearms regulation, that this particular 'Nazi' issue is relevant to the broader discussion, rather than being the ahistorical propagandising of a fringe minority within a single country. Or accept that you will have to find another soapbox. Significance within a topic only be demonstrated by sources which discuss the topic as a whole - no matter how much cherry-picking and Google mining you engage in, without such sources, WP:WEIGHT has to apply, and this issue relegated to its proper place - in an article on U.S. discourse on firearms regualation, as the opinion of a small fringe. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:58, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

And where is the reliable source which says that Nazi Germany was a significant development in the history of gun control? If you had this, you wouldn't be digging through old newspapers to piece together your partisan jumble of "facts". — goethean 18:53, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

• Gaijin, at the risk of sounding pedantic, can you please insert paragraphing? My old eyes can't follow your argument very well. Thanks. Drmies (talk) 16:24, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

 Done

What's fringe, and what makes a mockery of NPOV, is the version of history that you have forced into this article, in which Nazi Germany is a major development in the history of gun control, when you have failed to cite a single mainstream historian who endorses this story that you're telling. There are plenty of sources available for it,[17][18] indeed, thousand and thousands of them. But they are editorials from right-wing magazines and emails that one gets forwarded from one's senile uncle. No mainstream historian would endorse your partisan version of history. But tellingly, you have been successful in forcing it on this article since ROG5728's original bad edit in April, when he moved the material from "Arguments" to "History". If this article is to maintain a semblance of neutrality, the OMG NAZI GUN CONTROL!!!111 material must be returned to the "Arguments" section, where it belongs. You are misusing sources, pretending that they talk about gun control when in fact they do no such thing. — goethean 16:30, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I personally have no objection to putting this information in the arguments section (or in the alternative structure being discussed elsewhere, as one of the examples of "gun control for political purposes". Under that latter grouping, the weimar laws would also be applicable, which would provide more context and balance as well. I cannot of course speak for others. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:32, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Okay, then can we just get rid of the entire History section, since the material is more appropriate at the Gun politics at x articles? — goethean 16:44, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Per WP:SUMMARY it is perfectly appropriate to have overview articles that give examples and explanations and duplicate content that is discussed elsewhere. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:47, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

All of this should be moved to Gun legislation in Germany. Into history, and out of the POV of the gun debate. Drmies (talk) 16:33, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Its history! Its argument! the opposers should decide on what grounds they are opposing perhaps. Gaijin42 (talk) 16:47, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, we're obviously not as organized as the supporters. — goethean 16:59, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

It's already treated in a more neutral manner, at Gun politics in Germany. Why we need to repeat it here in a more partial, slanted, partisan way is difficult to say. — goethean 16:40, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not that enthralled with Harcourt. He relies over much on the arguments of the notorious neo-nazi William Pierce. He admits embarrasment to be in the position of agreeing with the neo-nazis but goes forward anyway. He dwells over-much on the Regulations of 1938 as if the nazis did nothing related to firearms before 1938. Other writers spend considerable time and detail with the gun-control activities by the nazis before Nov 11, 1938. The regime used the previous restrictive laws to first disarm the communists, other parties, then jews and gypsies. There was plenty of flexibility within the pre-38 laws to deny their political opponents access to and ownership of weapons. This makes for a different discussion. But it does seem to point the way towards a more nuanced history. Capitalismojo (talk) 17:04, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

He does not "rely on" Pierce, he mentions him because he is explaining how the Right in the U.S. views the 1938 act. Similarly he mentions Halbrook but does not rely on him. TFD (talk) 17:12, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

From his conclusion "How is it, you may ask, that I-the faithful and loving son of a Jewish refugee ... would end up agreeing with a white supremacist leader of the National Alliance and National Vanguard? This is the truly bizarre, surprising, and somewhat uncomfortable product of culture war." That seems like he is making it, if not central to his discussion, certainly important to it. Capitalismojo (talk) 17:22, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

No, what is bizarre is that anyone would put that spin on his article. Did you read the article and come to that conclusion or did you get that idea from a website? TFD (talk) 17:39, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Was this article ever any good?

I don't have time to trawl through the page history, and I don't mean to insult any of the main editors, but was this article ever any good? It's terrible right now, so maybe the best thing is to just commence a complete rewrite or put it up for deletion.--MONGO 18:25, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

A lot of good people have tried to make this article good but it's always been two steps forwards three steps back. There is a lot of passion around this topic and there has been a lot of creative destruction. We see this in the recent talks over recent deletions. It's like that for almost all the edits - painful. I will say that Gaijin42 has been very willing to adjust to the changing winds and people have worked hard to add good content which is not necessarily un-contentious. Which is why I sometimes am a bit overzealous at protecting those hard fought additions against summary deletion by one editor. I've always been of the mind that this should be a "short beefy" article vs a long contentious one but it's been hard getting there. -Justanonymous (talk) 19:03, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I'd come up with a new informal outline and skip over how individual countries handle gun control...maybe even just use modern legislation such as those enacted since the end of WWII and title the article that way...Gun Control since the end of the WWII....suggesting this since that will eliminate the ongoing disagreements with what the Nazis did or didn't do....etc.--MONGO 19:18, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually the era of mass production of guns is the logical demarcation -- allowing the laws against blacks having guns etc. would certainly be of interest to the reader. Until good guns were mass-produced, there was no real call for "gun control" = Colt put an end to that. Collect (talk) 19:23, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you, Collect, for once more confirming that on the issue of firearms regulation, few U.S. contributors are capable of thinking beyond the borders of their own narrow nationalistic concerns. AndyTheGrump (talk) 19:43, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

It was a straightforward comment and idea. Are the insults really necessary? North8000 (talk) 20:12, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

It wasn't an insult, it was an observation - one that is self-evidently true. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:21, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Really? You personally observed a representative sample of "U.S. contributors" (I would be interested in how large your sample was and what method you used to identify nationality) and, using some sort of magic test that appears to be unavailable to anyone else, managed to determine what they are "capable of thinking beyond" -- something that psychologists and neuroscientists have trouble ascertaining in a clinical setting? And yet you, and you alone, are able to not only derive these deep psychological insights from a few words posted on a talk page, but to go further and determine that these rather insulting insights are "self-evidently true"? Alas, Wikipedia policy forbids me from writing down what I am thinking right now, so instead I refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram. And yes, if I haven't made this clear. I do consider "Few U.S. contributors are capable of thinking beyond the borders of their own narrow nationalistic concerns" to be an insult. I would also note that I am still not taking sides concerning your content dispute; whether someone is rude and insulting has very little to do with whether they are right. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:22, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

The 'sample size' is that which can be found on this talk page, and its archives. I suggest that if you have the stomach for it, you read it - and then decide for yourself whether I am right. The evidence seems clear enough to me. THis is supposed to be an article with an international perspective. It is utterly dominated by the U.S. discourse on firearms - as clear an example of systematic bias as can be found anywhere on Wikipedia. AndyTheGrump (talk) 21:33, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

It does read like a very parochial debate and this is reflected in at least some of the article content. The US is an outlier in terms of gun ownership and is certainly very distinct in terms of its political discourse on gun rights and control. This is perhaps most evident when attempts have been made to transplant this discourse to other settings which seems to have resulted in a certain degree of incongruity and incoherence (e.g. the Brasil referendum on gun regulation). To frame the issue of gun control in an international context in terms of the internal US debate is to introduce a major distortion and editors should be mindful of this. FiachraByrne (talk) 01:11, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

"Utterly dominated by the U.S. discourse on firearms - as clear an example of systematic bias as can be found anywhere on Wikipedia" is acceptable and helpful.

