Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 17:58, 2 April 2009

Courtesy note

Welcome back! We are glad you decided to un-retire! Since you have returned to editing, I have gone ahead and un-deleted your talk page's history. If you would like to have that history archived instead, please let me know and I will be glad to help. For future reference (which we hope never happens), please note that {{db-user}} should not be used on talk pages; if you wish to exercise your right to vanish, please follow the guideline at WP:RTV. Thanks, Kralizec! (talk) 17:42, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Yaf (talk) 18:13, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you have returned, even at the risk of SaltyBoatr claiming we are in collusion (see the bottom of this section) SMP0328. (talk) 20:47, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Consensus building is not collusion, but is simply the way to write better articles. A fundamental tenant of WP is to Assume Good Faith. The AGF principle is often violated, unfortunately. Yaf (talk) 05:31, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Welcome back to Misplaced Pages, and the firearms project, my wayward friend.--LWF (talk) 04:31, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! The time away was good for me -- to decompress and to do a good bit of reading. Did a good bit of handloading, too! Proper perspective requires a tweak now and again from reading new materials:-) Handloading also helps. Yaf (talk) 05:31, 23 December 2008 (UTC)

Nazi belt buckle pistol

That's cool. I don't know anything about the topic/page itself, just doing some de-orphaning. Tulocci (talk) 04:04, 26 January 2009 (UTC)

.357 Remington Magnum

The only two proper names for the standard .357 are .357 S&W Magnum and .357 Magnum, I admit that some call it the .357 Mag, however .357 Remington Magnum is a complete misnomer. If it were an accepted name for the .357 it would be in Cartridges of theWorld. Someone calling something by the wrong name does not make it correct.

Nate.45 (talk) 00:22, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Those are the two most common names. As for the only proper names, that is an entirely different point. There are other names, too. The European name, 9x33mmR (Europe), and .357 Remington Magnum, and .357 Mag have also been used at times. Misplaced Pages is about verifiability. It is clearly verifiable that .357 Remington Magnum is another (although admittedly older) name for the .357 Magnum cartridge. CotW is not the only source about cartridges. (Yes, I have it, too.) We should not limit Misplaced Pages to using only one source for determining verifiability. Multiple sources are best for making sure to avoid holes in the coverage on Misplaced Pages in articles that would otherwise come from only using one source. Any reliable, verifiable source is acceptable. The older editions of the Loadbooks called it the .357 Remington Magnum. As for the newer editions of the Loadbooks, yes, they now call it by the now more common .357 Magnum name. (I have Loadbooks with both names, as well as additional reloading books with loads for the .357 Remington Maximum, an extended .357 Magnum, which I use in a T/C chambered in .357 Rem Max. Remington did research on the .357 Magnum cartridge, and extended it for use in the Dan Wesson, Ruger, and T/C pistols. Their name also got attached to the .357 Magnum cartridge in some sources around the same time.) Just because one reference (CotW) doesn't list a cartridge synonym is no reason to claim the synonym should not be used on Misplaced Pages. I added a cite for the older .357 Remington Magnum name, which you insisted on removing just because CotW doesn't list this alternative name as a synonym. This alternative name is clearly verifiable. It just doesn't happen to be mentioned in CotW. All of the verifiable synonyms should be in the article. Yaf (talk) 01:05, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

.22 Cheetah

Hey Yaf, I found you by going through the history of wildcat cartridge. .22 Cheetah is up at AfD, and I rewrote the article a bit and added some sources; I think it might survive. But you're an expert, please have a look. Also, if the article stays, perhaps you can make reference to it also in the wildcat article? I didn't know exactly what category it would fall under (I am totally ignorant in this area), but I'm sure you do. Thanks, Drmies (talk) 03:35, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Looks like you largely fixed the problem yourself, and the AfD was unsuccessful. Have added this round to the wildcat cartridge article. Thanks! Yaf (talk) 21:39, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Olive branch

