Talk:Arthur Kellermann

Archives (Index)

1

This page is archived by ClueBot III.

"Peer reviewed research supports Kellerman's research".

The cite to this - https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-guns-do-not-stop-more-crimes-evidence-shows/ - does not say what the material in our article says. It's a fine line, but Kellerman's research was specifically about 'guns in the home'. He published three studies about that. The Sciam article states "More than 30 peer-reviewed studies, focusing on individuals as well as populations, have been published that confirm what Kellermann's studies suggested:" - emphasis mine. Sciam is a respected source, certainly. But their article is conflating the notion that vaguely similar studies confirm findings similar to Kellerman's, and they don't link to these claimed 30 peer reviewed studies. If the studies don't overtly state that they are attempting to replicate Kellerman's findings (none have, in fact), then this is not really appropriate to the article, unless our article also affirmatively states that the other studies were similar - not directly confirming. Further, as I mentioned in my edit, this claim is not detailed or expanded upon within the article. The lede is not the place for such claims, at least not until they are actually detailed in the body. Anastrophe (talk) 21:40, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

I want to add, just to be clear, I'm not interested in (nor going to) engage in an edit war about this. Nor am I going to stomp my feet then dig in my heels. I simply feel that the text as presented needs to be in the body, sourced beyond the Sciam article's claim, before either the NRA's criticisms or their negation are in the lede.Anastrophe (talk) 22:33, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

This feels like you're digging around for semantic wedges that you can use to discredit a reliable source. Let's be clear: the Scientific American piece, which we all agree is a reliable source, states: "More than 30 peer-reviewed studies, focusing on individuals as well as populations, have been published that confirm what Kellermann's studies suggested: that guns are associated with an increased risk for violence and homicide." I presented this material in our article, writing: "Kellermann's findings have been supported by a large body of peer-reviewed research finding that increasing gun ownership is associated with increased rates of homicide and violence." That, to me, is as basic and accurate a restatement of the source material as one could imagine.

You make an argument about the word "suggested", and then insert a bunch of your own words about "vaguely similar" etc. This is, frankly, pretty silly. Per the source, Kellermann's work "suggested" that guns are associated with violence and homicide, and other researchers' work subsequently "confirm[ed]" that finding. You're trying to artificially weaken that very clear statement from the source, which is inappropriate.

You note that Scientific American doesn't link to the 30 studies mentioned in the source; this has absolutely no bearing on the discussion, and no validity as an argument. Scientific American is a reliable source. You don't get to make up a requirement that we can disregard a reliable source if studies aren't hyperlinked to your satisfaction.

You then state that the 30 peer-reviewed studies should be disregarded unless they explicitly state that they set out to replicate Kellermann's work. This is a very basic misunderstanding on your part about how science, scientific writing, and the scientific process operate. In any case, the link between these studies and Kellermann's work has already been made by a reliable source (the Scientific American article), so it's totally inappropriate for you as a Wikipedia editor to overrule that with your personal judgement that the studies aren't sufficiently similar.

I'm not going to engage in an edit war either, but I will note that this article is covered by WP:BLP, and as such, I'm not willing to allow language that falsely downplays the degree of support for Kellermann's work. Specifically, it is not appropriate to simply state that the NRA "disputes" his work. That language implies that this is a scientific back-and-forth where both "sides" have roughly equal validity. In reality, the peer-reviewed scholarly literature backs Kellermann's findings. If we don't make that clear, then we're violating WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT, by falsely implying rough equivalence where none exists.