"It does read like a very parochial debate and this is reflected in at least some of the article content." and "To frame the issue of gun control in an international context in terms of the internal US debate is to introduce a major distortion and editors should be mindful of this" is acceptable and helpful.

"Few U.S. contributors are capable of thinking beyond the borders of their own narrow nationalistic concerns" is not acceptable and is not helpful. This isn't about whether there is a systematic bias. It is about using insulting and demeaning language that requires diagnosing someone's capabilities and motivations based on some talk page comments and then defending the clear insult as "just an observation". --Guy Macon (talk) 06:31, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Okay....well...how many disparate but interrelated articles do we have on this matter? Was this the father article from which POV forks were branched from or is it the other way around? The only related article of similarity I have worked on was Gun violence in the United States. I'm thinking the best way forward if the article has to exist is to simply document what the legislative history is and avoid discussion in the article about whether that legislation is good or bad, etc. I recognize we would like to make correlations between things, but how else do we achieve NPOV in such a hot topic?--MONGO 20:43, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

• The recently-renamed[19] Gun politics article pretty much covers the same scope as this article, including sections on arguments and on laws by country. — goethean 21:26, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Gun control according to Merriam Webster is defined as, "laws that control how guns are sold and used and who can own them". The term Gun politics is not in the dictionary, therefor is a much newer term or one that does not merit inclusion yet. The accepted term for discussing the laws that control how guns are sold and used is gun control. In some world I can see gun politics as being a broader term but in reality it's a narrower concept because "gun politics" is just the process that you go to enact gun control. Gun control is the accepted term that encompasses these types of laws.-Justanonymous (talk) 21:44, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I will make this addition for the newcomers who might not know, gun control has recently since 2013 become a bad word within the communities of people who are for well, "gun control." There appears to be a rebranding effort to try to substitute "gun control" with "gun safety" or "gun politics." The onslaught to remove "gun control" from the wiki is political. It's the same battle that goes on with "assault weapon" vs "assault rifle". These kinds of things are very common in the world of politics. Both sides are trying to paint their efforts in the best light they can. The article is sadly stuck in the middle of a vast battleground --- hence the quality issues. Now, the sad reality for better or for worse gun control is the term that is in the dictionary and gun politics is not because gun control is the accepted term for these things.-Justanonymous (talk) 21:55, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Whatever. I don't care if its at gun politics or gun control, but there should only be one main article. And the gun politics article is currently far superior to this article. — goethean 22:27, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not necessarily of that mind. Climate change and global warming are sibling articles and there are few in the community advocating that we fold them into one today. This is a big space to cover. Gun control is a clear concept that is found in the dictionary while "gun politics" is a new term created by renaming an article. My argument is that gun control should be a "short beefy" article that describes the concept and maybe a bit of the general history of the concept without getting too contentious.-Justanonymous (talk) 22:38, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

Global warming is a subset of climate change. Gun control and gun politics are very nearly synonymous, certainly enough so not to justify two largely over-lapping articles. Having two articles in the same scope simply encourages POV forking which is exactly what we have here: Gun politics in Germany and then here we have the American right-wing version of gun politics in Germany. It's nonsense. — goethean 22:55, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

For an international article, "firearm regulation" would be a better title. Certainly, to talk about gun politics in Ireland is just bizarre. I have yet to read a substantive reason why the content of this article should not be merged or deleted when the topic receives adequate and more neutral coverage elsewhere in WP. FiachraByrne (talk) 01:17, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Yup. Though I'd suggest that 'Regulation of firearms' might be a possible neutral alternative for an international article. Though of course this has been rejected out of hand in the past - I suspect possibly because 'gun control' is the U.S. buzzword, and this article naturally finds itself amongst the first few Google hits, whereas the oddly-named 'gun politics' is well out of the way of searches. AndyTheGrump (talk)

The Oxford dictionary also lists gun control as, "laws that restrict the sale and use of guns", so it's not just an American thing or buzz word. It's the accepted term in the English language. I'm all for cleaning the article up or reshaping it in a logical fashion.-Justanonymous (talk) 01:47, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

"It's the accepted term in the English language". Prove it. With a source that actually says so - dictionaries define words or phrases. They rarely tell us which possible alternative is more commonly used. THe source you cite certainly doesn't. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:06, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I did prove it. Gun control is in the dictionaries both English and British English and I gave the definitions. Your compound words and the words proposed by others are not in the dictionaries. Gun control is the term. Sorry. -Justanonymous (talk) 02:18, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Gun control I could probably live with, I guess. Gun politics makes no sense in other national settings and really, outside of the US and some other countries, "Regulation of firearms" or similar should be preferred. For the record the OED entry on "gun control" states: orig. and chiefly U.S. The statutory regulation of the licensing and use of firearms; an instance or aspect of this. (Now the usual sense.) Although there was a movement in the United States in the 1930s to regulate firearms, we have found no evidence that the term gun control was used. The use of the phrase became widespread in the aftermath of the assassination of President Kennedy (22 November 1963). FiachraByrne (talk) 02:01, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I think the article needs a rationale for existing at all, at this point. FiachraByrne (talk) 02:03, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

The term itself I'm sure has a rich history that should be in the article under an term origins section. I'm not certain but I imagine it will date back to the culture wars of the 60s or 70s, don't know how it came to mainstream use and into the dictionaries but that's the kind of stuff that is un contentious and merits inclusion. It's the accepted term for the regulation of firearms today. We should not contort ourselves to find another substitute without substantial rationale. If we do, we look biased. -Justanonymous (talk) 02:08, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's a rich tapestry ... As the OED indicates, and it traces the first usage of the term (1964 Sat. Evening Post 1 Feb. 12/1 'In framing gun-control laws we must think carefully about the constitutional aspects'), "gun control" is a phrase that originates from and is chiefly used in the US. It is most appropriate for use in a US context and probably not a for an article which should be addressing an international perspective on the topic of firearm regulation. Such an article would have a significantly different content to the current iteration of this article. FiachraByrne (talk) 02:34, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Most of the content of such an international article of firearm regulation is apparently already in the article List of gun laws and policies by country. How is it intended that this article will differ? FiachraByrne (talk) 02:39, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

