Talk:Gun laws in the United States by state

Texas -- convicted felons

A recent addition to the Texas section says, "Felons are allowed to own fire arms 5 years after their probation is up, but only in their homes for personal protection." Is that correct? I thought that federal law prohibited convicted felons from owning firearms, unless they had been pardoned or otherwise had their records cleared. — Mudwater 16:55, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Sounds very suspicious, since any convicted felon is federally prohibited from purchase or possession of any firearm. If the state did pass such a law, it would be null and void under the US Constitution (Federal Supremacy clause). izaakb ~talk ~contribs 14:35, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the sentence in question. — Mudwater 03:55, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

See the last paragraph of the Arizona section for the skinny on that. State and local police are under no obligation to enforce federal law, and they generally show little interest in enforcing federal gun laws, especially in vehemently pro-gun regions like the Deep South and Mountain West. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.226.29.49 (talk) 09:48, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

the law wouldn't be void, a felon who owns a gun 5 years after their probation is up would only be breaking a federal law, and not the state law, but a felon who broke both could be charged both under federal and state jurisdiction —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.176.160.47 (talk) 22:20, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm jumping in on this late. There should not be a Federal preemption of state law regarding firearms. So, a Federal Felon ban would likely apply to felons in areas where the Federal government has jurisdiction (e.g. Washington DC) or where Congress has authority (e.g. interstate commerce). Instead, it should be a state law preemption. BenWilson (talk) 17:06, 16 April 2010 (UTC)

If that were the case, then the NFA would only apply in those areas, and so anyone could freely purchase a machine gun within a given State without paying the tax to the BATFE. This is not the case; the Supremacy Clause and its interpretations in case law are quite clear that the Federal government and its agencies, where they have been given power by law to perform certain duties, have greater authority in doing so than the governments of the States. There's a famous case regarding medical marijuana, in which the state of California issued permits to certain farmers to grow marijuana. Those growers did so, were arrested by DEA agents, and brought to trial. The fact that the State had allowed it didn't mean squat in a Federal court; the judge would not even allow that fact into evidence.Liko81 (talk) 21:26, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Could you be thinking of the federal law that prohibits persons convicted of family violence from owning a firearm? I'm not an expert, but I believe the federal law prohibits those convicted of a federal felony or violent felony from owning a firearm. I'll check on this Monday. Tom Reedy (talk) 05:41, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Checking further, it appears that a person convicted of a felony may not purchase a firearm from a federally licensed dealer. The law says nothing about gun ownership or buying a gun from an individual or receiving one as a gift, and it appears to me that the Wikipedia federal gun law article is misleading on this point. Tom Reedy (talk) 05:51, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I found it, and as with most federal laws, it's a bit complicated. It's 18USC§922(g)1: (g) It shall be unlawful for any person - (1) who has been convicted in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year; […] (1) to receive, possess, or transport any firearm or ammunition in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce; or (2) to receive any firearm or ammunition which has been shipped or transported in interstate or foreign commerce.

That pretty much rules out any felon who does not live in the same state as the gun and ammunition manufacturer. How that squares with the Texas law I have no idea, but I can tell you it is in the Texas Penal Code, Chapter 46, UNLAWFUL POSSESSION OF FIREARM: § 46.04:

(a) A person who has been convicted of a felony commits an offense if he possesses a firearm:

(1) after conviction and before the fifth anniversary of the person's release from confinement following conviction of the felony or the person's release from supervision under community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision, whichever date is later; or

(2) after the period described by Subdivision (1), at any location other than the premises at which the person lives.

(b) A person who has been convicted of an offense under Section 22.01, punishable as a Class A misdemeanor and involving a member of the person's family or household, commits an offense if the person possesses a firearm before the fifth anniversary of the later of:

(1) the date of the person's release from confinement following conviction of the misdemeanor; or

(2) the date of the person's release from community supervision following conviction of the misdemeanor. Tom Reedy (talk) 16:19, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

• I think that these "State gun law" sections should clearly state what the State laws are, regardless of constitutionality, applicability, or Federal preemption. If there is a preemption of the State law by Federal law, you should still list that State law on in that State's section; then simply add a note that XYZ Federal law still applies at this time. After all, this page isn't about Federal gun laws, it's about State gun laws; Federal laws can change and then you'd have to go back through all these State sections and re-insert all those State laws that used to be preempted. Luftegrof (talk) 01:59, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

2009 Brady Campaign State Scorecard

Recently a graphic of the 2009 Brady Campaign State Scorecard was added to the article. I'm removing it because it violates the principle of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. The Brady Campaign scorecard is very biased towards a pro-gun-control perspective. Additionally their system of rating states is highly questionable, even if one favors strong gun control laws. This article should summarize state and local gun laws in the U.S., without evaluating or passing judgment on the laws' effectiveness or morality. It's possible that the Brady Campaign scorecard graphic would have some place in another Wikipedia article, but not this one. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 02:49, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the article should summarize state and local gun laws, but unfortunately, it does not do that adequately. It's all trees and no forest. It details the gun laws for each state, but it does not give an overall picture of the gun laws across the country. That is what this article needs and that is precisely what the chart was intended to do.

I also think you missed the boat on the issue of neutrality. The Brady campaign certainly has a strong point of view on what gun laws should be, and their opinions related to that could rightly be called non-neutral. But that is not what the chart is about. It simply shows their assessment of the current state of gun laws.

You say that their "system of rating states is highly questionable", but you do not say what you think is questionable, nor do you provide anything to support your statement. While there has been a lot of criticism from gun rights groups in response to the Brady Scorecard, it has been directed at what Brady thinks the laws should be, not at their assessment of state laws. I think their assessment is neutral because they have no interest in misrepresenting what state laws are.

To illustrate this idea, look at the ratings of Congressman by Americans for Democratic Action and the American Conservative Union. While they clearly both have a point of view as to whether liberalism or conservatism is best, they are in general agreement on their ratings of Congressmen. If you look, for example, at their 2008 ratings of House members, you will find a 97.6% (negative) correlation between the ratings. They agree that Barney Frank is a strong liberal (ADA 100, ACU 0) and Michele Bachmann is a strong conservative (ADA 0, ACU 100). They are both neutral because they have no interest in skewing the results.

Your comment about "passing judgment on the laws' effectiveness or morality" is off the mark and somewhat over the line. Nothing in the graphic passes judgement on the effectiveness of gun control laws, much less on their morality. It intentionally avoids any language that expresses approval or disapproval of gun laws. It simply characterizes them as more or less restrictive, which I believe is quite neutral.

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 09:24, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

The Brady Campaign State Scorecard violates the Neutral Point Of View policy because the Brady Campaign is strongly biased in favor of gun control and against gun rights, and this bias is built into the scorecard itself. States with more or stricter laws, as graded by Brady, get a higher score on a scale of 0 to 100, and states with fewer or less strict laws, as graded by Brady, get a lower score. If you go to their web site, the link to the scorecard says "Brady State Scorecard: Most States Have Weak Gun Laws". Each state is assigned a rating of zero to four stars. This is inherently biased, because, to a reasonable person, high scores are better than low scores, being strong is better than being weak, and more stars are better than fewer stars. (See http://www.bradycampaign.org/, http://www.bradycampaign.org/media/press/view/1223/, and http://www.bradycampaign.org/xshare/bcam/stategunlaws/scorecard/StateRatings.pdf.)

Suppose a pro-gun-rights group rated all the states on how well they "respected the Constitution, enforced basic legal rights, and promoted the American way of life". Suppose this group gave states numeric grades, with 100 meaning the state did not have any gun control laws, and a low score meaning the state had a lot of gun control laws. Suppose they said that "most states do not respect the Constitution", and gave the states star ratings, with four stars being the highest, for having the least restrictive laws. That too would be inherently biased, and violate Neutral Point Of View, and that too should be excluded from the article.

The neutrality issue alone means the Brady scorecard should not be included in the article, but, on top of that, the scorecard is highly questionable as a rating of how restrictive or non-restrictive states' gun laws are. To the Brady Campaign, any gun control law is a good law, and so they assign points to states on the basis of how many different types of gun control laws they have. But that's not really a good measure of how restrictive a state's laws are, because different types of laws restrict firearms in different ways and with different effects. For example, California is a "may issue" state, and has issued thousands of permits allowing citizens to carry concealed guns, but Illinois is one of two states that does not allow concealed carry at all. California has state preemption of firearm laws, so cities are not allowed to ban the possession of handguns in citizens' homes, but Illinois does not have preemption and Chicago bans the possession of handguns. California does not require all people who possess any firearms or ammunition to have a police-issued firearm owners i.d. card, but Illinois does. Yet the Brady scorecard rates California as a 79, and the only four star state, where Illinois is rated 28 and gets two stars. So, even people who are strongly in favor of gun control should have serious questions about the validity of the Brady scorecard as a measure of states' gun control laws.

You're right about this article being "all trees and no forest", but that's a good thing. Gun laws are an extremely controversial topic. This article should explain the laws of each state, which are factual, and leave aside the big picture, which is a matter of opinion.

— Mudwater ^(Talk) 23:13, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the Brady Campaign does say that most states have weak gun laws, and they do rate states on their Scorecard results as zero to four stars. They undoubtedly have a strong anti-gun bias. If it was not clear that I agree with that, it should be now. But there were no stars or characterization of gun laws as "weak" in the graphic; it characterized them as more or less restrictive. Rather than focus on the source of the assessment for the graphic, I think you need to show why the graphic and the assessment it does show should not be included.

The hypothetical you tender is not analogous to this situation and thus falls flat. While pro-gun and ant-gun groups will generally agree on whether a law restricts the use of and access to guns, they do not agree on what is meant by "respect the Constitution", "enforce basic legal rights", and "promote the American way of life".

Your critique of the Brady criteria is somewhat reasonable, although your suggestion that they would assess state gun laws based on the number of laws is not; it has a ring of trying to impart irrationality to opponents that is all too common in politics today. Whether or not you agree with their goal, they are rational and they make choices to further their goal of restricting gun availability.

I understand that you feel that no-issue states should be considered more restrictive, and I would agree that Brady should distinguish between no-issue and may-issue. But the reality is that many may-issue states are de facto no-issue for most residents, so the distinction is not that great. Likewise, preemption does not make much of a difference if the state laws are already the most restrictive in the country. When you throw in purchase permit requirements, purchase limits, universal background checks, and limits on types of guns, it is hard to say that Illinois is more restrictive than California.

The fact that you personally disagree with their assessment is not grounds for removal of the graphic. Even if you were to present a reliable source that disagrees with Brady's assessment (which you have not), the appropriate action per WP:NPOV would be to include the new source, not delete the other one.

I am surprised that you think "all trees and no forest" is a good thing. If the article does not summarize the material, then in order to get an overall sense of the state laws, one would need to read through the entire article and figure it out. Avoiding useful material because someone might find controversy in it has never been part of the Wikipedia ethos.

I think more summary material is needed - not just an assessment of how restrictive laws are, but general descriptions of the different types of laws that exist, how they vary among the states, and how prevalent they are. There is a some of this in the lead, but it really needs more. Since this article is already quite long, perhaps it would make sense to move all the summary material to a new "parent" article that would point to this one for the details of each state. The alternative to that woukd be to break out the state details into separate articles, but I think that would result in too many small articles.

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 01:36, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

As explained in more detail in my previous comment, I'm convinced that the Brady Campaign state scorecard (1) violates the Neutral Point Of View policy, by giving higher scores to states that have what Brady considers to be more restrictive laws, and (2) is not a good overall indication of how restrictive a state's gun laws are, because it gives too much weight to how many different types of gun control laws a state has, and not enough weight to specific types of gun laws, such as restrictions on concealed carry, local gun bans, and licensing of firearms owners.

I would encourage other editors to add their opinions to this discussion. The more editors who participate, the better, in my view.

— Mudwater ^(Talk) 01:59, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

It's the point values that bother you? There are only two directions the points could go in, higher for more restrictive or higher for less restrictive. If you think the point values show POV, I will gladly remove them from the legend.

You have given your personal opinion that the assessment of restrictiveness in not good, but that is just your personal opinion. You have not shown any source that agrees with you. Will you please provide some?

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 01:41, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

• This has no place in the article. It is the product of an advocacy group and solely based on their opinion. As an advocacy group, they are not neutral. They have a definate agenda and their products will advance that agenda. Putting it here in a graphic form draws attention to it (which draws WP:UNDUE attention to their opinion). 02:14, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, they are not at all neutral on whether restrictions on guns are a good thing, and the graphic does not in any way endorse their position on that. The graphic shows their assessment of the restrictiveness of gun laws, and they have every reason to provide an accurate assessment. I have not seen any reliable source that suggests that assessment is not reasonable.

As for WP:UNDUE, it does not say that an article should not give undue weight to the opinions of any particular group. Rather it says that an article should not give undue weight to a particular aspect of the subject matter. Certainly, the restrictiveness of gun laws is an appropriate aspect to cover in this article.