Yaf, Offering a gesture of conciliation, hoping to get along better with you. SaltyBoatr (talk) 03:26, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

It's a TRAP! --Nukes4Tots (talk) 04:39, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the laugh

Thanks for the "and a small brain" comment in your recent reversion. In these times, everyone needs to laugh occasionally. Thanks for giving me one. :) SMP0328. (talk) 21:03, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

I chuckled when I left it, too :-) here Yes, we need more levity at times! Yaf (talk) 21:13, 19 February 2009 (UTC)

Heads up

I don't know if you got this or not, however you've been smeared here: Gee, wonder who it was that could have smeared you... hmmmm, who? At any rate, Salty left off the fact that he was reverting your edits as well. Edit warring goes both ways. Goose, gander, etc. --Nukes4Tots (talk) 02:50, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Not surprised at his behavior. Yaf (talk) 04:09, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

And here, too, where Hauskalainen is claiming a vast right wing conspiracy that is well funded and that has infiltrated Misplaced Pages to its highest levels. What a paranoia smearfest. Overdosing on hope and change? Yaf (talk) 05:20, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Yaf, there is a vast right wing conspiracy. Didn't you get the memo? The founder of Misplaced Pages is a Libertarian (sp?). They believe in machineguns for everybody, pot smoking, and eliminating the income tax. (oh, and free press too) --Nukes4Tots (talk) 05:26, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Oh, that one, yes, it came with the Official Handbook of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy, the book with a membership card (in a tear-out) for the VRWC (Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy), along with all the bucks in the plain envelope to be used for funding the infiltration :-) My bad! Yaf (talk) 06:16, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

Meatpuppet?

Hi there - I've noticed on several pages concerning correspondence between myself and User:Slinkworm (or whatever name this user normally goes under) that you have accused him of soliciting/canvassing me to use as a "meatpuppet". I hope that your accusation is not aimed at me in anyway, as I have not involved myself in the slightest in the issue he asked for help in, but merely advised him that if he had a problem then he should address it properly at WP:EAR. If you feel that I have acted inappropriately, I would like to state that it certainly wasn't my intention. Howie ☎ 06:35, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I apologize for dragging you into this, but no, I have not accused him of soliciting you as a "meatpuppet". As far as I am concerned, you were always an innocent bystander who simply was the holder of the talk page on which Hauskalainen wrote his inflammatory words. If you look back at User talk:Bwilkins, I wrote:

Hello Bwilkins. Hauskalainen problems, or so it appears, being that Hauskalainen re-inserted a modification edit to one of my comments on the Right to keep and bear arms talk page using the same alias, per his edit summary. FYI. He is continuing the false accusations, and soliciting meat puppets on DemocracyNow.org. Yaf (talk) 04:44, 25 February 2009 (UTC)</blockquote