"Gun control" is the most common and notable name for government regulation of ownership and use of firearms. It's a big, wp:notable topic. And "regulation" is clearly not a synonym with "politics". It really isn't that complicated. North8000 (talk) 02:12, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

In order to legitimise this forking of the topic, you need to provide a source that explains why the subject matter needs to be subdivided in this way. Without such a source, the forking is contrary to policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:15, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

since gun control is the core term, others are forks. This is the core term found in dictionaries, common vernacular, google, newspaper articles. It's WP notable and merits inclusion. It's also a term of historical importance in and of itself. -Justanonymous (talk) 02:22, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Is there something about the phrase 'provide a source' that you find difficult to comprehend? AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:28, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Andy, nice try. Trying to say that someone is supposed to full a ridiculous gauntlet (find a source that has addressed wikipedia article organization and naming question, and when there is zero basis in policy requiring such such (e.g. in wp:ver, wp:nor) if they don't fulfill that quest then your opinion stands by default. Nice try. North8000 (talk) 02:57, 21 December 2013 (UTCrules byu

Well, you're kinda saying the same thing -- that in the absence of RS, your opinion stands by default. — goethean 04:19, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

No, I never asked for one or said that one was required. The reasons why I didn't and don't are the same two reasons given in my previous post. North8000 (talk) 11:38, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Okay, so now we have a working definition of Gun Control: according to the OED it is a term used "originally and chiefly in the US", which "became widespread in the aftermath of the assassination of President Kennedy". Surely that's what this article should be about: the debate in the US over the last fifty years. As such it would be a subset (NOT a POV fork) of Gun politics in the United States, which is a rather unwieldy article with lots of history and other stuff. It would overlap considerably with Political arguments of gun politics in the United States, and that, perhaps, is an article that could be usefully merged with this one. Scolaire (talk) 10:31, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
Also, I agree with Fiachra that in general, "Gun politics in..." articles should be renamed "Regulation of firearms in..." Scolaire (talk) 10:49, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

"Gun politics", while it may be arguably logically sound as a title just sounds like a poor choice of words for the title.North8000 (talk) 11:43, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Law journals and peer review

According to Washington and Lee University School of Law's Law Journals: Submissions and Ranking system, of over 1000 law journals in the US only about 150 of them are "refereed" (i.e., peer reviewed).
None of the law journal sources cited in this article are peer reviewed (as of 20:04, 19 December 2013).

Rank	Journal	Student Edited	Peer Edited	Refereed	Refs
6	Michigan Law Review	Yes	No	No	8
12	Fordham Law Review	Yes	No	No	20, 28
30	Washington University Law Quarterly	Yes	No	No	26
49	Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy	Yes	No	No	42
94	University of Maryland Law Review	Yes	No	No	51
333	George Mason University Civil Rights Law Journal	Yes	No	No	9, 10
358	Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law	Yes	No	No	22

Use law journal sources with caution. E.g., Always check the author's affiliations for conflicts of interest or lack of scholarly standing, etc. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 06:04, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

That's an old fight, probably has no place here - Let's be careful we don't impose an improper mental model/framework here. The Process for the acceptance of papers for publication in law journals is very different from those of the scientific community. They are not synonymous. See law review. The fact that most law reviews are not peer reviewed in the same manner as say climate change articles for the journal nature, in no manner means that law journals are without rigor or that any paper makes it in is without substantial review. Law journals have their own rigorous process- arcane as some might think, it is there. And yes an important part of the process is that it is student driven....that's not a detractor....example #6 Ranked Michigan law review is not peer reviewed and is student driven. A lot of the reviewing of a paper can involve very laborious and tedious research into a case history for an article.....work well suited for a student learning the ropes but well beneath a peer scholar...something peer review just can't accomplish. Value is created through the rigorous, supervised verification process and less from just having another peer look at the argument being offered. Also, many journals forbid double submission.....once you submit once a paper, you can't resubmit it somewhere else if it is rejected. To those familiar with the scientific method and the very warped consensus paradigm that has evolved there recently, you'll probably be led by the above to immediately disqualify all law journals for inclusion in the wiki. This would be a grave error. Law journals and their process are the accepted process in the field today. While I applaud the good faith work of @ArtifexMayhem, it. Might not be relevant here. It's a very different field governed by very different rules. Now, the field, like all fields is evolving. Some law journals are adopting the per review process, however, there is no valid rationale for us to give more weight to one versus another. Like all academic writings, we should use caution here and not be sloppy in how we boil this down. It's too soon to tell whether the peer review consensus model will grab hold here or not. This thing that @ArtifexMayhem offers, seems logical on the surface but is in reality is very dangerous. We should be very careful here. The humanities vs science war has been going on for centuries and that's a rumble we don't want to pile onto to this poor little article. This poor little article is in desperate need of a bit of water, maybe some fertilizer and some tender loving care, and it does not need two 1,200lb Kodiak bears to come have a rumble on top of it. For the love of god. -Justanonymous (talk) 13:27, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

On the contrary the review model favoured by North American law periodicals is highly relevant to an assessment of their reliability in areas that lie outside the law, such as complex historical events. Halbrook's interpretation of Nazi history remains unevaluated by anyone with expertise in the subject. He is uncited in the relevant literature on the holocaust where his thesis has had no impact whatsoever. The focus and influence of his publications cited in this WP "Gun control" article extend to the US gun debate almost exclusively. If you actually look at the citations for Halbrook's Halbrook, SP (2000). "Nazi Firearms Law and the Disarming of the German Jews". Ariz. J. Int'l & Comp. L. 17 (3): 483–535. it returns 35 citations with some false positives. Leaving aside the false positives, none of these citations are from authors who publish on the history of the holocaust; almost all of them are from participants in the US gun control debate (Kopel; Harcourt; Kates; Spitzer; Alonso; Springwood; Horwitz); and the vast majority are US law review publications. His articles such as the above are relevant only to the US gun control debate and do not speak to an international context. FiachraByrne (talk) 15:35, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Nope, Justanonymous, we can't just ignore the issue. It was explicitly claimed in the title of a thread above [20] that the journal in question was peer reviewed. If the discussion over its supposed reliability was based on misinformation (deliberate or otherwise), we will at minimum have to discuss again whether the source merits inclusion - and it may well be necessary to look further at other sources, to check whether other misreporting of the status of sources has gone on. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:42, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

it was peer reviewed per the standards of the field, that is what I meant. no, your argument has been refuted above. Peer review as used in science is not relevant here. It was peer reviewed per the standards of this professional and academic community. The journal is pristine, in the standard manner and custom for this field. -Justanonymous (talk) 16:26, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

and be careful, this is a huge can of worms. If these journals are not acceptable then all others that don't fit your flawed understanding of the field won't be acceptable either and worse, they won't be acceptable anywhere in wikipedia. Since the vast majority of academic law journals are not peer reviewed in the limited manner you propose -- in the course of carrying out that crusade, you're going to bump into far bigger fish than I. I'm just trying to help you here. In short, you won't be able to keep out this entire class of academic content once the big guys show up....and this will go before arbitration. WP:Competence.-Justanonymous (talk) 16:30, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