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 01:41, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

• But it shows their opinion, based solely on their stated agenda of stricter gun control. In other words, if it doesn't agree with their views, it scores low. That's not even remotely neutral. There is no objective, measureable standard. It's not tied to crimes rates, deaths or anything else that can be quantified. It is solely opinion. Presenting their opinion, in an eye catching graphic format, does given under weight to their POV. Niteshift36 (talk) 03:32, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

• Their opinion that stricter gun laws are good is certainly not objective, but I think their assessment of the restrictiveness of the laws is. Their goal is to restrict gun usage and it does not further their agenda to skew this assessment. Since some might interpret the score values to mean that higher numbers are better, I have removed them from the legend. Believe me, my intent in posting this graphic is not to endorse their ideas; rather it is to show which states have freer access to guns and which do not. -- JPMcGrath (talk) 04:01, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

• How could it possibly be objective? Strict gun laws equal high scores. High score equals better. In their opinion, stricter is better. It presents the opinion of an advocacy group. And yes, it is in their interest to skew the results. If they rate a state poorly, then they sell wolf tickets about how "unsafe" a state is while they lobby for stricter laws (while ignoring that the states in the dark green tend to have lower crime rates). If you fetched a NRA type graphic showing the opposite, then it might be balanced. Otherwise, their opinions are being presented in a unduly weighted manner. You removed the legend? What good is a graphic that doesn't tell us what it means? Niteshift36 (talk) 04:29, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

This argument based on NPOV seems tortured and off base. The NPOV policy applies to the whole article in aggregate. A quick scan of the footnotes shows a disproportionate number of pro-gun references, to the NRA-ILA, CarryConcealed.net, USACarry.com, and many others. The policy requirement here is a net neutral balance of POV sourcing, and the addition of some Brady counterbalance to the undue weight given to pro-gun sources actually would improve the NPOV balance here. Indeed, this entire article seems so far skewed off-center of POV balance point it needs some serious editing to bring it back to a neutral balance point. SaltyBoatr (talk) 22:01, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Replying to other points in the thread above. The Brady graphic is describing strength of gun trafficing laws. They order this by weakest to strongest. There is nothing about other types of gun laws. There is nothing about whether weaker is good or if stronger is bad. This is not an argument about good law or bad law, it is simply a rating of weak law versus strong law regarding gun trafficking. SaltyBoatr (talk) 22:04, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

your argument against the card is like arguing that quoting the score of a sports game, from one of the team's website is POV, because it lists that team's score first. The only difference is the "scorecard" in question rates laws in a subjective manner. any sort of rating system like this is open to inaccuracies, but I am not sure how skewing it would advance the Bradly Campaign's cause. Anyway, the focus should be on how they rank states. since the scorecard focuses on trafficking than it might be easily measured. after all, Wisconsin is green, despite having no concealed carry law 67.176.160.47 (talk) 22:42, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

• That makes no sense. A teams score is a matter of fact. The score was whatever it was. This is a matter of opinion. The activist Brady campaign gives their opinion that a state has strong or weak laws based on criteria they made up themselves. That's hardly neutral. And yes, I'd say the same thing if this were the NRA version of the same map going up without balance. Niteshift36 (talk) 22:47, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

@Mudwater and Niteshift: I agree w/ McGrath;s June 7 edit. All of the other graphics in the article are by 'Carry Rights' organizations and at least one uses potentially POV language. However they serve an informative purpose. As does the Brady graphic, which is candid about its intent. Please allow it co-exist w/ the other graphs. It is information, like the 'Carry' graphs. If not, familiarize yourselves with the Conflict Resolution Process. Tapered (talk) 17:54, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

The disagreement having already been posted on the Neutral Point Of View Noticeboard here, the article has now been submitted to Requests For Mediation here. I have agreed to participate in the mediation process, as have JPMcGrath and several other editors. Niteshift36 has not replied, despite several posts on his talk page, and has not commented on this article talk page since March 18th, so I'm guessing that he's not currently interested in pursuing this discussion. Unfortunately, SaltyBoatr is not agreeing to the mediation process, which is going to make it more difficult to achieve a collaborate solution to the content dispute. P.S. While I disagree with you about the NPOV question, I appreciate your input to the discussion. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 00:38, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Niteshift36 has now agreed to the mediation. Now only Saltyboatr has not agreed. But I still hope that he will agree to mediation of this dispute, it might help us make some progress with this discussion. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 11:28, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

AEB1

I will take you at your word then. This article has 300 references. Ignoring the 200+ that point to primary sources. The remaining sources predominately point to websites of gun rights organizations. After checking for five minutes, I only found one reference[1] to a source opposing gun violence. What is your opinion about the imbalance of sourcing in this article? SaltyBoatr (talk) 12:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

That completely depends on the nature of what is being cited. If it is matters of fact, does it matter terribly whether or not the source is pro or anti-gun ownership? If we are saying that "Kansas has a X day waiting period", does it matter if that came from either side? It is a matter of fact, so I'd say it doesn't matter. Either they do or they do not have said waiting period. If we are using pro-gun sources to cite matters of opinion, then there is an issue. If you find a pro-gun source being used to support an assertion that the law in a particular state is "good" or "strong", you'd have a point. Also, your use of the phrase "opposing gun violence" is hardly neutral sounding. The implication is that if you disagree with someone like Brady et al, you support "gun violence". That's absurd. Supporting the right to own firearms (whether for sport or defense) is not "supporting gun violence". Nor is supporting the right to defend oneself. Many of these orgs are more accurately anti-gun, not just anti-gun violence. Taking away a hunting rifle isn't about preventing violence to any person. Niteshift36 (talk) 14:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

OK then. At least we agree that the Brady Campaign is an acceptable source for matters of fact. When I look at their scorecard it appears that it draws from factual data. Either a state does background checks or it does not. That is a yes:no question. I am guessing that your problem is with whether doing background checks is fairly described as "weak" or as "strong". That seems moot and a straw man argument because when you check the graphic[2] it doesn't say "weak" or "strong", rather it says "more restrictive" or "less restrictive" which are objective statements of fact and not statements of opinion. SaltyBoatr (talk) 15:16, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• More or less restrictive than what? Niteshift36 (talk) 16:18, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

More restrictive or less restrictive than the other states. This is a neutral statement of fact. SaltyBoatr (talk) 16:55, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• No, it's not because it still requires Brady assessment over whether or not a specific states laws are restrictive enough or not. There aren't enough colors in that graphic to address the variations between the states, so an certain amount of opinion is required on their part. That's where the issue is. Niteshift36 (talk) 17:06, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Summarizing the discussion above, Mudwater and Niteshift36 have argued that the graphic expresses the opinion of Brady Campaign. Myself and JPMcGrath don't see that simply stating whether laws are restrictive is opinion. Indeed, depending on personal point of view, "restrictive" might be good, or equally, it might be bad. Clearly this is not a question of opinion, but rather it is a helpful summary of gun law status. Restoring the graphic now. SaltyBoatr (talk) 16:03, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• And I removed it. This sure hasn't been decided. I don't see a clear consensus here. Then, to make it more POV promoting, you put the graphic at the top of the page, not down where it was in the body. Bottom line: It is Brady's OPINION on what is restrictive enough for them and it promotes their POV. If you want to take this to the NPOV noticeboard, I'll be happy to go. But don't arbitarily decide that this matter is closed, because there damn sure isn't a clear consensus. Niteshift36 (talk) 16:24, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Rather than edit warring this, could you address the points above? Your argument as I read it is: Statements of "weak" versus "strong" are opinions, and opinion violates NPOV. Yet there have been no statements of "weak" or "strong", therefore you are arguing about a straw man. Please make your case based on logic, and avoid edit war. SaltyBoatr (talk) 16:55, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• Before you start throwing around terms like "edit war", why don't we address your false consensus? 2 editors saying one thing, 2 saying the opposite. Yet somehow, you took it upon yourself to decide that the disputed material needs to not only be put in the article, but go at the top. Would you care to explain that to me? How about if I stop answering your questions over and over and you answer some for me. What does that graphic contribute to the article? What facts can be gleaned from looking at that graphic? If one state has a 3 day wait and no guns in public places law and another has a guns in public places law but no wait, are they rated the same or does Brady put more weight on one issue than the other? Niteshift36 (talk) 17:06, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Per the reasoning given by JPMcGrath above, the article could benefit from "an overall picture of the gun laws across the country" in summary. The article has too many trees to see the forest, and a broad summary as conveyed in that graph makes for a better article. The readers can read down below to get the detail you describe. The opening of the article should be for a summary. SaltyBoatr (talk) 17:13, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• That graphic doesn't give an overall picture of gun laws. It gives a picture of gun control laws, a set specifically chosen by Brady to represent the state of gun control laws, not gun laws. That is your strawman. Niteshift36 (talk) 17:17, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• I came here following the request on WP:NPOVN#Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_.28by_state.29. Having looked at the discussion and the map in question (which I take to be this one), I think the map is a useful addition to the article. It looks like the result of a competent evaluation of gun control state laws, and it is properly attributed to the originating organization. I don't understand the NPOV concern. The map shows less restrictive laws in green, more restrictive ones in red. If anything, this projects a "green is ok, red is a problem" message, not the other way round. I could see exactly the same map produced by the NRA, in exactly the same colours. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 17:28, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• It isn't a "competent evaluation" because it is a listing of selected control laws, carefully selected as a measure of something the activist organization is advocating, to "prove" their point of view. It is an agenda driven evaluation. And you don't see a NRA map because it would be biased as well. Niteshift36 (talk) 17:39, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• You miss the point. I'm not suggesting to balance this map with one from the NRA. I suggest that if you see just the map and the basic legend, you wouldn't be able to tell if its from the NRA or from the Brady campaign. For me that indicates sufficient neutrality. What point do you think the group is trying to prove? "Gun freedom is still healthy in most states, but increasingly encroached upon in New England and California"? "Most of America sees no need for restrictive gun control laws?" --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:00, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• And you're missing the point. Let's make it simple. The map has to be attributed to Brady, therefore a reader knows it is based on their assessment. They are not neutral. Their product is not neutral. Without balance, it gives a bias. Niteshift36 (talk) 18:04, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• Sorry, but that's nonsense. Attribution creates neutral statements - instead of "X", which may be debatable, we say "Y says X", which is a simple and easy to verify fact. And I have seen no factual argument why the map should not be neutral - "because it's prepared by the Brady campaign" is not an argument. 2+2 equals 4, even if Saddam claims it. To me this looks like a case of WP:IDONTLIKEIT. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 18:45, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not quite sure I understand the argument against posting this. The Brady Scorecard is not scored arbitrarily, it's actually based on a set of very specific criteria that are scored the same way for every state (and that information can certainly be included in sourcing the table). So I'm not quite sure how bias plays in here. Furthermore, I don't think anyone would argue that the Brady Scorecard is an accurate depiction of how strong gun laws are from state to state. Conversely, states at the bottom of this list would rightfully be seen to allow the most "gun freedom" for residents. Forward Thinkers (talk) 18:43, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, Niteshift36 suggested[3] above that we ask the NPOV notice board for their opinion, and we did, and they see no NPOV problem. Also, another editor has shown up seeing now who sees no NPOV problem. Presently the consensus here weighs in as 4:2 that there is no NPOV problem. I don't expect that Niteshift36 will like it, but hopefully he can respect the process at Wikipedia includes room for disagreements where decisions are discussed on the talk page, and consensus is followed. Putting the graph back in. I encourage Niteshift36 to not edit war against this 4:2 consensus. SaltyBoatr (talk) 19:45, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• And I encourage you to stop looking at this like a freakin race. You call it a consensus after a couple of hours? You can't let this run for a day and get some other opinions? So the first 2 people that came over agreed with you and you go running off, putting it in. That's just absurd. You put the RfC up to get opinions, then don't even give it 24 hours? At this point, you're making this into some sort of contest about who can get people to weigh in the fastest. Normally a RfC runs for a few DAYS, not a couple of hours. Relax, breath and take your own advice not to edit war. Niteshift36 (talk) 21:52, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

The burden is on you. You have been asked several times (see above) to explain yourself and your faulty logic, and you have not yet done so. Waiting. SaltyBoatr (talk) 22:04, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• Quit waiting and read below. There's no faulty logic on my end my friend. Niteshift36 (talk) 01:48, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I invite other editors to read what Niteshift36 has written down below, see this diff, and judge whether this is a response to the questions about his logic raised above. This is simply delaying the matter. Time has come to put the graph back in. Are there other editors willing to cooperate with this process? SaltyBoatr (talk) 04:54, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

• Once again, you see this as some sort of race, like it has to be completed in a certain period of time. RfC auto expire in a month. You tried to end it in a couple of hours. Is it so urgent that you can't give it a few days? Niteshift36 (talk) 16:41, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

AEB2

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I haven't said anything on this talk page for about 10 days, but I'm going to chime in again now. To be honest, I'm pretty disappointed by this whole discussion. Until now, this article has been a model of NPOV. The article just summarizes the gun laws of each state, in a neutral way. While the neutrality has not always been perfectly achieved, that's been the goal. To me it's painfully obvious that the Brady Campaign State Scorecard (1) presents an extremely non-neutral point of view, and (2) is by no means a fair or objective measure of how restrictive various states' gun laws are. I've explained why I think this in more detail in several posts earlier in this section. I feel quite strongly that, in this section and the two sections below, Niteshift36 has done a really great job of explaining these two points, and some other points as well, at considerable length, and directly answering the objections of other editors, and I'd like to thank him for his patient and articulate efforts. Frankly, he's a lot more patient and articulate than I am. Again and again he has presented well thought out arguments that support these points, and again and again a few editors keep saying that he has not answered their objections, when in fact he clearly has. The more I think about this, the more I'm taken aback by the claim that adding the Brady Campaign State Scorecard map is objective or not a violation of NPOV. I have seen many POV edit wars on firearms related articles such as Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, Right to keep and bear arms, and Gun politics in the United States. I was really hoping that we could avoid these time consuming and tedious disputes in this particular article, by making it all about "just the facts, ma'am". And I am still hoping that we can do that. If you look at the long edit history of this article, you can see that many editors have worked hard to summarize gun laws in an informative, helpful, and neutral way, and I myself have contributed more than a little to this effort. We have not always succeeded, but that was our goal. I hope that that can continue to be the goal of this article. So, please, folks. If you think that the neutrality of the article can be improved, by removing or fixing statements that are biased or unsupported, by all means let's talk about it, because no doubt there is room for improvement. But, no Brady Campaign State Scorecard map, thank you very much. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 01:38, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree that Nightshift has been patient, but I cannot agree that he has directly answered my objections. More specifically, I summarized the arguments that NPOV and UNDUE justifies removing the graphic, and I think they clearly were lacking. Perhaps you will explain how you think they apply.

WP:NPOV says that "Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources". It also says that "material should not be removed solely on the grounds that it is 'POV'". So how does this justify removing the graphic?

WP:UNDUE says that "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject". I have argued that an assessment of the restrictiveness of state gun laws in an article about state gun laws is relevant, and one assessment does not constitute undue weight. Do you think UNDUE applies?

If neither of the above applies, what is the justification for removing it?

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 04:51, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• I've been trying to illustrate the NPOV problem, which leads to the undue issue. You simply don't like how I'm leading you to it. You refuse to look at the assessment itself, only the final product. Instead, you want a sound byte answer and that's it. Fine. Undue is simple. You're presenting only the assessment of one anti-gun activist group. You're not presenting the assessment of the other side. That's about as simple as it can be put. Where is the graphic that shows the assessment of a neutral party? Where is the graphic that shows the assessment of the pro-gun ownership POV. Show me where those are and how I've been missing them and I'll shut up. Niteshift36 (talk) 13:22, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

You keep talking about WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE, but you ignore what the policy actually says. I can find nothing in them that would support removing the graphic. If you think that they do support removal, please quote the part that you think does.

You are correct that I have added the assessment of only one group. As I said before, if there is a different perspective that you think should be included, you should add it. I even offered to add one myself if you would point me to it. You have not done that, because you cannot find another perspective from a reliable source. That is not at all surprising, because the assessment is not very controversial.

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 20:38, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• It's not because the Brady one is not controversial. It's because pro-ownership orgs don't tend towards "assessments". They're more concerned with what the laws actually say and what they actually mean, not how they feel about them. The other problem here is that we have 4 different discussion going on about essentially the same issue. So when I answer your question in another section (liek I did today), you give me more "you haven't addressed it" in this section. I didn't start any of these sub discussions, but I'm being asked the same damn question over and over in each one, despite having answered it today in another one of these. Niteshift36 (talk) 20:52, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree that the discussion is getting a little out of control. For the record, I did not start any new sections either - I think everything I have said was in direct replay to another post. Part of this is the nature of the beast, but I suspect that the software has something to do with it. Maybe the LiquidThreads extension will help if and when it gets here.