Finally, I'm planning to re-instate the language about the NRA "attacking" Kellermann and his work. The objection—that this language implies a physical attack—is frankly ludicrous. First of all, Kellermann's research is intangible and cannot be physically attacked. Secondly, if the NRA had physically attacked a researcher, that would be remarkable and we'd certainly describe it in clear detail. The sources clearly support this language; the NRA did not respond by scientifically disputing Kellermann's findings, but rather waged a political campaign to deny funding and filed a baseless "ethics" complaint against Kellermann. MastCell ^Talk 22:57, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Setting aside your unnecessary personalized commentary. Much of what you wrote is assumptions about my motive; uncivil. If you find a source that actually states that the NRA "attacked Kellerman", then you can use that wording; neither of the cites do so. There is nothing ludicrous about the clear distinction between "The NRA attacked Kellerman" vs "The NRA attacked his research". I did not suggest a physical attack on his research, which would be ludicrous, except that you've put those words in my mouth. Uncivil. The objections to Kellerman's work are widespread and notable; the WaPo article goes into detail regarding Kleck et al. If it were not notable, it couldn't go in the article. If would be POV to _exclude_ criticism of his work, since it has been widely written about. If you suggest that only scientific criticism is allowed, then this stops being a BLP - controversy that has been published in RS is certainly appropriate.

I would say that I will dig in my heels on "attacked Kellerman". Your sources don't back that up, and it's inappropriately phrased. They 'attacked', if you must, his research - not Mr. Kellerman. Anastrophe (talk) 23:39, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

"Kellerman's research has been strongly disputed by gun rights organizations." That is true, supported by the cites, and neutrally worded. Anastrophe (talk) 23:46, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

And I would argue that you are distorting things and that it is NOT "as basic and accurate a restatement of the source material as one could imagine.":Especially how you turn the following statement: "that guns are associated with an increased risk for violence and homicide." into that increasing gun ownership is associated with increased rates of homicide and violence." There is a pretty big difference between "guns are associated with" and "increasing gun ownership is associated with". One is a neutral statement about guns and violence and the other is a clear statement regarding gun ownership that does not exist in the original sentence. Nehcrum (talk) 22:18, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Section reverted

I have reverted the addition of the following section: However it was proven that most of the guns used in homicides in the 1993 Kellermann were not the same guns kept in the home. As the original 1993 study did not include information on the origin of the guns used in the homicides, Gary Kleck used the dataset from a 1998 study from Kellermann that also looked at household homicides and gun ownership; this more recent study partially overlapped the years researched in the 1993 study as well as including two of the same cities (Seattle and Memphis). In this study Kellermann reported that only 14.2% of the guns used in household homicides were the same ones kept in the home. 67% involved guns brought to the home from elsewhere, and the remaning percentage unknown. Once this was taken into account by examing only incidences where the household homicide involved guns kept in the home, there were no significant associations between gun ownership and homicide risk. Kellermann responded to Kleck with the argument that the risk increase that was observed not necessarily needing to be the result of the same gun kept in the household. Kellermann further states that failed self-defense cases could result in the homicide risk that was attributable to guns. This is for a couple reasons. One, using a single critical article to declare anything flatly "proven" is dubious; note that we do not say that any of Kellermann's findings are "proven." We might say that Kleck argued this in response to Kellermann, but not that Kleck "proved" Kellermann wrong. Secondly, the extensive back-and-forth and details are unsuitable for what is a brief biographical article; it places undue weight on Kleck's critical analysis to give it more space than any one of Kellermann's own analyses are given. This article shouldn't turn into a back-and-forth place to spread a debate about gun control. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 04:56, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

If this was reworded to "kleck argued" instead of "proven". Would this suffice? This is an important counter-argument and Kellermann himself went out of his way to publish a reply. Why is the page about Gary Kleck allowed to contain a criticism by Hemenway regarding DGUs, but Kellermann's isn't? These are simply double standards.05:03, 13 October 2018 (UTC)72.211.160.224 (talk)

Eliminating 'proven' is certainly required. However, the section is too long as well, as noted by NorthBySouthBaranof. It would need to be drastically trimmed in order to mitigate WP:UNDUE. Anastrophe (talk) 05:37, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Done. Let me know if there are any issues.72.211.160.224 (talk) 06:03, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

The current version is fair and appropriate; thanks for working collaboratively and addressing my concerns. NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 15:47, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

References