You state that "it was peer reviewed per the standards of the field". Can you cite a source for that assertion? It seems to run entirely to what ArtifexMayhem writes above - and you cannot possibly both be right. As for your supposed 'can of worms', since WP:RS has never asserted either that 'all peer reviewed articles are reliable' or 'no non-peer-reviewed articles are reliable' there is no can, and no worms. What matters here is that the thread above asserted that the journal was peer-reviewed, and argued that this was evidence of reliability. Any assertion of reliability based on questionable evidence must necessarily itself be questionable. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:17, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I've said what I've needed to say and I've clarified what needed to be clarified. I don't feel a need to further rehash. I'll let others weigh in and I'm sure it'll be resolved in due course.-Justanonymous (talk) 18:30, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

You may have said it - but I see no reason why what you say should be seen as of any significance, given that you have failed to provide any evidence to back it up. Without evidence that the source in question was subject to any review process, its claims to reliability are clearly on even shakier grounds - though I think that FiachraByrne's point above about the lack of citations for the source beyond the narrow confines of the U.S. 'gun control' debate is already quite sufficient to suggest that we shouldn't be using it as any sort of source for statements of fact about Nazi Germany. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:45, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Sorry Andy, I make no claims on the actual source's suitability for use here. I defend legal journals as WP:RS sources when used carefully and I caution against us attempting to discard legal journals as not being WP:RS. I leave it to others to defend whether this content should be used here. I merely defend that the fact that it comes from a journal makes it credible. Making it into a legal journal makes it academically rigorous because it has been through that process and it's categorically unqualified to attack the journal simply because it's student driven. Student driven is the norm in this field. I leave it to more specialized minds to defend the actual content or whether to decide if it needs to go elsewhere. I just don't want it to be arbitrary and definitely not POV deleted. It needs to be discussed civilly here. Reach consensus and we can do whatever is needed. Until then, I resist forceful deletion. I know you want it gone and so does goethean and there are others that want it here. I'm simply refuting the argument that because the journal doesn't use the process of another entirely different set of disciplines that it is not academically rigorous -- it is. -Justanonymous (talk) 21:02, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

So to be clear, this thread to me is only about whether student driven legal journals are worthy of WP:RS. Yes they are, that is the gold standard. Regarding the broader question on what content to have in the article -- Andy -- recommend you guys do that in a separate thread so we don't pollute what this is about. Student driven legal journals is the norm and they are just fine. I've said my peace on that. -Justanonymous (talk) 21:22, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

No. This thread isn't about hypothetical questions. It is about the sources cited in this article - any discussion of anything else doesn't belong on this talk page. And no, you don't get to state what is or isn't a 'gold standard' regarding sources. As WP:RS makes entirely clear, there is no such thing as a 'gold standard' for sourcing. All sources have to be considered on their merits - and since no evidence whatsoever has been offered that the Halbrook article in the Arizona Journal of International and Comparative Law has been subject to any form of review, despite claims to the contrary in an earlier thread, its appropriateness as a source is entirely open to question. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:08, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

I think that that they were saying that wp:rs is held to be the gold standard by wikipedia. North8000 (talk) 22:24, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

According to WP:Biased, "While a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context." Here, even if the Halbrook article is biased, it is perfectly fine as a source for the statement that, "Gun regulations were among the anti-Semitic laws, regulations, and acts of civil violence enacted by the Nazi regime against Germans whom it considered Jewish." Or are Halbrook's footnotes phony? I'm no great fan of the argument he made to SCOTUS in McDonald v. Chicago (substantive due process), and I'm all for skepticism, but he seems to be citing rock-solid sources on this particular point.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:41, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

WP:BIASED goes on to say,

"While a source may be biased, it may be reliable in the specific context. On the other hand, an opinion in a reliable source is still an opinion, rather than a fact. When dealing with a potentially biased source, editors should consider whether the source meets the normal requirements for reliable sources, such as editorial control and a reputation for fact-checking."

So, is Halbrook a a reliable source in this context? I would say no, because,

1. he is not a historian,
2. he is not a recognized expert on "Nazi Firearms Law and the Disarming of the German Jews",
3. his paper was published in a journal that is not peer reviewed, and
4. by is own admission, the topic "has never been the subject of a comprehensive account in the legal literature", and that "Although [the topic] does not appear to be the subject of any historical study, numerous excellent studies have been published on armed Jewish resistance in the Nazi-occupied countries" (Halbrook 2000 at 484).

Our article currently suggests, has put forth by Halbrook, that gun control allowed "the Nazis [to murder] millions of unarmed people"[21]. That is a very strong claim that requires very strong sourcing. Halbrook's interpretation of primary sources is not even close. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 03:28, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

That is indeed a very strong claim. Where is it suggested in the present article? I search in vain for the phrase "millions of unarmed people". Is any Wikipedia article guilty of that suggestion, if it mentions Hitler's disarmament of the Jews?Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:35, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

At the wp:RSN they also apply the missing criteria which is expertise, reliability and objectivity with respect to the items which cited it and I think that we should do the same here. For a clarity-via-extremeness illustration of the point, if Rush Limbaugh or an op ed columnist at the New York Times said "The President gave a speech in Atlanta on December 20th", most would consider either of them to be reliable on that fact. (even though either could be technically knocked out) But if they said that the speech was "to appeal for bi-partisanship" or "a political move to vilify the Republicans for not giving the Democrats their extreme tax and spend way under the guise of an appeal to bi-partisanship" most would not consider either of them to be reliable sources to support putting those statements in as fact. As a minimum, either would need to be attributed, and those would probably only be a (primary) source for what their own opinions are. I think that the same applies for covering mere instances of gun control vs. drawing conclusions from those instances. North8000 (talk) 13:43, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Remove duplication notice