As for the Brady assessment, I think it is not controversial, and should not be. Do you think what it shows is wrong, or do you just object to it because it is from Brady?

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 23:27, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I really have addressed your question. My objection isn't based on the source, it's based on the content/criteria used, which are biased toward their agenda. I tried using one specific example to illustrate what I was talking about, but you didn't really address that point, rather you kept asking me the same question over and over. To be honest, I've become very aggravated with this discussion. I tried my best good faith effort to dial it back and reset a little, thinking we were going to have a productive discussion about what Salty thought should go in the tables and how he thought it should be incorporated. But I was clearly a fool for doing so because, if anything.....well forget it, I'm not going to give someone an excuse to go crying to WQA. Do whatever you two want to do to this article. I'm past giving a damn. Niteshift36 (talk) 23:58, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

We need to try to keep personalities and personal opinions out of this. Mudwater weighed in above, thanks. The core problem here is that by policy: "Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources". The articles fails in this regard. And, "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject", again it fails. SaltyBoatr (talk) 12:53, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• And, as far as I understand, we are trying to address that issue in the 50 tables discussion below, aren't we? Niteshift36 (talk) 13:22, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I said nothing that relates to personalities. What I talked about was addressing objections. I have repeatedly asked him to address my objections to his claims that WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE apply, and he has not done so. -- JPMcGrath (talk) 20:38, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• "He" has.......and "he" wishes that he could draw you a big arrow to show you because you and Salty have split this whole damn mess into 4 seperate discussions, then want me to answer the same question over and over. Stop with your "he hasn't addressed it" nonsense. Niteshift36 (talk) 21:13, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Smoke aside, I agree that Niteshift36 has not yet addressed the applicability of WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE as requested by JPMcGrath. It is time to conclude that either he cannot, or will not do so. How much longer must we put up with the evasion? SaltyBoatr (talk) 21:21, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• (And no, I didn't indent). Big surprise, one says something and the second member of the tag team parrots the same thing. What's actually starting to piss me off here is that the both of you have made this into 3 more discussions, then when something is answered one place, you ask it again in the other one and act like you never heard an answer. Both of you have just said that I have "evaded" and "refused" to address the question. Both of you are wrong. [4] (I'll put this in bold print and maybe you'll actually see it this time) "Undue is simple. You're presenting only the assessment of one anti-gun activist group. You're not presenting the assessment of the other side. That's about as simple as it can be put. Where is the graphic that shows the assessment of a neutral party? Where is the graphic that shows the assessment of the pro-gun ownership POV. Show me where those are and how I've been missing them and I'll shut up." Did you get that? Do you see where I told you why I have an issue with the undue portion? Wait, let me tell you again, so maybe, just maybe, you two won't repeat the same false allegation. I said "Undue is simple. You're presenting only the assessment of one anti-gun activist group. You're not presenting the assessment of the other side. That's about as simple as it can be put. Where is the graphic that shows the assessment of a neutral party? Where is the graphic that shows the assessment of the pro-gun ownership POV. Show me where those are and how I've been missing them and I'll shut up.". Did I address my concern about undue? Yes. Did I do it BEFORE you two came in here and claimed, yet again, that I didn't? Yes. Will either of you bother to say "oops, I missed that"? Hell no. Neither of you will conceed that I did address it. You might not like the answer. You might not even think it went far enough. But it WAS addressed and you both were completely wrong to state (again) that it was never addressed and that I've "evaded" blah, blah, blah. Just to make sure you don't miss it, here it is again: "Undue is simple. You're presenting only the assessment of one anti-gun activist group. You're not presenting the assessment of the other side. That's about as simple as it can be put. Where is the graphic that shows the assessment of a neutral party? Where is the graphic that shows the assessment of the pro-gun ownership POV. Show me where those are and how I've been missing them and I'll shut up.". Now, go ahead, divert off onto something else, start a 5th sub-discussion of the same issue and then accuse me there of not answering the question in that section. And to think I actually was stupid enough to believe that we were starting to make progress in one of those sections.Niteshift36 (talk) 21:38, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

More diversion, your personal opinion is not relevant here. Let's try again: Can you quote the specific words from the WP:NPOV policy that you are invoking? SaltyBoatr (talk) 22:20, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

That's not diversion. You are being completely unreasonable. It is my opinion about how it violates undue. You want some cut and paste bullshit and you refuse to accept any answer that isn't in the format you want it in. Further, I was addressing WP:UNDUE, not NPOV. You didn't even bother to read the answer enough to get that part right. Niteshift36 (talk) 22:27, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually you are addressing what you wish the WP:NPOV says. (and look again, UNDUE is a subset of NPOV) Again, quote the specific wording from the policy you are invoking. SaltyBoatr (talk) 22:32, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Niteshift36, could you please quote the NPOV policy wording you are invoking? SaltyBoatr (talk) 13:12, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Being a frequent editor of this article, my opinion has been recently solicited by a party to this dispute, so here goes: I agree with JPMcGrath's assessment on 09:24, 5 March 2010 (UTC). In fact, many gunnies I know simply take the Brady scores and invert them to get an idea of how good a state's gun laws are. However, while not actually biased, citing the Brady Campaign ratings could still easily give many people the impression of bias, and, as they say, Caesars wife must be above suspicion. The Brady stuff should probably go, at least until it's counterbalanced with ratings from a pro-gun org.

--Hoplophile (talk) 04:40, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The irony is that neither Hoplophile, nor Niteshift36 seem to be actually reading the WP:NPOV policy which says we must give equal coverage from all significant POVs in the article, even those we disagree with. Presently there are no references to Brady, while there are scores of references to pro-gun groups. This excess referencing to pro-gun sources isn't an impression of bias, rather it is manifest bias. Further, these editors doggedly push to keep even a single reference to Brady out of the article. Using the 'Caesars wife' logic that Brady's reputation would besmirch this article. Further evidence of editor bias here. This article doesn't belong to pro-gun hoplophilic editors. Quit acting like it does. It belongs to Wikipedia in general. SaltyBoatr (talk) 13:12, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

The references from the pro-gun groups are way down on the bottom of the page where hardly anyone ever looks. The Brady map was plastered right on top of the page where it's the very first thing a person sees. This being the case, I really think we need to be more careful with it. Someone should find state ratings from a pro-gun group and post a map of that right next to the Brady map; then everyone will be happy and we'll avoid both real bias as well as appearance of bias. Sound good?--Hoplophile (talk) 15:26, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for trying to negotiate, this is a breath of fresh air. I wonder though, why is the Brady graphic "real bias". It seems that the biggest problem now is simply the use of the word "Brady", which echo's the demonizing of Brady seen in the pro-gun advocacy press. Is there neutral sourcing that says that "Brady" is such a bad word or is this mostly the opinion of the pro-gun people? I don't see that what is being said in that graphic that is inherently controversial. We all agree for instance that California is the most restrictive state, etc.. SaltyBoatr (talk) 16:31, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, you're preaching to the choir on that. As I stated before, I don't think that the map was biased, but it would give many people the spurious impression of bias. If someone posted the same type of map with NRA or GOA ratings, without an opposing view from an anti-gun group, I'd feel the same way. Hoplophile (talk) 18:18, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

You are getting to the crux of the issue then, as you put it: "impression of bias". As near as I can tell, that involves advocacy readers bringing their acquired impressions here. Is this "impression of bias" found in any Wikipedia policy? I looked at WP:NPOV and don't see it. If it is not based on policy, then your objection is without policy merit and we should restore the graphic. Asking again, could you please cite the specific wording in the WP:NPOV policy on which you are basing your claim. SaltyBoatr (talk) 19:08, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Define "bias." In my opinion, if a large percentage of visitors to a page would percieve something as biased, then it should probably be considered biased.

In any case, I just went and found these great maps from opencarry.org, a pro-gun site. Let's put some of those maps up, put the Brady map back up, and then we'll call it even. Sound good? Hoplophile (talk) 16:18, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Summary! Excellent! That is exactly what I would like to see. I have searched for this kind of summary information, but have not found it. Thanks, Hoplophile! I hope we can reach a consensus here.

I think it would make sense create a "Summary" section at the top with sub-sections describing each issue area along with each map. I can easily produce the map images, but probably would not be the best person to write the summary. Any volunteers for writing the text?

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 19:05, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

After being away for two days, I expected to find a significant backlog of comments to read through. Nothing? What do people think about Hoplophile's suggestion? -- JPMcGrath (talk) 08:05, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

I disagree that a large number of references to pro-gun groups is evidence of manifest bias. Just as Brady is a reliable source of information on the restrictiveness of gun laws, groups such as the NRA/ILA are reliable sources for information on gun laws. In both cases, there is no reason to suggest that their opinions on policy would skew the information they provide.

As for positions on the page, the map was placed at the top of the page because it is summary information and that belongs at the top. The other information is more state-level detail, and that belongs towards the bottom. The placement is appropriate in both cases.

If someone wants to measure the prominence of material by the "good guys" and the "bad guys", however they decide who is bad and good, they would find a small amount of information from the anti-gun side in a more prominent position and a much larger amount of information from the pro-gun side in a less prominent position. That sounds somewhat balanced to me.

I understand the concern about first impressions by people who might look at this less rationally and have a "knee-jerk" reaction to a group they do not like. While it might make sense to make some changes in the presentation of information in order to lessen such reactions, I think that removing useful information would be completely counter to the Wikipedia ethos, and it would clearly violate WP:NPOV.

I would certainly favor the inclusion of counterbalancing information from a pro-gun group, although I suspect that ratings from a pro-gun group would be essentially the same. Just as with ACU / ADA ratings, this is not controversial.

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 19:30, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

So when is enough enough? This discussion goes on for pages, and those opposed to the graphic give personal preference reasons and fail or refuse to give specific policy based reasons for their objections. The article fails a core policy issue here is that we must represent all significant views fairly, proportionately, and without bias. Including a non-controversial graph sourced to the Brady Center is a small step towards fixing this NPOV policy failure. Not to mention, the article would benefit from the fair overview this graphic will add to the article summary. SaltyBoatr (talk) 20:17, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

It's getting there. I think that someone needs to quote some specific language in Wikipedia policy (or guideline) that supports its removal. If that does not happen within a day, I think it would be reasonable to re-insert it. -- JPMcGrath (talk) 01:58, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

AEB3

SaltyBoatr, what you're saying is completely incorrect. Here's why. This article is a summary of gun laws in the United States, by state. It's all about what the gun laws are, and there are not opposing views, to be balanced, on this subject. I'll give you an example. The article says that in Idaho, no law may "permit the confiscation of firearms, except those actually used in the commission of a felony." Either that's true, or it's not true, there are no opposing views on the subject. In fact it is true, and the statement has two references, one from the NRA, which is a pro gun rights group, and one from the LCAV, which is a pro gun control group. But both groups are reliable references for what the law says. Whether they are pro gun rights or pro gun control is irrelevant for the purpose of referencing the statement in the article, and the same is true for all the other references. Therefore your whole analysis on this talk page of how many references are from pro gun rights organizations vs. pro gun control organizations is completely irrelevant, and your statement that the article currently has a pro gun rights bias is completely false. By contrast, the Brady Campaign State Scorecard is an opinion about how restrictive -- and therefore, in the Brady Campaign's view, how good -- the gun laws of different states are. As I and other editors have explained at length in this discussion, whether you're willing to admit that we've explained it or not, the Scorecard is definitely not an objective measure of how restrictive states' gun laws are. On the contrary, it presents a highly questionable and highly flawed opinion of the restrictiveness of the states' laws, and in fact it is extremely controversial in this regard, quite aside from the Brady Campaign's strong pro gun control bias. In conclusion, the State Scorecard has absolutely no place in this article. Furthermore, the "POV" and "Synthesis" tags should be removed from the article, because the article has an extremely neutral point of view, and does not contain any previously unpublished synthesis of ideas -- and this will continue to be true as long as the State Scorecard is not added. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 02:05, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

You make your point clear, and I hear it. Still, what you are saying amounts to an assertion that Brady is a flawed and biased organization, therefore they should not be included. Where does the WP:NPOV policy say that? Please quote the specific policy wording now. SaltyBoatr (talk) 14:44, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Neutral point of view, "All Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." That's the basic concept, which needs to be understood in the context of each article. For an article like Political arguments of gun politics in the United States, it would probably mean giving roughly equal weight to the views of pro gun rights and pro gun control organizations and politicians, because that's the subject of the article. The Brady state scorecard might possibly have a place in an article like that, if balanced by opposing views. But this article is about the gun laws themselves, so, to present the material from a neutral point of view, fairly and without bias, non-factual (and highly debatable) opinions about the gun laws, such as the Brady state scorecard, should be left out entirely. That will observe the wording of the policy, quoted here, and will also observe the spirit of the policy, which is that articles should strive for neutrality, and not be subject to extraneous POV advocacy. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 15:32, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

The Brady assessment is about the restrictiveness of state gun laws, so I think it does belong here. If it were about whether more restrictive is good or bad, I would agree that it belongs elsewhere, but anything relating to that has been left out of the graphic.

I disagree that the Brady assessment is "highly debatable"; rather I think it is uncontroversial. It is easy to find reliable sources that disagree with Brady's political preferences, but I cannot find any that disagree with its assessment. If you want to make that claim, don't you need to show some controversy? I know that you and Niteshift36 say you disagree with it, but where are the reliable sources?

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 20:55, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

If I wanted to say in an article that the Brady state scorecard was controversial, I would need to provide reliable sources for that statement, but that's not what I want. My goal is to keep this article neutral, and avoid POV advocacy, by leaving the scorecard out of it completely. As I've said, the article is currently neutral because it describes the gun laws, without offering a subjective opinion about them. And I've already explained in several posts why the scorecard is just that, a subjective opinion. But, for your reference, here's an editorial in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, called "Gun Control Laws Not All Ineffective", that has several criticisms of the Brady scorecard. As they say, the Brady Campaign rates states on how well each state conforms to Brady's own recommendations, and not on statistical evidence of gun-related crimes being low or high, which the newspaper thinks would be a better measure of gun laws. The editorial goes on to further criticize the scorecard for putting too much emphasis on requiring background checks at gun shows, and not enough emphasis on loading indicators or childproof safety locks, which, the editorial contends, would be more effective in reducing gun violence. "P.S." You won't be surprised to hear that the NRA is also critical of the Brady scorecard. Their main complaint seems to be a correlation between less restrictive gun laws and lower rates of violent crime. But, again, that's the NRA's opinion about gun laws, which should also be left out of this article. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 22:26, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

In both of those articles, the writers argue that the policies that Brady advocates are ineffective at curbing gun violence. The title of the first one, "Gun control laws not all ineffective", speaks for itself. The NRA/ILA article says that eliminating restrictive gun laws that Brady advocates has reduced crime. However, they do not argue that their assesment is far off in terms of the restrictiveness of gun laws, which is what I have been saying is not controversial. I believe that is because they agree with the assessment, just as the ACU and the ADA agree with each others' assesments.