As you can see from this, I was very clear that the claim of meatpuppetry only had to do with comments made by Hauskalainen/Slinkworm that made it appear he was soliciting meat puppets on an outside website, and that he was still making false accusations against editors, accusing them of being sockpuppets, contrary to the WQA that appeared to have ended in which he was told to either put up (a WP:SPI) or shut up. It still is not clear whether or not he solicited meatpuppets from Democracy Now! readers. But, in any case, you were clearly not a participant in any actions that could be interpreted as wrongdoing. The very worst that could be said is that you were guilty of a very mild sin of omission, in that you did not squelch Hauskalainen/Slinkworm's canvassing shopping to specifically find a non-US friendly ear who it might be presumed would be more likely to agree with him, perhaps sharing anti-US views, nor did you squelch his false claims of continuing to push charges of sockpuppetry against other editors, rather than simply filing a WP:SPI. Being complicent in this through a sin of omission in not correcting him immediately is not worth worrying about. I rather suspect you were unaware of all of the WikiDrama with Hauskalainen/Slinkworm and were simply assuming good faith yourself and trying to help a fellow editor. It rather appears that Hauskalainen/Slinkworm is still fanning the flames, which if he would but apologize to all the editors he accused of being socks, or even if he would file an WP:SPI, all this WikiDrama would immediately go away and we could all resume productive editing. Again, I apologize if I have left the impression of accusing you of being involved in a solicitation or canvassing of you as a meatpuppet. You were an innocent bystander. I only included the link to your talk page as a cite in my comment on Bwilkins talk page because it was where Hauskalainen/Slinkworm had written his words. Yaf (talk) 16:48, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your response, Yaf. It seems a good and reasonable explanation to me. The reasons why I didn't involve myself further and reprimand Hauskalainen/Slinkworm was that I hadn't taken the time to investigate precisely what his real username was, and I also took the comment about being non-US with a pinch of salt as I didn't quite understand the relevance. I certainly wouldn't allow my own nationality sway my opinion of what I have perceived to be a disagreement (or edit war if one would prefer to call it that...) between two parties of which I have no related involvement. As to claims of sock-puppetry, I also wouldn't even begin to look into anything like that until he actually pointed out names. For such an accusation to be made, there would have to be pretty convincing evidence! I don't take accusations seriously when provided in such a vague and strange manner - that's why I said I wouldn't even begin to look into it until he followed correct procedure. Best, Howie ☎ 17:02, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

winchester 1200...12 guage, 20 guage,16 guage

I inhereted the above three shotguns and I am interested in selling them, but I have no idea what they may be worth... The shot guns are in very good condition. A responce would be appreciated....Steve 96.3.142.247 (talk) 16:01, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

The value of firearms depends highly on their conditions. Your best bet would be to find similar guns on auctionarms.com or any of the other online firearms auction sites, with a search of completed auctions, and this would give you considerable insight into values. In general, private sales between individuals, if allowed by your state law, tend to bring slightly more than even what the online auctions bring, being that there is an FFL fee and shipping fee required on top of what the auctions close at. Private sales, conducted without these fees, often end up bringing more than what the auctions close at, while still costing the buyer less than if buying online. FFL NICS check fees + shipping fees vary, but can be $25 to $35. So, take the values on closed auctions for the same model guns in similar condition, add $15 to $30, and you will probably be fairly accurate in pricing a private sale, if such is allowed by your state law. This is likely to be $175 to $350, exclusive of fees, depending on condition and whether or not any special features are found on the guns (adjustable chokes, recoil pads, etc.), for typical prices on the auction sites, if you sell through an online auction site. Add $25 to $35 to these prices for private party sales. Drop these prices about 40% if selling to a dealer, instead of to a private buyer. Good luck. Consider contributing to Misplaced Pages and editing on Misplaced Pages! Yaf (talk) 17:36, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Gun death rate in UK versus US

However much you might wish that it was not true that the gun death rate in the US is 41 times higher than that of England and Wales, the plain fact is that it is true.

Your attempts to switch the argument to another statistic is so obvious that it is laughable.

I agree that the problem with gun crime is particularly bad in certain US cities and removing those would make the US figures seem less bad. But that is probably also true in the UK where gun crime (although low by international standards) has not been eliminated altogether and there too is focussed in the big cities. If you were allowed to delete certain data, so would I. But we aren't allowed to. So neither you nor I should not fudge facts.

You tried to mis-use statistics several times on the talk page at talk:Right to keep and bear arms and on several occasions your replies have attempted to change the argument that was made. Once or twice could be taken as an erroneous slip. But if you persist in this I will have to take a less lenient view and lodge a formal complaint.--Hauskalainen (talk) 14:54, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

You might find this interesting on the historical record of homicide levels in Europe and America. http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/111.1/monkkonen.html. It discusses America's apparently greater tolerance of high homicide rates and the resons for that. The interesting thing I picked up on is that homicide rates in Europe seem to have been much higher in the Middle Ages. They had already fallen remarkably by the 19th century. I have not had time to read it in full but my guess is that the development of the law as a way of resolving disputes probably led to this decline.--Hauskalainen (talk) 15:28, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Hmmmm, Homicide rates in the Soviet Union were somewhere on the order of, what, 30,000,000. How many unarmed folks got killed in the Concentration camps? I think that homicide rates by armed criminals and governments against unarmed citizens in the 20th century throw your utopian curve SLIGHTLY off. --Nukes4Tots (talk) 16:17, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