A duplication notice was inserted here, on 18 December. The notice was directed at a small section of the article which was titled "Nazi disarmament of German Jews" — a section which was alleged to duplicate another Wikipedia article titled "Gun politics in Germany" that includes a section titled "The 1938 German Weapons Act". The relevant material in the other article states:

“ The 1938 German Weapons Act, the precursor of the current weapons law, superseded the 1928 law....[U]nder the new law....Jews were forbidden from the manufacturing or dealing of firearms and ammunition.[4]....On November 11, 1938, the Minister of the Interior, Wilhelm Frick, promulgated Regulations Against Jews' Possession of Weapons. This regulation effectively deprived all Jews living in those locations of the right to possess firearms or other weapons.[6][7] ”

The relevant material in the present article when the notice was inserted (on 18 December) stated:

“ Nazi disarmament of German Jews

Main article: Gun politics in Germany
Gun regulations were among the anti-Semitic laws, regulations, and acts of civil violence enacted by the Nazi regime against Germans whom it considered Jewish,[20][page needed][21][page needed][22][23][page needed] and were used by Hitler's government to disarm the Jewish population.[22][page needed][23][page needed][24][25][page needed][26][page needed][27][page needed][28][page needed] The Nazi Weapons Law of March 18, 1938 relaxed gun control requirements for the general population, but prohibited manufacturing of firearms and ammunition by Jews.[29] During the initial reports of events that would later be called Kristallnacht on November 9 and 10, 1938, the Police President of Berlin had announced that police activity in the preceding few weeks had disarmed the entire Jewish population of Berlin by confiscating 2,569 of their hand weapons, 1,702 firearms and 20,000 rounds of ammunition.[30] Shortly thereafter, with the addition of the Regulations Against Jews' Possession of Weapons of November 11, 1938, Jews were forbidden from possession of any weapons at all.[23][unreliable source?][29]

”

The relevant material in the present article now (on 21 December) states:

“ Nazi laws regarding ownership of arms

Main article: Gun politics in Germany
Gun regulations were among the anti-Semitic laws, regulations, and acts of civil violence enacted by the Nazi regime against Germans whom it considered Jewish,[20][21][22] and were used by Hitler's government to disarm the Jewish population.[21][22][23][24][25][26][27] The Nazi Weapons Law of March 18, 1938 relaxed gun control requirements for the general population, but prohibited ownership, possesion, sale, and manufacturing of firearms and ammunition by Jews.[28] During the initial reports of events that would later be called Kristallnacht on November 9 and 10, 1938, the Police President of Berlin had announced that police activity in the preceding few weeks had disarmed the entire Jewish population of Berlin by confiscating 2,569 of their hand weapons, 1,702 firearms and 20,000 rounds of ammunition.[29][30] Shortly thereafter, with the addition of the Regulations Against Jews' Possession of Weapons of November 11, 1938, Jews were forbidden from possession of any weapons at all.[22][28]

”

First off, I think the duplication notice probably should have been inserted down in the relevant section, but (be that as it may), the section header has changed so the Notice is obsolete. Moreover, according to WP:RELART, "Articles on distinct but related topics may well contain a significant amount of information in common with one another. This does not make either of the two articles a content fork." That is the case here, so I suggest removing the duplication notice, which in any event is obsolete (due to the new section header) and misplaced (it should have been at the top of the section instead of the top of the article). Also, I suggest the link to main be changed to a seealso, since this article is not summarizing that one.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:04, 21 December 2013 (UTC).

The Nazi section violates the policy against content forks. Please do not remove the duplication template. The articles are not on distinct and separate topics, they are two POVs of the same topic. — goethean 19:23, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

You inserted the Notice, and I am happy to discuss it. You have not addressed the fact that the Notice refers to a nonexistent section, and that the notice belongs in a section, if at all. Also, I never said the topics were separate. They are related topics. Moreover, this article emphasizes the "control" aspect, whereas the other article is about German gun law regulation as well as deregulation. Are there particular facts that you dispute in the present section? Are you saying that this article should not mention Nazis at all?Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:43, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Given that no source whatsoever has ever been put forward to suggest that firearms regulation under the Nazis is seen as of any significance to a general discussion of the subject beyond the narrow confines of sections of the U.S. gun lobby, no, it doesn't belong here. It doesn't belong anywhere on Wikipedia, except possibly (neutrally presented, and with due weight) in a historical discussion of firearms regulation in Germany, and in an article on the U.S. 'gun control' debate - again with due weight, clearly indicated as as a minority perspective, and with no suggestion that this issue is seen as of any significance by mainstream historians. Anything beyond that violates WP:WEIGHT. This is supposed to be an international overview of the subject - not a platform for fringe material from one particular perspective from one particular country. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:24, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Even assuming that it would be fine for this article to have subsections on Japan, Australia, and the U.S. while verboten to mention Germany, that would call for an undue weight tag in the section, not a notice at the top complaining about POV forks and mentioning a nonexistent section of this article.Anythingyouwant (talk) 22:34, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

"Duplication" between articles is immensely common and accepted in Wikipedia. To start with, the summary when there are sub articles, and also articles commonly overlap. I have not yet to track down and review the claimed policy basis for implying that is a problem that needs to be fixed. North8000 (talk) 22:30, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

The claimed policy is at Wikipedia:Content forking. This is not a question of whether we have a policy -- we do -- or whether what we are discussing is a fork -- it is -- but rather of whether this particular fork is described in Wikipedia:Content forking#Acceptable types of forking or in Wikipedia:Content forking#Unacceptable types of forking. I have no position on that question. --Guy Macon (talk) 00:36, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I'm not so sure that we have any kind of content forking here. Both articles mention the Nazis taking weapons from Jews, but that doesn't seem like a duplication of scope. Per WP:Overlap, articles may need to be merged if there's a large overlap. Here, the overlap is small.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:14, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

This article is clearly a fork of the oddly-named 'gun politics' article. No reliable source has ever been offered to explain why issues regarding the regulation of firearms should be subdivided into 'politics' and 'control' - (though I'm sure there will be plenty more WP:OR to 'justify' this arbitrary division - the archives are full of it), and furthermore it is a POV-fork in that while supposedly presenting an international perspective, it in fact presents the viewpoint of sections of the U.S. gun lobby. POV-forks are of course forbidden by Wikipedia policy. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:17, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