I understand that you want to avoid POV, and I support that. But I do not think the Brady assessment is POV. What I want to see is summary "big picture" information; more forest and not all trees. I don't think that needs to be controversial.

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 04:19, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

In your previous post you asked for a reliable reference showing that the Brady Campaign state scorecard is controversial as a measure of the restrictiveness of gun laws. The newspaper editorial is such a reference, because it criticizes the methodology of the scorecard. The editorial says, among other things, that the scorecard is not a good measure of the restrictiveness of gun laws, because it puts too much emphasis on background checks at gun shows, and not enough emphasis on loaded chamber indicators and childproof locks. It also says that meeting Brady's recommendations is not an objective measure of the restrictiveness of states' laws. As I said in my previous post, a reference is not needed for this discussion, because Niteshift36 and I have already shown in great detail that the scorecard is not objective and also is not NPOV, but I provided this one anyway, as you requested, and it does support what I'm saying. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 12:24, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but that's wrong. First, a newspaper editorial is not a reliable source for anything but opinion. You state a fact ("it is controversial"). Secondly, while the editorial does pick some nits, its not even particularly negative or critical. It even suggests it might be a good idea to follow some of the implied suggestions. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:03, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

One of the points I've been making in this discussion section is that the Brady Campaign state scorecard is itself an opinion, and for this and other reasons should be excluded from the article. I've been saying that the scorecard is controversial because there is disagreement about whether or not it is an objective measure of the restrictiveness of states' gun laws. JPMcGrath asked for a reference showing that the opinion is controversial. As I said in my two previous posts, a reference is not needed for this discussion, and, to build on what you just said, it's an opinion about an opinion, but it does refute what JPMcGrath said, by showing that the Brady scorecard is in fact controversial. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 13:50, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Mudwater, I think you are conflating the Brady assessment of restrictiveness with the overall scorecard. The Corpus Christi editorial does criticize its use of background checks at gun shows, but in the very next sentence it says that "criminals never seem to have a hard time bypassing the law to acquire firearms anyway". It is not saying that background checks are not restrictive, but rather that the background checks are ineffective.

I looked at the graphic in question. The primary thing that struck me was the source, but I agree that the source would be unlikely to be overly biased in its ratings.

I do think the arguments about a score have merit, though. 'Higher' is usually construed as 'better' because it is consistent with our educational system. However, I also note 'higher' is shown in red, while 'lower' is green. This would tend to move in a contrary direction, because red is often associated with a warning, or something to avoid.

My suggestion: If possible, make the five classes shades of blue through green (going either direction.) Replace the middle scores with a two-headed arrow that points to the 'most restrictive' and 'least restrictive' descriptions at either end of the now-scoreless scale. Note, that many males cannot distinguish red from green in any case. 174.17.63.102 (talk) 04:13, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

I do not understand your claim that it "says that meeting Brady's recommendations is not an objective measure of the restrictiveness of states' laws". I cannot find anything in the editorial that says that. Would you quote the text you are referring to?

Let me ask you this: do you have major disagreements with Brady's assessments? For example, Brady rates Oklahoma, Louisiana and Kentucky as the least restrictive states. Do you think that is close, or do you think they are highly restrictive? Brady rates California as the most restrictive. Do you think that is wrong and that it is actually one of the least restrictive? Do you think that this assessment is all that wrong?

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 18:38, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

(1) Other editors have suggested that the overall scorecard is an objective measure of restrictiveness and that therefore the graphic is appropriate for the article. I disagree. (2) The text you're asking about from the editorial is, "The Brady Campaign rates states not on their gun-related crime or violence statistics but on their compliance with Brady gun control recommendations. For example..." The point being that compliance with the Brady recommendations is not the best way to measure restrictiveness. (3) Yes, I have major disagreements with Brady's assessments. For a full explanation, please refer to several of my posts earlier in this talk page section, especially the paragraph that includes the text, "the scorecard is highly questionable as a rating of how restrictive or non-restrictive states' gun laws are." — Mudwater ^(Talk) 19:02, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Mudwater, just above[5] pointed to policy "All Wikipedia articles must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." Can we focus on this as a common agreement and foundation here among all editors?

1) "as far as possible without bias", agreed? Can I ask that we no longer use the biased reframing of the Brady Campaign. They are discussing their viewpoint as to laws to "prevent gun violence". When editors here miss-characterize that as "gun control" that is editorial induced bias. "Gun control" <> "prevention of gun violence". Hopefully we agree that editors should "as far as possible" avoid introducing bias.

2) "all significant views that have been published by reliable sources." Is there any question that the Brady Scorecard is a significant view published by a reliable source?

I suggest that we can bridge disagreements here if we pay close attention to our shared agreement to follow policy here. SaltyBoatr (talk) 19:40, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

As already explained by Niteshift36 in his post above, dated "14:40, 16 March 2010 (UTC)", terms such as "prevention of gun violence" and "opposing gun violence" are more biased, not less biased, when speaking of pro gun control groups like the Brady Campaign. Furthermore, you and I, along with other editors, have already discussed this at some length, at Template talk:Gun politics interest groups in the United States#Term "gun control" and template section names. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 21:35, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

I agree completely. SaltyBoatr and I also discussed this on my talk page -- JPMcGrath (talk) 07:57, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

How could it possibly be biased to call an organization by what they call themselves? Remember the policy here is "All Wikipedia articles must be written...as far as possible without bias". Anytime an editor does what you suggest, that is to relabel the description of an organization to make a point favored by one of the POV's, that is editorial bias. SaltyBoatr (talk) 12:59, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't believe this is really related to this discussion, and besides, I answered this argument on my talk page -- JPMcGrath (talk) 08:00, 24 March 2010 (UTC)

The brady map shows Wisconsin and Illinois as being moderate. When it comes to handgun laws they are the 2 most restrictive states in the country. This is my first time on this site but it seems a map that shows shall issue, may issue, etc. would be more appropriate. I agree the brady map is no more neutral than me posting a NRA map showing which states have higher crime. Some should post this map http://www.moccw.org/images/ccwmap.gif —Preceding unsigned comment added by McL-McL (talk • contribs) 17:36, 9 April 2010 (UTC)

JP: Brady Campaign does have an interest in misrepresenting firearms law, and does just that on a regular basis. The most obvious example of this is their push for "assault weapons" bans. If you must have a source for where they misrepresent, here you go: http://www.shootfirstlaw.org/ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.132.205.103 (talk) 16:42, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

AEB4

Removed "scorecard" of the Brady campaign again. The Brady Campaign is an advocacy group that is anti-gun and is not a reliable source for neutral information regarding gun law in the United States. Stop adding this please Rapier (talk) 20:15, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

As was discussed earlier, the scorecard presents an assessment of the restrictiveness of gun laws. The fact that Brady thinks restrictive is good does not make the assessment biased. Groups that are diametrically opposed on an issue, such as the ADA and the ACU, generally agree on assessments. As Hoplophile put it above, "many gunnies I know simply take the Brady scores and invert them to get an idea of how good a state's gun laws are". -- JPMcGrath (talk) 01:37, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

It makes no difference whatsoever what your opinion of gun laws is, this graph is advertising the opinion of an advocacy group, and that has no business in an encyclopedic listing of actual gun law, as per WP:SOAP. If you want to put this in the "Brady Campaign" article, that's great, but it has no business here. I will be happy to take this to arbitration if needed. (EDIT) For the record: an NRA listing of how "restrictive" gun laws are in various states would be likewise inapppropriate, due to the fact that it is advertising the opinion of an advocacy group. To quote Sgt. Friday, "Just the facts." Rapier (talk) 01:56, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

If you feel that taking this to arbitration is the best course, that is OK with me. In the meantime, since this was discussed at length earlier, and the result was to keep the graphic, it should stay until there is some change in consensus. -- JPMcGrath (talk) 20:30, 28 May 2010 (UTC)

Forgive the incorrect proceedure name. I put in a request for mediation. You, Salty, Mudwater, Niteshift, and Hoplophile should be getting notifications within the next couple of days. Rapier (talk) 03:52, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

OK. I am somewhat surprised that you chose to take this to mediation so quickly, given that you have barely participated in the discussion. I think it would have made more sense to respond to some of the points I and others have made that I do not think were adequately addressed. However, if you feel that is the best approach, I am willing to participate in it.

I note that one person you left out was Stephan Schulz. While he was not a major participant in the earlier discussions, he has made more posts on the substance of the issue than you have, so I think he should be included.

— JPMcGrath (talk) 07:09, 30 May 2010 (UTC)

I have not received any kind of notification on this. Still waiting. — JPMcGrath (talk) 12:54, 31 May 2010 (UTC)

Note to interested editors: A discussion about this is now taking place at Wikipedia talk:Requests for mediation/Gun laws in the United States (by state). — Mudwater ^(Talk) 19:01, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

---

To summarize my previous posts, and those of several other editors: The Brady Campaign State Scorecard should not be added to the article. The scorecard is a clear violation of the Wikipedia:Neutral point of view policy, because it advocates the views of a pro-gun-control organization. Furthermore it does not by any means present an objective or accurate measure of the relative restrictiveness of the gun laws of various states. To remain both neutral and factual, and avoid advocacy of a particular political agenda, the article should merely describe the gun laws of each state. These points have been discussed at length in this talk page section. While some editors have argued in favor of adding the scorecard to the article, others remain strongly opposed, so there is no consensus for its inclusion. I am therefore removing the scorecard. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 15:43, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

This was listed at WP:NPOV/N and the determination was that there was no NPOV problem with the map. I am reverting your removal. — JPMcGrath (talk) 19:20, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the article was listed at Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard/Archive 12#Gun laws in the United States (by state). In response, one editor, Stephan Schulz, posted his opinion above, stating that he thought the map was not an NPOV violation. That's nice, and I appreciate any editor adding to this discussion. However, it is not a "determination", it's just another editor's opinion. Stephan Schulz explained his reasoning, however I and other editors strongly disagree with him. The map is in fact a flagrant violation of NPOV, and has the effect, intentionally or not, of promoting a particular political agenda, Noticeboard posting or not. Additionally the map does not accurately reflect the restrictiveness of different states' gun laws. For these reasons it should not be added to the article. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 20:06, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

You say that the map is "a flagrant violation of NPOV", but I do not think that is true. WP:NPOV says:

All Wikipedia articles and other encyclopedic content must be written from a neutral point of view, representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources. This is non-negotiable and expected of all articles and all editors.

It appears to me that your removal of the map is a flagrant violation of this policy. The Brady Scorecard is a significant view published by a reliable source, so it should be represented in the article. Would you please quote the part of WP:NPOV that you believe the map violates?

— JPMcGrath (talk) 23:12, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

This is not an article detailing the gun control debate, it is an article listing gun laws in various states. The summary map produced by the Brady Campaign is not a "listing of gun laws", it is a "listing of how restrictive gun laws are in the opinion of the Brady Campaign", which is an advocacy group with an anti-gun bias. This falls squarely under "What Wikipedia is not", under the subsection WP:SOAP. Rapier (talk) 23:29, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

You are correct that this article is not about the gun control debate, but neither is the map. The map simply summarizes the state of gun laws in the states, which is appropriate for an article about gun laws in the states. The map does not in any way advocate for more restrictive or less restrictive gun laws. The fact that the source of the assessment does advocate more restrictive gun laws does not alter that fact. — JPMcGrath (talk) 01:23, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

NPOV problem with article

Consider this, the article presently shows the yes:no status of a number of categories of laws for each state:

1. State Permit to Purchase?
2. Firearm registration?
3. "Assault weapon" law?
4. Owner license required?
5. Carry permits issued?
6. NFA weapons restricted?
7. Peaceable Journey laws?

Similarly, the Brady score card is based on the yes:no status of a number of categories of laws for each state:

1. Firearm Trafficking
2. Background Checks
3. Child Safety
4. Military-style Assault Weapons
5. Guns In Public Places.

See any difference between these lists? Why did we choose one category of law and not another? Where is the neutral balance point implicated by our choice? SaltyBoatr (talk) 01:46, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Is that a trick question? Is there a difference? You mean aside from the fact that they are different? Factually stating that yes or no a state has a waiting period is much different that stating an opinion that it is "weak" or "strong". The Brady criteria is nothing more than their opinion on whether or not they approve of a states laws, based on their own activist criteria. Niteshift36 (talk) 05:01, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I am not asking about the Brady Center's opinions. Answering my questions. Our editing of this article is framed by which laws we choose focus upon in the article. We have chosen certain laws to talk about, and have chosen certain laws to not talk about. We have chosen to favor the laws of interest to pro-gun people, and not chosen the laws of interest to people opposed to gun violence. This skew violates WP:NPOV policy. SaltyBoatr (talk) 12:58, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I did answer your question. The first list is factual answers. Either a state does or does not have a waiting period etc. That is a matter of FACT. Whether an organization feels that a particular waiting period is weak or strong is a matter of opinion. Nor does that graphic address the individual laws you listed. Instead, it lumps them into a color coded mix. And what is a "good" "guns in public places" law versus a bad one? Whatever Bradys opinion is. Whereas the other list is being addressed by citing statutes. Stating what the law says is neutral. Stating what you think about the law is not. Niteshift36 (talk) 13:32, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, it appears that you are misunderstanding my question. I am asking why the article gives undue focus to the gun laws which are of interest to the NRA-ILA and the various open carry organization. And, at the same time this article gives little attention to the gun laws of interest to organizations who advocate for reductions in gun violence. For instance, I see little coverage of gun laws that address child safety, background checks or illegal gun trafficking. There is a special problem with the fifty tabular law summaries. Those tabular summaries focus disproportionately on laws of interest to pro-gun organizations. This seems a clear violation of WP:UNDUE. SaltyBoatr (talk) 14:25, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

I just refreshed my understanding of WP:UNDUE and I have to agree with SaltyBoatr. Two important perspectives that are wholly unrepresented in deciding which state guns laws should be listed are that of law enforcement, whose professional responsibility is to reduce gun crime, and public health professionals, whose professional responsibility is to prevent gun injuries of all kinds. Police chiefs' point of view could be easily represented by consulting this document: http://www.theiacp.org/Portals/0/pdfs/Publications/ACF1875.pdf and public health's perspective could be included by referencing this document: http://www.apha.org/advocacy/policy/policysearch/default.htm?id=170.--PFS (talk) 15:33, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• Actually, the IACP is an activist organization of their own and their leadership is often at odds with the rank and file. They're less biased than Brady, but not neutral either. Polls have shown over and over that the rank and file in law enforcement do not support gun control laws. And the public health angle has to be looked at carefully too. Careful attention has to be looked at what their study criteria is and what their methodology was. Example, a study from the CDC some years back that considered 18 and 19 year old felons shooting each other as "children". Yet in every one of the 50 states, 18 is the age of majority. When the 18 and 19 year old ADULTS were removed from that study, the numbers dropped drastically.Niteshift36 (talk) 17:12, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Forget the IACP then and stop your rant about Brady, we already know that you loath them. That is not the question. The problem here is that the fifty tabular summaries of state laws presently in the article address categories of gun laws of concern primarily to gun rights advocates. While at the same time tending not to address categories of gun laws of interest to the opposite POV. Missing is coverage of several significant categories of gun laws, illegal gun trafficking laws, child safety laws, tracing of criminal use of guns and guns in the workplace/schools. This causes a clear violation of WP:NPOV because the article skews towards the point of view frame disproportionately favored by just one POV. Our duty as editors is to craft an article that fairly represents major POV's including the POV's that with which we personally may disagree. SaltyBoatr (talk) 13:01, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