What utopian curve? I accept the argument that arming oneself is one way to try to defend oneself from tyrannical rule. Personally though I think it is highly unlikely that Jews in Nazi Germany or opponents to Stalin in Russia (or his supposed opponents) if armed could have individually have held out from an organized militia or other armed elements in the population mobilzed against them. History is interesting and certainly worth learning from. --Hauskalainen (talk) 17:10, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree that the Jews in Germany or Oppnents of Stalin in Russia could have successfully defended themselves. Gun control is a way of disarming people to oppress them. The Murder rate in the US is the result of poverty and drugs. You can correct for legal and illegal ownership of firearms and the murder rate goes DOWN! Your methodology is flawed if you believe that legal and illegal gun ownership rates effect homicide rates. Even if you ignore this, I can argue to the extreme and say that if you chained every human to the wall of padded cells, the homicide rate would drop to zero. It's certainly a matter of what one is willing to accept. I am unwilling to accept that LEGAL gun ownership is responsible for firearms homicides that are, by nature, ILLEGAL. If one is going to commit murder, are they going to stop short of buying a gun because it's illegal? Preposterous. --Nukes4Tots (talk) 17:24, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The homicide rate is not 40 or even 20 times higher in the US than in the UK, for 4.71/100,000 is not 40 or even ten times the rate of homicides that is seen in the UK, which is around 1.4/100,000. And, for the 4.71/100,000 US homicide statistic, this is largely a result of 20% of the homicides in the US occurring among just 6% of the population in just 4 specific cities in the US. Take those 4 special case urban dweller outliers out, and the death rate would be significantly lower in the whole of the US. It's not about gun ownership, either. In Wyoming, a state where 33% of all homes have household guns loaded and unlocked in them, the homicide rate is 1.7/100,000 and this rate is not appreciably different than the UK's 1.4/100,000 rate. Yet, in the 4 cities where 20% of the homicides occur in the US, handguns are essentially banned. Homicide rates are not really related to gun ownership rates. Yaf (talk) 17:41, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

But the Brady Campaign says it's 41 times the rate... You must be lying. Don't try and use facts, Yaf, I know your game: State the truth, back it up with facts, reinforce with logic. My lord, how could you? --Nukes4Tots (talk) 17:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa. Because I am just a heartless, dispassionate, logical person interested in facts, backed with cites from reliable sources, rather than being instead invested in just emotional appeal, I guess, and I am not properly focused on "the children" and all of the nanny state maxims. :-) -- Yaf (talk) 17:53, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the 41 times figure comes from combining the gun deaths from homicides and suicides. If we just look at homicides, the number of homicides in the US in 2004 that were committed with a firearm was 9,326 (see table 2.9 of the FBI data at http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_04/documents/CIUS2004.pdf) and the population then was 293,655,404 (see Table 1), making the firearm homicide rate 3.17583122 per 100,000. For England and Wales, which had a 2004 population of 53,045,600 at mid 2004 the Home Office recorded 68 gun homicides in the same year as the American data (http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/hosb0207.pdf), making the firearm homicide rate there 0.128191594 per 100,000. This means that the being murdered with a gun in the US is 24 times more probable in the US than the UK. If we just look at homicides regardless of weapons the multiple is not surprisingly much lower, but it is a multiple nevertheless. It is easy to work out using the same tables but taking homicides regardless of cause. The figures for that year were 4.81 homicides per 100,000 for the U.S. and 1.62 in E&W, making it such that one is 3 times more likely to be murdered in the US than in England and Wales. A likely cause, as both Killias and Cukier present, is the sheer availability of guns in one country relative to the other.--Hauskalainen (talk) 19:09, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