There is no Gun politics article. What article are you referring to?Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:20, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I am referring to that article which was named 'gun politics' until 5 days ago, when - without any consultation whatsoever, and without notifying anyone - Gaijin42 evidently moved it to List of gun laws and policies by country. [22] Note that this is all that Gaijin42 has done. The the lede still starts by defining (without a source), what 'gun politics' is, though since the name change it is entirely unclear why. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:42, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the lead paragraph of that article was superfluous and have removed it.Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:51, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't think that that template should even exist, much less get used. Except for special cases where more specific templates are available (e.g. POV fork) it is implying policy / guideline "rules" that do not exist. There is no policy or guideline that per se prohibits duplication of an item in two different articles. In fact, such is common, accepted, and often essential for coverage of the topic of a particular article. Of course, this is not the place to delete/modify a template, but templates are not policy or guidelines, and this is the place to discuss whether to put a (misleading) statement such as that at the beginning of / top level of the article. I think that it should not be placed there, and doubly so prior to any consensus to do so. North8000 (talk) 12:35, 22 December 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for starting a discussion about the existence of the template, here.Anythingyouwant (talk) 17:52, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

References to Japanese section

If contributors will not see sense and delete this section, could they at least reference it properly? FiachraByrne (talk) 00:49, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

While I don't condone the section I do have the refs for it already templated. I'll add them shortly. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 01:19, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Ps. I also have all the law review sources templated and will add them in a bit. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 01:22, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Ta. FiachraByrne (talk) 01:43, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Sources

A list of some journal sources - some address US specifically but some are more international in character. Some are probably irrelevant. Feel free to add to the list ... Most stats on homicide, suicide and violence related to guns and gun ownership are from the US. That doesn't mean, however, that the article should focus unduly on the US domestic debate as the control and regulation of small arms is clearly an international issue in terms of domestic violence and post-conflict situations, etc. The single best source, however, for the topic of this article (firearm regulation in an international context) are the yearbooks by the Small Arms Survey, available here

Valenti, Maria (2007-01-01). "Armed Violence: A Health Problem, a Public Health Approach". Journal of Public Health Policy. 28 (4): 389–400. ISSN 0197-5897. Retrieved 2013-12-22. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Ball, S. (2012-10-12). "Britain and the Decline of the International Control of Small Arms in the Twentieth Century". Journal of Contemporary History. 47 (4): 812–837. doi:10.1177/0022009412451286. ISSN 1461-7250 0022-0094, 1461-7250. Retrieved 2013-12-22. {{cite journal}}: Check |issn= value (help)

McDowall, David (1983-05-01). "Collective Security and the Demand for Legal Handguns". American Journal of Sociology. 88 (6): 1146–1161. ISSN 0002-9602. Retrieved 2013-12-22. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Kovandzic, Tomislav V. (1998-07-01). "Comment on the Recent Work of Kwon, Scott, Safranski, and Bae: No, Your Evidence Doesn't Prove What You Think It Does!". American Journal of Economics and Sociology. 57 (3): 363–368. ISSN 0002-9246. Retrieved 2013-12-22.

Arya, Neil (2002-04-27). "Confronting The Small Arms Pandemic: Unrestricted Access Should Be Viewed As A Public Health Disaster". BMJ: British Medical Journal. 324 (7344): 990–991. ISSN 0959-8138. Retrieved 2013-12-22.

Kleck, Gary (1988-02-01). "Crime Control through the Private Use of Armed Force". Social Problems. 35 (1): 1–21. doi:10.2307/800663. ISSN 0037-7791. Retrieved 2013-12-22.

Kingma, Kees (1997-08-01). "Demobilization of Combatants after Civil Wars in Africa and Their Reintegration into Civilian Life". Policy Sciences. 30 (3): 151–165. ISSN 0032-2687. Retrieved 2013-12-22.

Hepburn, Lisa M (2004-07). "Firearm availability and homicide: A review of the literature". Aggression and Violent Behavior. 9 (4): 417–440. doi:10.1016/S1359-1789(03)00044-2. ISSN 1359-1789. Retrieved 2013-12-22. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Amiri, A (2003-09). "Firearm fatalities. A preliminary study report from Iran". Journal of Clinical Forensic Medicine. 10 (3): 159–163. doi:10.1016/S1353-1131(03)00082-8. ISSN 1353-1131. Retrieved 2013-12-22. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Hugenberg, Florian (2007-01-01). "Firearm Injuries in Nairobi, Kenya: Who Pays the Price?". Journal of Public Health Policy. 28 (4): 410–419. ISSN 0197-5897. Retrieved 2013-12-22. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Bellesiles, Michael A. (2001-01-01). "Firearms Regulation: A Historical Overview". Crime and Justice. 28: 137–195. ISSN 0192-3234. Retrieved 2013-12-22.

Grillot, Suzette R. (2011). "Global Gun Control: Examining the Consequences of Competing International Norms". Global Governance. 17 (4): 529–555.

Cukier, Wendy (2012-01). "Globalization of gun culture transnational reflections on pistolization and masculinity, flows and resistance". International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice. 40 (1): 3–19. doi:10.1016/j.ijlcj.2011.09.001. ISSN 1756-0616. Retrieved 2013-12-22. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Rodríguez Andrés, Antonio (2011-06). "Gun control and suicide: The impact of state firearm regulations in the United States, 1995–2004". Health Policy. 101 (1): 95–103. doi:10.1016/j.healthpol.2010.10.005. ISSN 0168-8510. Retrieved 2013-12-22. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Shermer, Michael (2013-01-05). "Gun Science". Scientific American. 308 (5): 83. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

Rosenbaum, Janet E. (2012-02-01). "Gun Utopias? Firearm access and ownership in Israel and Switzerland". Journal of Public Health Policy. 33 (1): 46–58. ISSN 0197-5897. Retrieved 2013-12-22.

John, Ime A. (2007-01-01). "Gun Violence in Nigeria: A Focus on Ethno-Religious Conflict in Kano". Journal of Public Health Policy. 28 (4): 420–431. ISSN 0197-5897. Retrieved 2013-12-22. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

Grillot, Suzette R. (2010-06). "Guns in the Balkans: controlling small arms and light weapons in seven Western Balkan countries". Southeast European and Black Sea Studies. 10 (2): 147–171. doi:10.1080/14683857.2010.486945. ISSN 1743-9639 1468-3857, 1743-9639. Retrieved 2013-12-22. {{cite journal}}: Check |issn= value (help); Check date values in: |date= (help)

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FiachraByrne (talk) 02:34, 23 December 2013 (UTC)

Is Parker authoritative??