• Forget your incivility, because I haven't ranted about anything. The discussion about 50 tables etc isn't in this section. Try keeping all your complaints in order. Your 50 tables objection is in Talk:Gun_laws_in_the_United_States_(by_state)#Article_neutrality_disputed.2C_fifty_tables. Wonder if one can infer anything from your having so many complaints that you can't keep them straight. Niteshift36 (talk) 13:39, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

You are arguing the process, changing the subject, incessantly, and avoiding the substance of discussion of improving the encyclopedia. Heck, you even argue the guideline of using indentation to make talk page discussions more readable. This behavior is disruptive to the goal here of writing an encyclopedia. Asking other editors: What shall we do control this disruption? SaltyBoatr (talk) 15:23, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

• Well since you went complaining to ANI, you can stop your "what are we going to do" attempts to build a "tag team". Also, I didn't argue the indenting guideline. I said it was getting tedious and I didn't care if I did it any longer. So keep your facts straight. Further, it was not me that started all these subsections and made the same conversation take place in 3 different sections. But since you did, quit complaining about it and answer in the correct place (and don't forget to indent). Niteshift36 (talk) 16:44, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

First, I should reiterate that I made every effort to exclude/remove anything from the graphic that expressed an opinion on whether restrictive gun laws are a good thing; I do not think such an opinion would be appropriate for this article. You could argue that it embodies an opinion on what constitutes restrictive, but I think it is pretty neutral in that regard. Brady wants to restrict gun access and usage, so they have no reason to skew that assessment. However, regardless of whether you think it expresses such an opinion, WP:NPOV says:

material should not be removed solely on the grounds that it is "POV"

It further states:

An article should clearly describe, represent, and characterize all the disputes within a topic, but should not endorse any particular point of view. It should explain who believes what, and why, and which points of view are most common.

So if you believe that this material shows a point of view, you should quote sources that show alternative points of view. Deleting the material is not appropriate. You have said that you personally do not agree with their criteria, but you have not shown any sources that show a contrary viewpoint. Your personal disagreement with the viewpoint, or with the organization that is the source of the viewpoint, is not grounds for deleting the graphic.

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 18:13, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• Please do not mischaracterize what I said. I haven't said that I personally don't agree with the criteria. I have correctly pointed out that their criteria is selected towards their opinion of gun control laws, not just gun laws. Their rating system is only about control law. Period. Their assessment is based on their opinion of the restrictiveness of the laws. Because that is their agenda. While you quote NPOV, you forget the other policy that goes with it WP:UNDUE. "Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, and should do so in proportion to the prominence of each". Where is the other viewpoint about whether or not these laws are restrictive or not? This graphic isn't stating fact, like the length of a waiting period. It is depicting their assessment of whether or not a waiting period is "restrictive" or not, in their opinion. Niteshift36 (talk) 18:21, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

What is "control law"? That seems to be a vague term that could be applied to any law that one does not personally agree with. The issue here is gun regulation, and the Brady Scorecard (I think just about everyone would agree) is an accurate depiction of how extensively firearms are regulated from state to state. If the Scorecard was indeed arbitrary or advancing an agenda, I think you'd have a strong point, but it is based on a very specific set of objective criteria which is evenly applied from state to state. Furthermore, that criteria can be provided as a citation along with the table to make that clear. Forward Thinkers (talk) 18:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• A control law is simple. A law that seeks to either outright prohibit ownership, add more restrictions to ownership or provides more regulations that must be complied with to obtain a firearm. In simple English: Makes it harder to legally obtain firearms and provides more hoops to jump through. A waiting period is a means of delaying ownership. I'm not saying it's bad or wrong, but it inhibits ownership. Background checks? Again, not a bad idea, but still a means of controlling who gets guns. Child-fireamrs laws. Controlling how a firearm is stored in a private residence. Violating the law can result in the loss of firearm ownership. "Military style assault weapons" laws? Aside from the fact that they are already covered in the article, those laws are designed to prohibit ownership of certain firearms, mainly based on cosmetics. "Guns in public places"? Well who knows what that means, because it is a poorly defined criteria. The Brady scorecard doesn't deal with how firearms are regulated, it deals with how specifically selected categories are dealt with from state to state. Those categories are selected because they are measures that they back through their legislative lobbying. That is why their POV is skewed. It only focuses on specific areas that they have an agenda in. Niteshift36 (talk) 22:07, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Niteshift: Sorry, that was Mudwater that said he disagreed with the assessment. I did not intend to misrepresent your viewpoint. My apologies.

Regarding WP:UNDUE, it states:

An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject.

The aspect of the subject involved here is the restrictiveness of state gun laws. I think it is hard to argue that a single assessment of their restrictiveness in an article about state gun laws is undue weight.

I do not understand how the part you quoted about neutrality supports your viewpoint. Are you aware of other "significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources"? If so, please add it to the article, or post a reference and I will be glad to do so. I have searched for other viewpoints on state gun law restrictiveness, and I have not found any.

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 19:00, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• The reason you don't find a lot of those is because most orgs simply cites statutes and don't make a determination about what is (in their opinion) restrictive or not. They state the law. The facts. Then let the reader decide if it is restrictive or not. How can anyone actually call Brady the least bit neutral? They're no more neutral than the NRA is. Niteshift36 (talk) 22:09, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

OK, so to summarize the NPOV/UNDUE arguments here:

• NPOV:
  • You say it violates NPOV
  • NPOV says that "Neutrality requires that the article should fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources".
  • You say that there aren't any other viewpoints published by reliable sources (or to be precise, you say "you don't find a lot of them" and you have not provided any).
• UNDUE:
  • You say it violates UNDUE, but you quoted something about reliable sources.
  • UNDUE says the article should not give undue weight to any aspect of the subject.
  • I contend that including a single assessment of gun law restrictiveness is not undue weight.
  • You have not disputed that.

Is this an accurate summary? Or have I missed something?

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 22:57, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• Tell you what SaltyBoatr, then link I found for this rating [6] is MUCH different than the 5 simple categories you provided above. So please provide me with a specific link you are using that shows the criteria they used to arrive at the rankings shown in the graphic you are wanting to insert. That's not unreasonable to ask, is it? Niteshift36 (talk) 22:20, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Follow the link at the bottom of that page:

» Click here to download full scorecard

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 23:02, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

BTW, Please see Help:Talk pages#Indentation. -- JPMcGrath (talk) 23:13, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• I know the indenting nonsense. It's getting tedious and I choose not to play that game every time. If we're done complaining about silliness.....Now, as for the scorecard, that's pretty much what I found and that's a MUCH different picture than was painted with those 5 seemingly innoccous questions above. This whole scorecard is horribly skewed towards their agenda. It goes into secuity measures for stores (which has nothing to do wth this article), ammo regulation (again, seperate from guns), "childproof guns" which is an unreliable technology that has been rejected in almost every location because of the unreliability (49 out of 50 reject it) Even law enforcement, which stands to benefit from that idea (because it prevents officers from being shot by their own weapon) has rejected it across the board because no company has been able to make it reliable, they rate on magazine capacity standards. One that I loved was giving a state a zero for not having a law prohibiting the sale of a handgun to someone under 21. Um, federal laws (which apply to the state) already do that. There is no need for a state law, yet the state is penalized for not having a law prohibiting something that is already illegal. They give points for laws that are contrary to the Supreme Courts rulings. They take points for allowing concealed carry licenses, regardless of the states regulations. Why does a state that requires fingerprinting, background checks and proof of training given a zero? Because Brady has an agenda and they're using this scorecard to advance it. It rates on things in their legistaltive agenda. Niteshift36 (talk) 01:47, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the indenting, it was not a complaint. Rather I was pointing out the indenting convention, which is there to make it easier for people to follow the threads of conversation. I am sorry you think it is nonsense. I will not bring it up again.

Regarding the rest of your message, you make some good points, but I see flaws in them as well and am tempted to address them. However your personal opinions of Brady's assessment are really just a distraction, so I will exercise restraint.

You removed the graphic from the article and have justified that removal on the grounds that it violates WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE. Above, I summarized your argument in a way that I believe shows that it is completely groundless. Unfortunately, you ignored it. Since you removed the graphic, I think you need to show just cause, but you appear to be unwilling to do so. So I ask you again, is the summary above accurate? Do you have anything further to add to it?

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 12:29, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

• First, the graphic was restored using the justification that it was a 4:2 !vote. This is because a RfC was started and saltyboar waited a whole couple of hours, took the first 2 responses and decided the matter was resolved. Can you honestly tell me that you think it is proper to declare a "consensus" after 3 hours? Shouldn't a RfC be allowed to run at least a full day, if not several days? So I removed it to allow the RfC to run it's course.

Regarding the actual issue, my "personal opinion" has validity, as does any other editors, because let's face it, that's how things get decided. We discuss things at AfD, RSN, BLPN etc. Got to an AfD and see some editors who are of the opinion that a subject has receieved "significant coverage" and some who believe that the subject hasn't. That is sheer opinion. Nothing more. People give their opinions and a consensus gets formed. So let's not pretend that opinions have no place on Wikipedia. Instead, let's look at some of them one at a time. Let's start with "childproof guns", ok? 49 of 50 states do not have a law that meets the criteria for Brady to give them points. Without going into the mechanics or the reliability issue, let's stay with the POV part. If 49 of 50 states reject this, I'd call that a clear majority, wouldn't you? The fact that Brady includes a category that 98% of the states reject as a gauge, shouldn't that call into question whether or not that is even a valid category? I believe it is reasonable to think that the inclusion of a category that 98% of the states reject (even the ones they consider some of the most restrictive) is due more to their agenda (as they have unsuccessfully lobbied for this legislation in several states) and less with it being a "what's the norm" kind of criteria. It is included because, in Brady's opinion, it's a law that they think should be on the books. Again, please let's focus on just this question...can you at least conceed that this one category is questionable? Niteshift36 (talk) 13:56, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure what the point of your first comment is. Note that I did not restore the graphic, either yesterday or when two weeks ago when it was removed the first time. Rather than engage in edit wars, I think it makes more sense to discuss the merits of the removal, with civility, honesty and integrity, and I have tried to do that. To me that means sticking to the issue at hand, avoiding distractions and little digs at those with whom you disagree. It also means addressing points made by your adversaries and conceding a point if you can no longer defend it.

I certainly agree that your personal opinion has validity. But whether you agree with a source is emphatically not the criteria for inclusion in an article. It seems to me that it is self-evident that cannot be the case. If anyone who disagrees can veto the inclusion, there would be little that would pass that test and there would be virtually no content. Instead, the Wikipedia approach is to include all significant views, as long as they are backed by reliable sources.

It seems to me that you are conflating opinions on how to follow Wikipedia policy with allowing personal opinions to override Wikipedia policy.

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 17:38, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

• I didn't say that you restored it and can't even see where you drew the inference that I did. I thought when I said "saltybotr waited a whole couple of hours, took the first 2 responses and decided the matter was resolved" that is was pretty clear I was talking abot his actions. Then I asked your opinion on calling a RfC concluded after less than 3 hours.

Nor do I see where I have addressed you in less than a civil manner. If you'd like to point out where you think that happened, please do, because it wasn't intended.

Again, I invite you to reply to the specific point I started with. While you're busy telling my that I'm basing this only on my opinion, you're forgetting about the actual discussion. Rather than trying to take the scorecard as a whole, I've tried to ask you to discuss it a point at a time, so we can better decided what to do. Do you think it is a non-biased, non-agenda pushing point for Brady to penalize a state for something that has been rejected by 98% of the states? Or does inclusion of what is, at this point in history, an obscure measure that is just part of their legislative agenda, an attempt to "chastise" a state for not doning something that is, in their opinion, something the states should be doing. Are you going to discuss it, or just keep telling me it is just my opinion? Niteshift36 (talk) 22:54, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

I did not say, nor in any way suggest, that you had said that I had restored the graphic, and I don't believe that you said that. I did not say anything that related to restoring the graphic in my previous message and I did not restore the graphic. So what I said is that I did not see the point of you bringing that up in your message to me. It did not, and does not, seem relevant to this conversation.

I also did not say that you had addressed me in an uncivil manner, nor did I mean to imply that. I am sorry my comment came across that way. What I said was that I have tried to meet those goals. The reason I made the comment was not driven by our conversation, but by some of what has occurred on this talk page. I was hoping the comment would nudge others toward those goals as well. It was not directed at you specifically.

Indeed, I have not replied to your critique of the Brady criteria. As I said before, your opinion of the criteria (and mine as well) does not matter. If you could come up with reliable sources that criticizes the criteria, that would be relevant, but you would need to produce overwhelming criticism in order to justify removing the graphic. Regardless, your opinion that it is flawed, without any reliable sources, is not a basis for removing it.

That said, since it seems important to you, I will address your comments about the merits of the scorecard, even though I believe it is not relevant, and you have not shown that it is relevant. In return, I ask that you address my comments about WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE, which clearly are relevant, since you cited them as reasons the scorecard graphic should be removed. And if you would like me to further discuss the merits of the scorecard, I think you need to show that it is relevant.

OK, so New Jersey has a law requiring "child safety features" on newly purchased handguns and the 49 other states do not have this requirement. Undoubtedly, that makes New Jersey more restrictive in that respect, and the Brady ratings reflect that. Brady thinks that is more restrictive and thinks that is a good thing. I presume you think it is a bad thing, but do you think it is more or less restrictive? I cannot imagine that you could disagree with Brady on this point; it is clearly more restrictive. The fact that other states do not have the New Jersey requirement does not make the law more or less restrictive. The law is restrictive, and both pro-gun and anti-gun people can agree on that.

I will await your response to my NPOV / UNDUE question.

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 04:18, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• You don't understand, this IS part of the NPOV/UNDUE issue. This is not about whether I think restrictive is good or bad. They penalize states for something that virtually the entire nation rejects. If this were a matter of 40 states had it and 10 didn't, the penalty would seem less POV. But when the national response is an overwhelming no, the fact that they penalize states for not having a law that virtually everyone has rejected (despite Brady's efforts), it stinks of POV and agenda pushing. Giving weight to a criteria that has a 98% rejection rate is giving it undue weight. 2% acceptance borders on WP:FRINGE. Consider that the claim we faked the moon landing is considered fringe, yet polls show anywhere from 6-28% of people believe they were faked. If 6-28% is still "fringe", how can we consider 2% to be "normal" enough to be something we can penalize states for not having? Niteshift36 (talk) 04:49, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Please address how WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE apply, in light of my summary posted above.