You said the "gun death rate" in the US is 41 times higher than England and Whales (you conveniently don't include all of Great Britian, but I digress). You then reverse yourself and say it's less than three times the rate... again, just for England and Whales. Is that all of GB??? I don't know... I'm a Yank. Then you start dodging the issue by bringing up suicide rates (what's the overall suicide rate in GB, btw?). Bottom line is, you asserted 41 times and then less than three times. You didn't correct for any other factors such as income, population density, or justifiable homicide. So, why is it you're attacking a poster who backs up his claims.... signed... just a lurker. --Nukes4Tots (talk) 19:22, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

What is "it" in your sentence "You then reverse yourself and say it's less than three times the rate". I reversed nothing. I think YAF knows the difference between a homicide and a suicide. I don't know what the comparatives are for suicide in the UK and the US. Maybe you can enighten us. I have a feeling that the 41 times figure may also have included accidental deaths as well as suicides because, if I recall correctly, the suicide rate in the US is higher than that in the UK. Certainly the gun suicide rate is. Guns are such terribly dangerous things... quite unlike Whales.--Hauskalainen (talk) 19:45, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Accidental deaths are miniscule comparatively. What is the overall SUICIDE rate for the entire UK? I also take issue with this statement: "Guns are such terribly dangerous things... quite unlike Whales." I've seen some pretty hideous whale attacks. Them suckers are HUGE. If one has it out for you, you're toast. Remember Moby Dick? Now that was one evil whale. I think Whales should be banned. --Nukes4Tots (talk) 19:55, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Whereas Detroit has 47.3 murders per every 100,000 residents, the firearm homicide rates were 0.09/100,000 for England and Wales to 10/100,000 in Greater Manchester to 140.0/100,000 in Longsight, Moss Side, and Hulme. Looks like parts of GM are 2.95 times worse than Detroit, to put the UK homicide rates into the proper perspective. Yaf (talk) 20:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I am surprised to see you repeating this falsehood after we have already proven beyond any doubt that the Manchester figures reported by the The Observer were wrong. Because at that rate Manchester would have seen many many times the gun deaths than had actually occured in the WHOLE of the UK (including Manchester!) It is wrong, as must be the data for Longsight, Moss Side, and Hulme. It is statistically IMPOSSIBLE. By the way, the additional reference you added to the reference at Gun violence does not support your assertion or the Observer/Guardian report is right. The rate you quoted in the edit reference and taken from the additional reference was for shootings not for firearm homicides which is what the Observer (wrongly) reported. Maybe that is what they intended to write. But it does not support the actual report. --Hauskalainen (talk) 22:26, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Is it not a falsehood. It is cited fact, cited with 2 sources from reliable and verifiable sources, no less. You are confusing rates of homicide with the total number of homicides, and doing Original Research in computing totals for the whole of GM. The homicides in GM occur most commonly in just a relatively few small population areas (they were labeled C1 and C2 in the Operation Chrome report, if I recall correctly) within GM. Within these admittedly small areas in question, by the Operation Chrome report, the firearm murder rate was 1.4/1,000 and this, when re-normed to the common metric of 100,000 becomes 140/100,000. Not wanting it to be true and removing the data you dislike is not the way Misplaced Pages works. You need to look at the 2 reports in question, rather than removing factual data that you find offensive. (The two cited here, as well as the original Operation Chrome report.) Yaf (talk) 22:34, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

No Yaf. You can bluster all you like but the Operation Chrome report (as you call it) - assuming it is this one http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/crrs13.pdf does not say this. The reference on page 16 refers only to "shootings" and not to fatalities or homicides or similar. It definitely does NOT refer to "firearm murder rate" as you say it does. The Observer report clearly mis-quoted the statistics as we have clearly demonstrated.The Home Office report simply does not say what you want it to say. Bad as the situation was in Manchester at that time, it was simply NOT at the level you wish to claim that it was. --Hauskalainen (talk) 19:01, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