I see a Geneva survey from Sara Parker being used in the article @ Regulation of Civilian firearms. In reading the article, I found this quote, "At the US state level, the majority of jurisdictions have adopted the so-called ‘Castle doctrine’, also known as ‘Stand your ground’ laws." It's very clear that our friends in Geneva don't understand the basics of US law if they are saying that castle doctrine and stand your ground are synonymous. Also the editors are making very broad generalities from a very limited survey. Ie, the us and Yemen are exceptional in the world......but the survey was not about the world but rather a handful of countries, and the methodology for selection of those is not clearly articulated. If they get castle doctrine wrong and their methodology is not clear, what else is wrong!? This is is not like any academic paper, I've ever read. I'm not sure this goes in the right direction-Justanonymous (talk) 02:04, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

It's a peer-reviewed, Cambridge University Press, mulit-authored survey that takes an international perspective on the topic of small arms and small arms regulation. Can you suggest a better, more authoritative source for an article on gun control from an international perspective? FiachraByrne (talk) 02:22, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Actually, according to them it's, "an independent research project." So no peer review of any kind is visible -- within any field.....where are you seeing that? Cambridge University Press is just the publisher but they don't vouche for the quality of the content except by association. This hasn't gone through any kind of peer review or other kind of rigorous process outside of perhaps an editing process from what we can see (no scientific peer review or legal or otherwise) This is akin to a book at best....a limited book with visible errors to this editor.-Justanonymous (talk) 02:35, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Uhm, I just went to their website http://www.smallarmssurvey.org and I find this in their goal:

"The proliferation of small arms and light weapons represents a grave threat to human security. The unchecked spread of these weapons has exacerbated inter- and intra-state conflicts, contributed to human rights violations, undermined political and economic development, destabilized communities, and devastated the lives of millions of people."

This isn't peer reviewed. This is pro-gun control stuff. I'd be just as guilty if I went and lifted content out of the NRA and NAG websites and used it liberally here under the auspices of "peer review" of which there has been none apparently, since it's an "independent project." Sorry guys that's gotta go. Unless you're all ok with other editors going to the NRA websites and getting their "peer reviewed" ahem ahem content. -Justanonymous (talk) 02:40, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

So, sources published by Cambridge University Press are not WP:RS because of some perceived bias (i.e., "This is pro-gun control stuff") but articles written by attorneys for the National Rifle Association and published by student edited non-peer reviewed law journals are WP:RS? Even when said attorney has no credentials for the field they are writing in (e.g., history)? Have I got this right or am I missing something? — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 03:50, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Justanonymous seems to have been rather selective in his quotation from the website - how about this bit:

Contributing Partners

Established in 1999, the project is supported by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, and by sustained contributions from the Governments of Canada, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. The Survey is also grateful for past and current project support received from the Governments of Australia, Belgium, Denmark, France, New Zealand, Spain, and the United States, as well as from different United Nations agencies, programmes, and institutes.

I'd say it would be utterly ridiculous to call this an unreliable source. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:11, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

it's pro gun control and that is clearly their goal regardless of what pro gun control regimes fund them or why?? Government funding is very suspect. I don't buy the whole appeal to authority argument you make Andy. Also they have errors and we're misciting them. Beyond that artifex is missing something. Cambridge university press is simply a publisher. They don't do peer reviews or anything like that that I'm aware of and they don't require that their authors have an NPOV on a subject....they just print the books. I have a bible from cambridge! In this case cambridge university press published a book by a pro gun control "independent project"....that should be as radioactive as us citing a pro life book written by Glenn beck or a pro gun rights book funded by the nra. By contrast, Michigan law review is a high reputation legal journal that goes through the rigors of what is accepted for peer review in their field. Now, you do a disservice by your marginalizing of "student driven" portion. student driven just means that the students go and do the tedious research to verify the submitters claims and legal history.....some smaller schools who don't have enough students so have to use a weaker traditional peer review process....because they don't have the manpower! Student driven, drives quality especially bright students....that's why 90% of law journals including the top ones are student driven!! Why am I having to explain these basic things? Twice now. If you don't know how these fields work, just don't edit. Not being disrespectful here, it's just hard to get editors up to speed on these basics and I explained it already in a separate thread. -Justanonymous (talk) 04:20, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

• No, Justanonymous, you do not need to "explain these basic things" to me. You do, however, need to support your assertions with actual sources. You have made wide variety of claims concerning peer review and law journals, [23][24][25][26][27][28], but you have yet to supply any sources to support your claims. You have been provided with information on the actual peer review status of most US law journals, and still you persist [29][30][31][32][33][34].

Whether or not you believe I "know how these fields work" is immaterial. Sources tell the tale, and on the issue of law journals and peer review the sources simply do not support you claims,

• Liptak, Adam (October 21, 2013). "The Lackluster Reviews That Lawyers Love to Hate". The New York Times.
• McCormack, Nancy (February 7, 2009). "Peer Review and Legal Publishing: What Law Librarians Need to Know about Open, Single-Blind, and Double-Blind Reviewing" (PDF). Law Library Journal. 101 (59).

However, because reliability is always based on a combination of factors, this does not mean that law journal articles can never be used as reliable sources–and to the best of my knowledge, no editor here has made that claim. Newyorkbrad, in a previous discussion concerning the use of Halbrook, summed it up nicely:

The article is a reliable source for the proposition that at least one scholar has made the arguments contained in it—although if he's the only scholar to do so, spending much time on it might be undue weight.
In terms of relying on the article for factual and legal assertions, the article is full of citations and footnotes, so to the extent there is a dispute as to whether the author's contentions are accurate or not, someone could look up the materials he has cited and see if they support what he has to say.
— User:Newyorkbrad 02:30, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

It is imperative that you understand the functions, meanings, and interrelations of WP:RS, WP:V, and WP:NPOV.

The explanations you have given[35][36][37][38][39] in defense of your removal sourced material[40][41][42][43] are examples of tendentious editing and indicative of a battle ground mentality. This must stop. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 10:49, 24 December 2013 (UTC) Ps. I do my very best to avoid addressing other editors in the first person and I apologize for not avoiding it here.

also just because you won a Grant from the US at some point, does not mean the US endorses you or your findings. Same for the UK. There are a ton of grants given. And all so they can get castle doctrine and stand your ground wrong!! Money poorly spent. Maybe that's why we didn't renew. The group is marginally a thinktank. But if you want this, I can bring "the heritage foundation". They have a senator.....surely that has to be WP:RS!-Justanonymous (talk) 04:39, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

The Small Arms Survey is an internationally-recognised and authoritative source on the subject matter of this article - in fact I'd suggest that you would be hard put to find a better one. If you really want to argue that we shouldn't use it as a source, I suggest that you raise the matter at WP:RSN - but before you do, do a little research on the organisation, before you make a fool of yourself. AndyTheGrump (talk) 04:43, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

let's see what others think. I'm sure we can get consensus here. I hate those other forums makes us look like we can't solve any problems here. And I'll read up more on this think tank. It didn't pass the quick sniff test but I could be wrong. Appreciate the patience. But let's not make it out to be something it's not. It's not peer reviewed and it's not objective. They have an agenda. I suspect some of their content will be WP:RS. And some will blatantly be not. We also should not make generalizations beyond the cited material.....if the sample is 15 countries that they took, we can't generalize it to , the majority of the world. We can't say that the us is exceptional just because in their contrived sample only the US and Yemen acknowldge human rights. We have to be discrete. In any case, we're in no hurry let's we what others say.-Justanonymous (talk) 05:07, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