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 05:01, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• As far as I'm concerned, I am addressing those issues. I'm sorry that you aren't able to follow the example. Niteshift36 (talk) 13:16, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the issue you are missing that the article must include the POV of groups with which we disagree. Your reasoning is that Brady has a flawed and biased POV. Per policy here, it doesn't matter if they are flawed, or biased. As long as it is a 'signficant view', we must include Brady's opinion even if it is flawed or biased. That is what WP:NPOV says. SaltyBoatr (talk) 15:08, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• Whose assessment of the laws are being shown already, requiring Brady to balance? Or what graphic do you propose to give balance to the Brady one? I know what NPOV says, but the lack of neutrality becomes an undue weight issue when the information isn't balanced, especially when the info not being balanced is the minority view. Niteshift36 (talk) 15:15, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

The one map sourced to Brady has now been balanced with five maps sourced to pro-gun organizations. (POV dilution, it seems) I guess a ratio of 5:1 pro-gun now fixes things. This mirrors the POV energy level of interested editors. Yet, per policy, Editorial bias toward one particular point of view should be removed or repaired. This 5:1 ratio is a plain case of editorial bias. This entire article is affected by the bias of the involved editors who have selectively choosen pro-gun sources. Just calling a spade a spade here. SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 13:07, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I disagree that this is "a plain case of editorial bias". That would be the case if there existed reliable sources that disagreed with the material from pro-gun organizations, and those sources were excluded. I do not think that is the case. If you believe it is, you should add the opposing points of view. — JPMcGrath (talk) 18:11, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. The issue appears to be that this article is essentially a "List of:"-type of article, and the best sourcing available are the actual laws themselves. In an article like this, I personally see no issue with what is termed "Primary Sourcing", because that's precisely what we are looking for - the laws themselves. If one is forced to use "secondary sources" - that is, the laws themselves as referenced by someone else, then one pretty much has to look in places where there is going to be a bias one way or the other, because why else would someone in a reliable source be quoting gun laws? My problem this whole time has been that this article is supposed to be quoting the laws without rendering any kind of analysis or judgement on them one way or the other, and that is why I've been against the summary maps of any kind. Rapier (talk) 18:57, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Article sourcing, red flag

When I did a count of the 281 references of this article I see that the vast majority are links to primary sources and pro-gun sources. This is a red flag, indicating a high risk of violation of WP:NOR.

Reference type	count	%
Advocacy con	7	2.5%
Advocacy pro-gun	68	24.2%
Primary source	176	62.6%
Third party source	30	10.7%
Total	281

Additionally, there are about ten times more pro-gun sources than the opposite POV, which indicates a red flag for a WP:NPOV violation.

Per policy at Wikipedia, article should be mostly drawn from third party reliable sources, but this article is drawn from primary sources. Primary sources outnumber third party sources by five times. This indicates a red flag for WP:SYN violation. SaltyBoatr (talk) 17:07, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

That looks rather extreme. On first sight it looks as if perhaps most of the primary sources are being used for excessive detail rather than original research or improper synthesis. Is that your impression also? Hans Adler 18:57, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I am still thinking, so my impression is not formed yet. It seems to me that this article mostly serves a purpose of being a sort of 'guide book', with the audience being mostly gun users. In the broad view it is a research paper collecting together links and summaries from primary sources, typically municipal ordinances and the like. It does seem to parallel similar works done by the NRA-ILA and the various Open Carry lobby groups. I also think that a systemic bias occurs when editors with an obvious personal bias towards 'pro-gun' sources, choose which primary sources to insert into an article. I.E. there would be a tendency to give greater attention to concealed carry permit laws, than to gun theft reporting laws for instance. That, I think is the crux of the warning of WP:SYN, where the editorial selection process bias causes the problem. SaltyBoatr (talk) 19:27, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• Question: Which ones are you calling a primary source? For example, if the State of Connecticut's official website is used a a reference to quote the actual statute, are you calling that a primary source? Niteshift36 (talk) 20:47, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it a State website is not a "third party" source for information about that State's laws. SaltyBoatr (talk) 21:23, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Ok, so that's where this slavish reading of primary/secondary etc. is a problem. Nobody is a better source of the states law than the state itself. You get it in full, unvarnished form. Asking that some third party read it and interpret it for you really makes no sense. The third party can be right or wrong, but it is still just their take on it. Using the state as a source for their own law is the least biased, most accurate source available. This is one of those very rare situations where I think WP:IAR applies. It would be like saying that the Farmtown Gazette is a better source for what the State of the Union speech said than the White House would be because the White House is a primary source and the Farmtown Gazette is a third party source. There is no bias in linking directly to what the state law is. The potential for bias doesn't start until some reporter/scholar/expert starts interpreting them for you. Niteshift36 (talk) 21:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Pardon me, there is plenty of bias involved in the selection of the links and the omission of links to primary/secondary sources. For instance, editor bias here is plenty evident. I see dozens of links to open carry, permitted carry laws etc.. And few to none for other types of gun law such as gun theft reporting requirements, etc..

I think a link to the statutes should be considered a primary source, and the cautions in WP:PRIMARY should certainly apply there. A state-run website that synthesizes the laws for the general public should be considered a secondary source. The danger in primary sources is that an editor will synthesize the laws in an inaccurate or non-neutral way. I don't think that is a danger with the state website. -- JPMcGrath (talk) 21:57, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• What synthesizing? Many of these links go directly to the statute. PEriod. No interpretation. No commentary. Straight law. Niteshift36 (talk) 22:18, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

If the article summarizes what is in the statutes, citing the statutes as the source, that is synthesizing a primary source, which is what WP:PRIMARY warns about. If it cites a state web site or the NRA/ILA site as its source, and then adds a link to the statutes for further information, that is completely consistent with WP:PRIMARY. -- JPMcGrath (talk) 22:38, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Agreed there is not danger of reliability of the state website, I am simply discussing the obvious WP:OR/WP:SYN red flag when primary/secondary references outnumber third party references by a factor of 5X. And the obvious WP:NPOV red flag when advocacy sources are imbalanced by a factor of 10X. There are huge red flag concerns here with these source imbalances. SaltyBoatr (talk) 22:12, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Question: In your chart above, did you count state web sites such as the PA State police and PA Attorney General sites as primary or secondary? If you counted them as primary, do you think I have made a good argument that such sites should be considered secondary? And if the answer to that is "yes", would it be possible to update the numbers? I realize it must have taken some time to generate those numbers, and that updating the numbers would take even more time, but I think it would be very helpful. -- JPMcGrath (talk) 23:51, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

To elaborate on my previous comment, under Pennsylvania, there are links to the State Police and Attorney General web sites. Granted, they are both part of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, but they are definitely separate entities, and they synthesize the statutes in a way that makes sense for the general public. I think they clearly should be considered secondary sources.

The third source for Pennsylvania is a little odd. The title, "Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes — Uniform Firearms Act", suggests that it links to the statutes, but the link goes to http://members.aol.com/StatutesP2/18.Cp.61A.html, which is part of AOL's Hometown blog site, which was shut down 1½ years ago. Obviously, that was not a good choice for linking to the PA Statutes. But it seems completely consistent with WP:PRIMARY to add a link to the statutes in this manner, as long as the synthesis comes from the secondary sources.

-- JPMcGrath (talk) 22:31, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

Those are specific links. But your broad indictment is that there are too many primary sources. Looking at Florida for example, 2 of the "primary sources" go directly to the state legislatures site of the state statutes. No reporting. No summarizing. No opinion. Straight fact from the source. The 3rd "primary source" goes to the state agency that issue concealed carry licenses where it lists which states they have a reciprocal agreement with and then answers from questions based on the statutes. However, the source is being used to show states that have a reciprocal agreement, so there is no "synth" required there. Straight listing. It sounds like you'd find all 3 of those acceptable for their use, however, they fall into your graph, contributing to what you see as an imbalance. How many others are like that? Niteshift36 (talk) 22:46, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

I made no broad indictment, or an indictment of any kind. In fact, while I have not really taken a position on whether primary sources are a problem, my comments would best be characterized as defending your position against what SaltyBoatr has said. What I said was that sources that I think he has counted as primary sources are in fact, secondary sources. Please re-read my comments. -- JPMcGrath (talk) 23:07, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

• My apologies. Niteshift36 (talk) 23:47, 18 March 2010 (UTC)

My starting point is the bedrock core policy: WP:V which says: "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." I concede a fuzzy line between primary and secondary with many of these sources, but no matter to that WP:V core policy sentence which says "third party". My chart could therefore just as easily be read as "third party" and "not third party". Of course, there are some exceptions to WP:V emphasis on "third party", but my concern here is that this article bends this core policy rule way too far. Indeed adding in the advocacy sourcing, the article is 11% third party sourced and 89% not third party sourced. I object, 1:10 ratio is just too far out. SaltyBoatr (talk) 01:31, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

(Also, I don't see any discussion of the 5:1 ratio of pro-gun vs. con advocacy sources, that too seems way too imbalanced to meet neutral point of view policy here.) SaltyBoatr (talk) 01:31, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

In context of this advocacy sourcing, it is also worth mentioning that the most frequent pro-gun advocacy source mentioned here is USACarry.com, which appears to owned by i156 Inc.. Looking at Whois you can see that this corporation also appears to be in the business of manufacturing handgun holsters, presumably with a financial interest in encouraging a movement to carry handguns, and selling handgun holsters. It seems odd and wrong that this article would be incidentally serving the purpose of promoting handgun holster sales. At the very least, this makes the encyclopedia look bad. SaltyBoatr (talk) 16:55, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

I will try to find time to update this data, but since March a number of edits have actually worsened the ratio imbalance of 'pro-gun' versus 'con' sources, making the disproportion even more extreme. And, even more content about laws allowing the open carrying of handguns in holsters, sourced to a website owned by a company that sells holsters. What is going on? Does it meet WP:NPOV policy? SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 13:14, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Updating this data: As of July 6, the article includes 45 mentions or links to "opencarry.org", which is a promotional website with implied commercial intent to promote the purchase of handgun holsters, a product sold by the owners of the website. There are 4 mentions or links of "bradycampaign.org". The Brady Campaign is certainly an anathema to some of the editors around here which hold a strong personal point of view seeking to advocate for the political advancement of the carry of handguns. That said, the Brady Campaign is the most prominent spokesman for one of the points of view about the public policy of state gun laws in the United States. The question that comes up is: Whether a 45:4 ratio indicates editor bias in this article? SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 14:37, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Updating this again. With the deletion of the map, there are exactly zero citations to www.bradycampaign.org. There is also no mention what-so-ever of the Brady Campaign in the article even though the main purpose of the Brady Campaign pertains to gun laws. This is a big red flag that the most notable organization of the opposite POV from the gun-rights camp is totally missing from this article. Per WP:NPOV we are to maintain a balance by including all significant points of view on the topic. What is the reason there is no use of the resources on gun laws from the Brady Campaign? SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 01:04, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I just read the WP:PRIMARY policy. The use of primary sources is fine as long as the text in this article does not offer legal interpretation or opinions that do not exist in the cited source. Paraphrasing is not an interpretation or an opinion. A law that says "no person under the age of 18 shall possess a handgun except on their own property or under the supervision of a person 21 years or older" can be paraphrased as "persons under 18 are generally prohibited from possessing handguns" and a primary source, such as the state statute, can be cited without violating the WP:PRIMARY policy. The only valid sources for legal interpretation or opinions are from a judge's opinions in case law, a State's attorney general opinion, and occasionally State Police memorandums. I do not think the NRA, Brady Campaign, opencarry.org, or any other gun-control or gun-rights advocacy groups should be cited in this article because they are biased to their own agendas and cannot be trusted to provide accurate, complete, legal opinions and interpretations. However, as many have already said, it would be appropriate to cite groups such as those in the Gun Politics article. Luftegrof (talk) 18:50, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Here's some more information that I think supports the use of primary sources in this article: "In the legal field, source classification is important because the persuasiveness of a source usually depends upon its history. Primary sources may include cases, constitutions, statutes, administrative regulations, and other sources of binding legal authority, while secondary legal sources may include books, articles, and encyclopedias. Legal writers usually prefer to cite primary sources because only primary sources are authoritative and precedential, while secondary sources are only persuasive at best." Luftegrof (talk) 04:25, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

Summary of discussions of the Brady graphic

I agree with Niteshift36 that the discussions have become fractured and that has made the discussion more difficult. In an attempt to ameliorate the situation, I am summarizing the areas of discussion so that there will be a single place to add further comments. Please post further discussion at the end of each related sub-section, and not in the discussion sections above.

I am certain that I will not be able to do justice to the arguments made by the removal side, but I hope to include the major areas of contention. Please feel free to correct and expand my summary, and if I have completely missed something, feel free to add a new sub-section.

These discussions started after JPMcGrath added a map to this page titled "State gun law ratings. 2009 Brady Campaign State Scorecard" and it was later removed by Mudwater, who justified the removal on grounds that "it violates the principle of Wikipedia:Neutral point of view". The question to be decided is whether removal of the map was appropriate or whether it should be restored.

Participants supporting removal are Niteshift36 and Mudwater. Participants supporting inclusion are JPMcGrath and SaltyBoatr, along with minor participation from Stephan Schulz, Forward Thinkers and anonymous user 67.176.160.47.

Bias

The removal side says that the "Brady Campaign State Scorecard violates the Neutral Point Of View policy because the Brady Campaign is strongly biased in favor of gun control and against gun rights". The inclusion side says that while Brady is biased on the efficacy of state gun control laws, they are not biased on assessing the strength of those laws. Stephan Schulz says that the map's colors could be interpreted as pro-gun, and that he "could see exactly the same map produced by the NRA".

The inclusion side says that the graphic characterizes gun laws in terms of restrictiveness and takes no position on whether restrictiveness is good or bad. Niteshift36 says that the graphic shows Brady's opinion on what gun laws are "restrictive enough for them".

Niteshift36 says that there is bias because the graphic data is attributed to Brady and the reader will know that it is based on their assessment. Stephan Schulz says that the inclusion of the graphic is neutral because it is attributed.

Mudwater says that the fact that the Brady assessment assigned higher point values to states with more restrictive laws favored the anti-gun position. In response, JPMcGrath removed the point values from the legend.

SaltyBoatr says that the preponderance of references in the article are for pro-gun sites and that the article is skewed to the pro-gun point of view. Niteshift36 says that the references from pro-gun sites show matters of fact while the Brady assessments are matters of opinion.