1. Reynolds, Morgan O. and Caruth, III, W.W. (1992). NCPA Policy Report No. 176: Myths About Gun Control. National Center for Policy Analysis. p. 7. ISBN 0-943802-99-7. 20 percent of U.S. homicides occur in four cities with just 6% of the population – New York, Chicago, Detroit, and Washington, D.C., and each has a virtual prohibition on private handguns{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
2. D.C. Ranks Well in New Gun Report, WTOP.COM , September 6, 2005.
3. Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2009, Table 297.
4. "National homicide rates, UN data published by Nation Master.com". Retrieved 2006-02-13.
5. America's Most Murderous Cities. by David M. Ewalt, Forbes, 11.08.07.
6. "Battle to save children from gang terror". Observer (Guardian). March 7, 2004. Retrieved 2009-03-12. Despite recent slight falls in the levels of gun crimes, inner south Manchester remains one of the most dangerous parts of the country. In 2002 the firearms murder rate for England and Wales was 0.09 per 100,000, compared with 5.4 per 100,000 for the US. In Greater Manchester, the rate was to 10 per 100,000, while in Longsight, Moss Side, and Hulme, it was 140 per 100,000.
7. Shootings , Gangs and Violent Incidents in Manchester: Developing a crime reduction strategy. Crime Reduction Research Series Paper 13 (PDF). Home Office, Policy and Reducing Crime Office. 2002. p. 16. ISBN 1-84082-832-3. Retrieved 2009-03-18. For every 1,000 head of population in Longsight and Greenheys there were 1.4 shootings.

a caution

edits in content disputes are never vandalism. characterizing anon's removal of sourced material from 2A article as 'rvv' is inappropriate. i learned this the hard way a while back. yes, it looks like, smells like, feels like, vandalism. but it doesn't meet the formal criteria. Anastrophe (talk) 15:51, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Yaf (talk) 16:44, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Missouri/ Puke State

Hi Yaf-- I see you deleted this nickname (it "failed fact-checking") then restored it, saying you'd found the ref. Did you mean to leave the citation out in your rv? Not sure what it means to say it failed fact checking -- the cite wasn't WP:RS? Or it's inaccurate? Or it's just not true that the state is/has been unofficially called by this term? Regards. DavidOaks (talk) 17:37, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The removed content was:

It has also been known as the Puke State (and its citizens called "Pukes"), perhaps on account of an 1827 gathering at the Galena Lead Mines. George Earlie Shankle "...so many Missourians had assembled, that those already there declared the State of Missouri had taken a 'puke.'"

There was no mention that the citizens were ever called "Pukes" in this cite. This part failed fact checking. I left the "Puke State" nickname later in the article, reverting my original deletion of this text in the article, as this was verified by the cite. The nickname of "Pukes" for citizens was not verified, however. So this part was removed. Yaf (talk) 17:46, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

1. ^ State Names, Flags, Seals, Songs, Birds, Flowers and Other Symbols, 1938,
2. http://www.netstate.com/states/intro/mo_intro.htm

Ah, I see. I thought that was common knowledge (having been called "puke" many times when living elsewhere). I'll look for a cite for that part of it, then restore the passage. Sound ok? DavidOaks (talk) 17:50, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

But, that would be Original Research; being called a "puke"!  :-) With a proper cite for the claim, there would be no issue. But, you need a cite before restoring the passage, to validate the "Pukes" claim. Take care. Yaf (talk) 17:54, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

The following would seem definitive -- agree?

Within the state, “pukes” referred before the Civil War to impoverished citizens who nonetheless supported slavery, the equivalent of “poor white trash.” (William G. Cutler, A History of the State of Kansas, Ch 6. (1883). Walt Whitman listed “pukes” as a nickname for Missourians in a note first published by William White, W. L. McAtee and A. L. H. in American Speech, Vol. 36, No. 4 (Dec., 1961), pp. 296-301 DavidOaks (talk) 17:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)