No. If you won't take the 'Small Arms Survey' to WP:RSN, I will - I see no reason whatsoever why an internationally-recognised source with the finest credentials should be rejected on the flimsy grounds you have offered so far, and I see no reason to waste further time here - there has been endless stonewalling already on this article, and I see no reason to allow it to continue. AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:17, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

"Cambridge university press is simply a publisher. They don't do peer reviews or anything like that that I'm aware of and they don't require that their authors have an NPOV on a subject....they just print the books." See "reliable sources": "When available, academic and peer-reviewed publications, scholarly monographs, and textbooks are usually the most reliable sources." The only thing you have right is that they do not require their authors have an NPOV on a subject. But that shows your lack of understanding of academic research. TFD (talk) 05:09, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Per talk page consensus I've reinserted the deleted material. I think I'd have to suggest that there may be competencies issues at play here. FiachraByrne (talk) 10:16, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Sourcing is a requirement for inclusion, not a reason for inclusion which appears to be the argument. The material is heavily slanted. North8000 (talk) 10:36, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

There's been no specific argument presented against the inclusion of the article content derived from this source. The source itself is impeccable and the conclusions it presents are derived from an empirical study of the issues. There is no more appropriate source to use for the construction of an article whose subject is gun control from an international perspective. FiachraByrne (talk) 11:54, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

A simple question for Justanonymous

Which of the data cited to the Small Arms Survey in the section you have deleted [44] are you suggesting is unreliable? And on what grounds are you suggesting that the data being cited is unreliable? AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:27, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

that content was not deleted, it was moved to small arms article where it belongs. It might be too slanted for there it it's definitely wrong here. This article is about gun control not gun proliferation. -Justanonymous (talk) 13:42, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

The purpose of gun control is to limit the availability of firearms. The source is about as on-topic as one could get. AndyTheGrump (talk) 13:45, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Let's see what others thinks. We have a small arms article that is in dire need of content and I thought that content belonged there as it deals with the distribution of small arms around the world. Now, I will say that the content could be biased. It'll require some careful analysis. Some of the worst content that comes from partisan think tanks are statistics, because they look solid on the surface but they generally don't release their methodologies completely and they wind up not standing up scrutiny (both pro and against gun control partisan stats are like that). If these guys don't know the difference between stand your ground and castle doctrine, the confidence level in them doing stats is very doubtful. But, we can discuss on the small arms page.-Justanonymous (talk) 15:02, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Tendentious bullshit. You have refused to raise the source at WP:RSN. Either do so, or drop it. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:22, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

A good roadmap

Put in the straightforward significant neutral factual material as information.

The heavily slanted sources should have the heavily slanted material put in attributed as being from an advocacy source, identified as such, and preferably in an "arguments" or "opinions" section.

And lets stop trying to put the latter in as the former. North8000 (talk) 11:15, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Which material are you referring to as 'heavily slanted', and on what grounds? AndyTheGrump (talk) 12:39, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Andy, it's super easy -- the material that we disagree over. -Justanonymous (talk) 15:04, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

"I don't like it" isn't grounds for exclusion. You have claimed that the source is unreliable, but refused to raise the matter at WP:RSN. You have claimed that the source is 'biased', but offered no evidence beyond a cherry-picked quotation, and your own opinions - clearly shaped by your self-evident opposition to gun control. You have claimed that it is unreliable both because it is 'independent', and because it receives funding from multiple governments. You have claimed that "Government funding is very suspect" - on which grounds, if accepted, almost every academic source on Wikipedia would have to be excluded as a source. Frankly, your arguments are both contradictory and tendentious, and should you persist in repeating them - rather than raising the matter at WP:RSN as has repeatedly been suggested - I shall raise your behaviour at WP:ANI, and ask that sanctions be taken against you. This article has been WP:OWNed by the U.S. gun lobby for far too long, and I see no reason whatsoever why such a violation of multiple Wikipedia policies should be allowed to continue. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:18, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, from an editor behavior standpoint, that rant, threat, mis-characterizaion-into-false-accusations, inventing-bad-faith, attempting to deprecate and intimidate an editor through villainizaiton is I think the worst thing I've seen on this whole page. Let's talk about content and content issues. North8000 (talk) 15:26, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Everything I wrote can be demonstrated in the content of this talk page. AndyTheGrump (talk) 15:36, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Agreed! North8000. I tire of this behavior. Andy, "I don't like it" isn't grounds for exclusion but neither can "I like it" be grounds for inclusion. We all know that this is a contentious article. Bringing a partisan thinktank viewpoint into the article is going to have it challenged....be it some Geneva based pseudoscientific pro-gun control thing or the NRA so let's just not do it. We also can't just go crying to ANI or RSN or some other acryonym soup Wikiforum that someone stole my marbles. We have to be grown-ups. It's a tough article so let's demonstrate some good faith and try to bring only the best. Eurpean based nonpeer reviewed, POV slanted think-tanks that don't know the difference between stand your ground and castle doctrine are hardly the top of the list. We can do better. By the way, if I bring an NRA article into the forum -- I can expect it to be rightfully challenged.-Justanonymous (talk) 15:55, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Neutrality says we represent ALL POINTS OF VIEW. Not just the ones you like. Not all points except pro gun activists. It is a notable pov, it should be included. You have previously admitted that this opinion is presented in reliable sources. That is the end of the discussion. ALL POVS from RSs should be included. " We avoid advocacy and we characterize information and issues rather than debate them. In some areas there may be just one well-recognized point of view; in others, we describe multiple points of view, presenting each accurately and in context rather than as "the truth" or "the best view"" "As a general rule, do not remove sourced information from the encyclopedia solely on the grounds that it seems biased" "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represents all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources" "If a viewpoint is held by a significant minority, then it should be easy to name prominent adherents" "Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors or the general public" — goethean 15:53, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

Yes Goethean. that's what North is saying. If we want to use smallarms survey, we need to state what the group is and their viewpoint and then WP:DUE and WP:WEIGHT and BALANCE puts the onus on the editor to find the competing viewpoint and add that viewpoint. Here the viewpoint of a partisan thinktank was added as gospel. Very wrong.-Justanonymous (talk) 15:55, 24 December 2013 (UTC)