NPOV / UNDUE issues

Niteshift36 says that the graphic violates WP:NPOV because it draws WP:UNDUE attention to the opinion of the Brady Campaign. JPMcGrath says that WP:UNDUE applies to aspects of the subject matter and not to the opinions of a particular group. Of course, new participants are welcome on either side.

Niteshift36 says that the graphic presents the assessment of and anti-gun group and it is not balanced by an assessment by a neutral party. JPMcGrath says that the assessment is not controversial and if there are other assessments that disagree significantly, they should be included, but assessments from reliable sources should not be removed. Niteshift36 says that no other assessments exist because pro-gun groups are more concerned about facts than assessments. JPMcGrath says that WP:NPOV does not support deleting sources because sources that disagree cannot be found.

Brady assessment criteria

The removal side says that the Brady assessment criteria is flawed, and that it does not accurately reflect how restrictive a state's gun laws are. Mudwater says that Brady assigns points based on the number of gun control laws and does not sufficiently weigh specific types of gun laws, such as "restrictions on concealed carry, local gun bans, and licensing of firearms owners".

Niteshift36 says that the criteria are selected based on Brady's legislative lobbying, so the criteria is skewed. JPMcGrath says that a Wikipedia editor's opinion does not matter, and that if there are published sources that assess state gun laws, they should be included. For this to be a basis for removal, the criteria would need to be called into question by reliable published sources.

Summary

The inclusion side says that the article is "all trees and no forest", and that it should provide an "overall picture of the gun laws across the country", which the Brady graphic provides. Mudwater agreed that it "all trees and no forest", but says that the article should avoid summaries that might contain opinion.

"However, state and local police departments are not legally obligated to enforce federal law"

The above statement found in the introduction is quite sweeping, and needs better sourcing than links to the case filing primary document of one court case and the website of the lawyer who argued that court case. SaltyBoatr (talk) 22:05, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

The case is binding precedent and a good source; however I disagree with the summary written here. The Court determined that "The Brady Act's interim provision commanding CLEOs to conduct background checks is unconstitutional." That does not translate to the obligation of State and local police departments to enforce Federal law. I am removing the statement from the article and encourage discussion before it is reinserted. Movementarian (talk) 20:10, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Travel gun laws map

Arizona should be changed from blue to yellow on the travel gun laws map, as the new Alaska carry law applies to vehicle carry as well as carry on foot.Hoplophile (talk) 09:19, 7 June 2010 (UTC)

Arizona, right? Not Alaska? Do you have a reference to cite for the change? — JPMcGrath (talk) 00:56, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Not yet, but as soon as the new law goes into effect, I'll have the Arizona Revised Statutes to cite. Hoplophile (talk) 03:04, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

OK, I got it. Here's the final version signed by the governor, from the Arizona Legislature's website:

http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1108s.htm

As you can see, the vehicle carry restrictions are completely repealed for anyone over the age of 21. The map needs to be changed. Hoplophile (talk) 02:41, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

I updated the map, and added the citation to the footnote. — JPMcGrath (talk) 03:49, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

RfC: Should the Brady map be removed or retained?

Those in favor of removal say that the Brady Campaign is an anti-gun group and that including the map constitutes advocacy of the group's position and that it violates WP:NPOV. They argue that the Brady Scorecard shows the opinion of the Brady campaign, while the information from pro-gun sources is factual.

Those in favor of retention say that the map reasonably summarizes the state of gun laws in the states and provides a useful summary that is badly needed in the article. They also argue that the sources in the article are overwhelmingly from pro-gun groups, so inclusion of the Brady source provides balance. — JPMcGrath (talk) 14:36, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Clarification To correct the (unintentional) misrepresentation of those who disagree with the map - we are stating that all maps should be removed, not just the Brady map. Any summary map is based on opinion & analysis rather than the simple facts. The only reason there is more than one map is because Brady advocates have insisted on keeping theirs. Rapier (talk) 17:15, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I had forgotten that you had argued for the removal of all maps, but I believe you were the only one who took that position. Mudwater argued for removing just the Brady map, and indeed removed it, leaving the others in place. Others argued for removal of the Brady map before the others were added. — JPMcGrath (talk) 17:54, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Further Clarification. The crux of this issue, I think, is the question of whether anything sourced to the Brady Campaign should be excluded from this article on the grounds that everything published by Brady is their opinion and therefore violates WP:NPOV policy. And, on the other hand, that "information from pro-gun sources is factual", so pro-gun sources therefore don't violate WP:NPOV. SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 17:44, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

That is not the crux of the issue, and you obviously either haven't been paying attention, or you are not assuming good faith. The crux of the issue and what I stated from the very beginning is that no summary maps at all should be used in an article meant to list the gun laws of the United States (by state). List the laws, and let them speak for themselves. You are trying to say that because a pro-gun source is being used to quote a gun law, then that is therefore automatically a pro-gun reference. It isn't. It is a secondary source that is backing up an (arguably) primary source of the State web site. Going to any third-party for an analytical summary that renders an opinion (even if it agrees with a source from the opposing side) is completely different then simply quoting the law itself. Rapier (talk) 19:14, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

I take you at your word. The fact remains that this is the only citation to Brady in the entire article, and the RFC is whether to remove it. The fact also remains that Brady is the most well known group in the other POV, and they are a major player interested in gun laws too[7]. This article should include fair and equal treatment of both the POVs interested in "gun laws". One POV is oddly missing from the balance. (1 citation to Brady's view of gun laws versus 70 citations to "pro gun" views of gun laws). SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 15:21, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

• Retain - After a cursory review, there seem to be two maps from opposing groups displayed prominently at the top ( the "Brady Campaign" map, and the NRA "Right-to-Carry 2011" map). Having both maps seem to be fair and balanced to me, and represents the view of two notable players in the gun control debate. NickCT (talk) 15:19, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

A couple notes - 1) Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be much descrepency between the NRA and Brady maps. 2) The formatting on this page needs to be fixed. NickCT (talk) 15:19, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

• Retain maps As long as they are sourced and factually correct, the maps are very useful for showing what laws apply in which states. The Brady map is purporting to show "restrictiveness", not "good" states and "bad" states, so it seem fair to include it. You should probably provide a link to their methodology for their ranking (if there's not one already). Ghostofnemo (talk) 02:51, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Rephrase of question

Should all of the maps be removed, some of them be removed, or all of the maps retained?

---

The Brady Campaign state scorecard map should definitely be removed. The map purports to rank states based on whether their gun laws are more or less restrictive, with more restrictive being considered good (a higher score) and less restrictive being considered bad (a lower score). So the map violates NPOV because it promotes a particular political agenda, and provides a soapbox for the Brady Campaign and its supporters. In addition to the NPOV violation, the Brady map definitely is not an accurate or factual assessment of the restrictiveness of the states' laws. This point has been discussed at some length on this talk page -- see for example my post here. As for the other maps, I could take them or leave them. They don't suffer from the two big problems with the Brady map, because they don't rate or rank, and they don't summarize or synthesize, they just show specific laws. Because of that I'm okay with them, but if other editors want them removed that's okay too. The point about these other maps being referenced from pro-gun-rights sources is a non-issue, just like it's a non-issue for the sources for the text of the article, because those citations are just to reference reliable secondary sources about pure facts. This point too has been belabored on this talk page -- see for example my post here. To illustrate this point, suppose the "Right-to-Carry 2011" map was referenced with a citation from the Brady Campaign instead of the NRA. That would be perfectly fine, because it would be using the Brady Campaign as a secondary reference for the factual question of how the different states license (or not) the concealed carry of firearms. Also, I would suggest that a better legend for this map would be "Concealed Carry", because that's a more neutral and less pro-gun-rights term than "Right-to-Carry". I'd like to make one other important point. Some articles are about controversial subjects -- for example, Right to keep and bear arms, or Political arguments of gun politics in the United States. In that type of article, there will be opposing viewpoints that should be balanced in an attempt to present both sides of the argument. This article is different. It just explains what the various gun laws are, and does not pass judgment on whether they are good or bad. Thus, in contrast to some other articles, there are no opposing views to balance. The best way to keep this article neutral is to avoid all opinions, and stick to the facts. To summarize, the other maps could be left in or taken out, but if left in can probably have more neutral wording than they currently do; where the references come from is irrelevant, as long as they're reliable. The Brady map by contrast has no place in this article. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 01:10, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

There, that's better. The Concealed Carry map now has wording that is much more neutral, and less pro-gun-rights. — Mudwater ^(Talk)

Outside View by Movementarian

This is the first time I have looked at this page and quite honestly, it's a mess. Without speaking to the POV, the maps make the article look untidy. And lets not even get started on the main body of the article. Examining each of the maps individually, I believe that:

1. The Brady Map is definitely subjective and definitely pushes an agenda.
2. The concealed carry map is okay for the most part, but the division of the "May Issue" states, seems subjective and quietly pushes an agenda.
3. The travel gun laws map seems fine at first. The prominent link to opencarry.org and the quotation marks around travelling lead me to believe that it quietly pushes an agenda.
4. The gun registration laws map also seems okay at first glance. Again the prominent link to opencarry.org and the term "so called" used in conjunction with assault weapons pushed an agenda. I understand that the term "assault weapons" is fiercely contested, so perhaps changing it to "modern military-style rifles" would be better.
5. The private gun transfers law map has the same basic problem as the previous two, that being the prominent link to opencarry.org. I would also change the word "banned" to "unlawful". It seems more neutral to me.
6. The open carry gun laws map definitely pushes a POV with the link to opencarry.org and the terms used to describe the levels. It has the same effect as the Brady map.

In the interest of full disclosure and fairness, I am a proponent of the Vermont carry laws and believe that every law-abiding citizen should have that level of unfettered access to firearms. That is me in real life. As a member of this project, I would say that all of the maps need to go and new ones created sourced directly from the law, not from an advocacy group. I would also recommend that if maps return to the page, that they be used sparringly. This article should be easy to make neutral. You are talking about the law, so the law (directly from the level of government quoted) should be your source. A lot of work? Yes. But if you want a factual article on the law - necessary. Movementarian (Talk) 15:43, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Agree 100%. I couldn't have phrased it better. Rapier (talk) 16:04, 11 June 2010 (UTC)

Movementarian, thanks for the disclosure of your 'open carry' advocacy here. I am concerned that your proposal for editors here research the primary sources and then to create new maps directly from the source documents would violate no original research policy. SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 15:30, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Quite right, that could be a valid concern. If properly sourced, would a graphic be comnsidered similar to article creation? It is certainly something that should be researched and/or discussed in a larger forum. Unfortunately, I don't think that there will be a third-party source that can provide that kind of visual representation that will not be skewed to the view of the organization. Whether intended or not, anything from the NRA (or any similar organisation) will be inherently pro-gun and anything from the Brady Campaign (or any similar organisation) will be anti-gun. Movementarian (Talk) 15:44, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

Aside: (In fairness, framing an organization advocating laws to control gun violence as "anti-gun", is non-neutral issue framing. I think Brady self identifies as being advocates for sensible gun laws to control criminal trafficing and to control gun violence. They don't advocate anti-gun against hunting and other responsibly safe gun use.)

The trouble with editor generated content in this article is that most of the editors attracted here seem to share an interest the "carry" types of gun laws. If we look at the full spectrum of gun laws, "carry" is a subset. Other types of gun laws are missing, or under reported. It seems that systematically the article has become bloated with "carry" and has little coverage of topic of interest to the groups seeking reductions in gun violence, "reporting requirements for stolen guns" or "criminal gun trace data tracking" for instance. Your proposal that editors make the maps from primary research of the laws is unlikely to generate a map of the laws not of interest to the self-selected group of pro-gun editors attracted here. This "systemic bias" problems is supposed to be addressed by following WP:NPOV policy which says Keep in mind that, in determining proper weight, we consider a viewpoint's prevalence in reliable sources, not its prevalence among Wikipedia editors. This article fails in this regard, heavily skewed towards the personal viewpoint perspective of the editors drawn here to edit. (And who RFC to get removed the last and only citation sourced to Brady Campaign while seventy citations exist to pro-gun advocacy sources.) SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 17:28, 15 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I don't want to get drawn into a debate about whether a organisation is anti-gun; not that I am accusing you of provoking anything, but I think you'll agree that things could easily head that way if our clearer heads don't prevail. "Sensible" depends on your point of view. For some it is not sensible to deprive anyone of firearms. Others see firearms in anyone's hands as a danger. Those are the extremes and most people and organisations lie somewhere in the middle.

On the issue that was presented, I think all of the maps violate WP:NPOV in their current use (not just the Brady map). There are ways they could be used and present a NPOV, but this isn't it. They have no context and I don't feel that they add to the article, as they are basically a restatement of the extensive lists below, skewed (however minor) toward the organisations they came from. Looking at it again, I really don't like this article. Wikipedia is not a complete exposition of all possible details. This article is basically a long list of every state's gun laws, and looking at them it seems that is what other US gun articles do as well. It needs to have a scope, be scaled down, brought to the centre, and be encyclopaedic.

Perhaps this page would be best used as a list page and the states spun off on their own. Then each state page could talk about the gun laws, interesting case law affecting State law, and how major advocacy groups operate in the respective States in a neutral, encyclopaedic way. Movementarian (Talk) 07:18, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

Once again, I agree completely. Having this as a "List of" page and then branching off to each state makes much more sense, and would allow for a lot more objective detail in each state. It would be a lot of work, but it would be worth it. Rapier (talk) 17:10, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

This article is large and it would make sense to think of plans to break it into separate articles. In no way was I suggesting that Brady's definition of "sensisble gun laws" is not their 'point of view' opinion. My only beef is that their POV opinion is a "significant" opinion which is missing 70:1 from this article. We are supposed to include all significant opinions, even those with which we disagree. In the case of this article, a bunch of editors here are violating policy by excluding significant POV's they personally disagree with. SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 18:02, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

You keep using that argument, yet you've never answered my question regarding what those "pro-gun" sources are quoting. Are they quoting the laws themselves (and thereby providing a secondary source for the primary information of the law itself) or are they quoting opinions of the law. If one is going to make the argument that "Primary sources" (i.e. the laws themselves as listed on the state website) should not be used, then one has to find those laws quoted in secondary sources, and these sources are naturally going to come from either pro- or anti-gun groups, because why else would someone be talking about the laws? Now, if the sources given were used for opinion on gun law and there was a 70:1 descrepency, then your point would be entirely valid. As it stands, I cannot agree with you. Rapier (talk) 19:25, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

One big source of bias is which laws are being examined. The article spend disproportionate attention on the laws of interest to 'pro-gun' POV especially "open carry". (Largely cited to a website owned by a company that sells the holsters needed for open carry.) The article spends much less attention to laws of interest to those advocating for gun laws which reduce criminal gun use, and reduction of gun violence. This is plainly a NPOV violation. SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 15:15, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your reply. Again, your logic is sound, but I have to dispute facts on which you base your premise. I think this may be a key issue of our disagreement: On what are you basing the statement that some of these laws are strictly in the interest of "pro-gun", while others would be focused more on laws that "reduce criminal gun use, and (the) reduction of gun violence" (thereby implying that the "pro-gun" laws you refer to do not reduce gun violence)? As an instructor of firearms laws for Minnesota and Utah, and a person that has been active in assisting of the writing of such laws for 15 years, I have to admit that I'm confused. I'm not aware of any statistics (other than the fact that in every state that permit-to-carry laws have been "loosened" -to quote the Brady Foundation- the violent crime rate has gone down) that show that any gun laws have reduced gun violence. In the State of Minnesota, for example, in the 7 years since the Minnesota Personal Protection Act made this a "Shall-issue" state, violent crime has dropped nearly 12%. Since no other laws have changed in the state, and the fact that other states have experienced similar drops after passing such laws, it is logical to conclude that this is a determining factor. If you know of other evidence I'd be very interested in seeing it, please bring it forward. Rapier (talk) 15:56, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I am not even slightly interested in discussing personal opinion about efficacy of law here. The point is not what we think but rather what the sources say about gun law. And, even those sources don't have to be 'true' or right, they just have to be verifiable. So stepping back and checking our foundation here, is there disagreement about WP:V? SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 16:48, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

I didn't ask for personal opinion, I specifically asked for evidence. You stated "The article spends much less attention to laws of interest to those advocating for gun laws which reduce criminal gun use, and reduction of gun violence. This is plainly a NPOV violation.", yet when I ask you for examples of these laws backed by sources, you are now saying that you don't want to discuss it. Forgive me, but the crux of your argument is that the wrong laws are being focused on, and focus should be on laws that "reduce criminal gun use". Please produce such data. Rapier (talk) 22:29, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Data: The article mentions the carry of a handgun, a topic of interest to the 'pro-gun' point of view about 400+ times. The article mentions two topics of interest to the Brady Campaign, "reporting requirements for stolen guns" or "criminal gun trace data tracking", once and zero respectively. These gun law topics of interest to the Brady Campaign are missing from the article. 400:1 is a quantified imbalance favoring 'pro-gun' point of view, evidence of systemic editor bias. SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 22:58, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, false premise. The "Brady Campaign" used to be called "Handgun Control Inc.", and before that the "National Council to Control Handguns", and was started in 1974. Its concern has always been about the carrying of handguns, an issue that both sides care about, simply the opposite side of the argument from those "pro-gun" people you mention. If this is your argument that the topics of interest are unbalanced, then you are sadly mistaken and know very little of the history of the argument. Rapier (talk) 01:03, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I think we are starting to get a little off topic. Let's dial things back a bit and talk about the maps specifically. Can we all agree that:

1. without context, all of the maps push a POV?
2. the inclusion of the maps as presented adds no value to the article?
3. the article talks very little about legislation and is essentially a list of laws?
4. the article needs to be broken up into individual state articles?
5. the article should strive to achieve a neutral point of view - add per request by SaltyBoatr Movementarian (Talk) 02:34, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

This is not the place for a policy debate, which is where this is headed. This is a place for building an encyclopaedia and aspiring to obtain neutral point of view. Lets find something that everyone agrees to and move from there. Movementarian (Talk) 07:13, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Point 1 - Agreed. Point 2 - Agreed. Point 3 - Agreed (however, I would argue that being a "list of laws" is exactly what the article was intended to be). Point 4 - I'd like to see this occur, I don't know that I'd use the word "need". Rapier (talk) 15:08, 23 June 2010 (UTC) EDIT: As to point 5: Every article in Wikipedia, by rule, should strive for a neutral point of view. However, by definition, that point of view is agreed upon by consensus based on verifiable fact. Rapier (talk) 06:22, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Movementarian, could you add to your list number 5) this article needs to obtain neutral point of view? Sorry to keep coming back to this issue, but at the start of this dispute the elephant in the room was the premise that any citation to anything published by the Brady Campaign was disallowed because everything published by the Brady Campaign is disallowed POV pushing[8]. This amounts to POV forking, where this article is the 'pro-gun' fork of this encylopedia's coverage of issues related to gun laws. Witness the exclusion of coverage of laws of interest to the Brady Campaign such as stolen gun tracking, and criminal gun trace tracking data. Also the 10:1 ratio[9] of pro-gun advocacy sourcing versus 'con' is further proof of a large NPOV problem here. SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 19:26, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

There was no "elephant in the room", it was stated outright by me that this was a list of laws, and that any summation/analysis of those laws by any advocacy group did not belong in an encyclopedic listing of gun laws. If you would like to add other criterion that you feel are important, then by all means, do so. However, the primary issue you gave earlier (the carrying of handguns) was a red herring as both sides of the argument in question are equally concerned with it (OpenCarry & The Brady Campaign (fka Handgun Control Inc. & National Council to Control Handguns). If you would like to add the criteria of "stolen gun tracking" and "criminal gun trace tracking data", go for it. Just follow the model already in place and create a column for that section and insert relevant reliably sourced information. Rapier (talk) 20:49, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Movementarian and with SeanNovack (a.k.a. Rapier), as well as other editors who have posted here, such as Niteshift36 -- the maps in general and the Brady state scorecard map in particular are POV advocacy and should be removed from the article. I also agree that laws such as concealed carry are of equal interest to pro-gun-rights and pro-gun-control organizations, and that it would be fine to add more or different laws to the article if that's desired. SaltyBoatr's statement that anyone said or implied anything like "any citation to anything published by the Brady Campaign was disallowed" is false. On the contrary, I and others have stated in multiple posts that the Brady Campaign is a reliable second party reference for individual laws. And I still think that this article should merely summarize the gun laws of each state in a factual manner, without adding third party opinions. The article will then be neutral and will cover its subject in an encyclopedic manner. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 21:20, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I would have to agree that the overall tone is skewed and it is irresponsible not to talk about the Brady Campaign and their effect on legislation, etc. Your observation just reinforces my position that this article is too large and basically a list of selected laws. These types of articles should talk about the evolution of the law and how organisations like the Brady Campaign and the NRA have effected them. In the meantime, if you can find sources to balance things out, I would encourage you to start integrating that content. Movementarian (Talk) 19:57, 16 June 2010 (UTC)

SeanNovack: Regarding your recent edit to your earlier message on point 5: a neutral point of view is agreed upon by consensus based on "representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources" — JPMcGrath (talk) 07:06, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thank you for quoting exact policy for me. Let's parse that shall we? "representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources". How are those words defined? On a case-by-case basis, based on the consensus of the community. How does that change my point? Rapier (talk) 16:07, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

It was not directed at your point about consensus, but rather at the added phrase, "based on verifiable fact". While it is true that Wikipedia articles should be based on verifiable facts, that includes facts about views published by reliable sources. It is a fact that Brady, the NRA, and USA Carry have made these assessments. — JPMcGrath (talk) 00:30, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. however, I have maintained all along that this is an article based on the law itself, not anybodys interpretation of that law. That information should be (and already is) included in other articles. Rapier (talk) 01:34, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Which articles? I have not seen any article that summarizes the state gun laws, and I have looked. — JPMcGrath (talk) 10:25, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Whenever a person takes raw data and creates an analysis or summary of that data then that person's bias will be a part of that analysis or summary. This is unavoidable and it is why most intelligence officers, business and financial analysists, and diagnosing physicians want to see raw data rather than rely on reports written by others when they draw their opinions. Therefore having an article titled summary of gun laws would be an absolute mess. If you want a summary of laws, go to the group that is doing the summary (Brady Campaign seems to be the most debated), but understand that you are getting that group bias when looking at that summary. If you are looking for a discussion of the issues look at gun politics in the United States, and other such articles. My point is that this information is covered in other places, and isn't appropriate for a listing of gun laws. If someone feels it necessary to include other laws to be tracked, that is fine, but biased summary maps from any source don't belong in this particular article. They would be more than appropriate in the article on gun politics, but not in a listing of laws. Rapier (talk) 18:07, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Outside opinion by GregJackP

There are too many maps, there should be no more than two. If you include an opencarry.org map, you should include a brady map for balance. I would personally go with the brady and the concealed carry maps. Personal view is that more guns on the street in the hands of law abiding citizens, the better, but that would be pushing a POV. GregJackP (talk) 04:16, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Why are there too many maps? They may be from pro and anti-gun sources, but their information's validity isn't in doubt, is it? Faceless Enemy (talk) 05:01, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Solutions

I think we have established some ground that everyone can agrees with. I would like everyone to refrain from lengthy discussions in this section, as I would like to keep it clean and focused on moving forward with editing. Let's take small steps and we will get there. Movementarian (Talk) 06:24, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is no consensus to remove the maps from the page. Movementarian (talk) 19:53, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

---

Proposed removal of all maps

I propose that all maps be moved to the talk page under the RfC heading. Discussion on reinserting them in the article is encouraged, but I think this is a good first step forward. Please indicate your opinion by stating Support or Oppose and sign. A short explaintion of your opinion is appropriate, but please try to avoid lengthy discussions in this section.

1. Support. Movementarian (Talk) 06:24, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
2. Oppose. The article needs summary information. More is needed, but the maps are the only thing that provide it. — JPMcGrath (talk) 10:47, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
3. Support. The Brady state scorecard map violates NPOV by pushing a political agenda, and does not objectively summarize the restrictiveness of different states' laws. The other maps are also at least somewhat questionable. This straw poll is a good idea, but it's clear that a significant number of editors think that the Brady map should never have been added. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 12:19, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
4. Support. I was one of the first to remove maps from this article. People are naturally drawn to graphics and when they promote a POV, that creates a NPOV issue. Niteshift36 (talk) 13:16, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
5. Support - There is no place for biased summary or analysis in this article. These maps are already posted on the various articles (Brady map in the Brady article, Open Carry map on the Open carry article, etc) which is exactly where they belong. Rapier (talk) 15:11, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
6. Oppose Let's be honest here, the grief is that the first map is linked to the Brady Campaign, and there is opposition here to including even one citation to Brady in this article. The five other maps linked to pro-gun sourcing were added as "balance". (If 5:1 is considered not undue!) This entire article is heavily skewed to pro-gun sources, and is riddled with systemic bias from personal selection bias of the editors attracted here. SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 15:00, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
7. Strongly Oppose The maps provide a clear and concise quick overview for a casual user. They're a great visualization. As for the controversy over the Brady map - whatever. They're a...well...I hesitate to say "reputable" source, but they're at least well-known. They seem to have the only map that gives a comprehensive overview of all gun laws in the state, however biased. Faceless Enemy (talk) 04:57, 30 June 2010 (UTC)
8. the Brady map needs to be removed unless an NRA map is put beside it. but removal is probaly best. I have no probalem with the CCW map its only stating laws Finch590 (talk) 13:59, 29 June 2010 (UTC)
9. Oppose I just came to this article, and to be honest, I don't understand why this is such a big issue. I found them informative. I can understand the problem with the PoV of the Brady score map (why are background checks worth 7 points rather than 6 or 8?). However, if the issue is just balancing out the political alignment of the references I don't see why anyone cares. The Brady Campaign and opencarry.org probably agree on whether New Jersey has a 1 handgun per month limit. --Selket ^Talk 16:30, 1 July 2010 (UTC)
   The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

• Support. The maps simply push POVs. Let the facts speak for themselves, properly cited with references, but without maps drawing summary conclusions. -- Yaf (talk) 10:46, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Split the article

The article is currently over 200kb long. WP:TOOLONG recommends no more than 50kb. I propose that the States be spun off into their own articles, beginning with the larger sections, such as New York and California (California would be a merger). At the end this article would consist of the lead paragraph and a list of links to individual State articles. The majority of the maps would remain (and be used in the State articles) with content providing context for each. As with the above proposal, please indicate your opinion by stating Support or Oppose and sign. A short explanation of your opinion is appropriate, but please try to avoid lengthy discussions in this section.

1. Support. Movementarian (talk) 19:52, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
2. Remove original research The largest portion of the size of this article involves editors here doing original research (combing through primary documents) about state gun laws, and publishing their research here. The first step should be the removal of the original research, then we should evaluate the need for a split, or not. SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 20:42, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
3. Weak Support I don't like the idea of keeping POV and agenda-driven summary maps from either side of the argument, and I dispute Salty's claim of WP:OR, obviously. Stating a law is not "original research". If he wants other laws tracked, that's fine, but simply stating that because the laws currently tracked are original research or biased because they are quoted in what he considers "pro-gun" sources is patantly false and his continued insistance on this track smacks of tendentious editing. However, I cannot argue that this article doesn't need to be split up Rapier (talk) 21:14, 6 July 2010 (UTC)
4. On the fence - argh! It looks to me like almost every source in this article would fail WP:RS and/or WP:OR. I think I'd have to agree on cleanup before splitting and propagating the mess. Can someone find a serious disinterested source that has discussed this issues? More likely a series of sources because each state probably has their own set. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 00:00, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
5. Support. I disagree with SaltyBoatr's contention that stating the law is "original research". To quote the little article thing on OR, "The term "original research" refers to material—such as facts, allegations, ideas, and stories—not already published by reliable sources. It also refers to any analysis or synthesis by Wikipedians of published material, where the analysis or synthesis advances a position not advanced by the sources." The state is a reliable source for the state's laws. It's also hardly synthesis to state an area's laws. It's just brute repetition. As for the proposed split...yeesh. It would make sense to give each state its own article, but it'd be a pain in the ass to do. As long as someone else does it, it's a logical step, though I think this article should be left around as a quick summary article. Splitting each state into its own article would make them more manageable. Perhaps an infobox for gun laws would be in order? It would help to make the information clear and concise. Faceless Enemy (talk) 03:10, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
6. Support. I think that makes sense. This article would provide a summary of the state gun laws across the country, describing the types of gun laws that exist and how they vary from state to state. The state articles would provide the details that are included in the state sections here. However, I do not think the maps would make sense in the state articles; that belongs here. — JPMcGrath (talk) 08:02, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
7. Oppose There needs to be a single article summarizing and detailing the laws. Forcing readers to search through multiple articles when planning a trip crossing state lines would not be appropriate. Without the maps, the article looks fine. Yaf (talk) 10:50, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

   Wikipedia is not a travel guide. SnottyWong ^speak 05:40, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

8. Oppose. For a Wikipedia article, this one is longer than average, but that's not a problem. It's very worthwhile to have one article, this one, that summarizes the gun laws of all the states, without requiring readers to look at 51 different articles. A few of the sections, such as Arizona and Virginia, should probably be shortened, by removing extensive direct quotes of the laws. Optionally, if a state section is made significantly shorter, a separate article could also be created for that state, as was done with California. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 13:13, 8 July 2010 (UTC)
9. Support - The only way to comfortably squeeze all of this information into one article would be to make a single table that encompasses all 50 states. This would almost certainly require getting rid of the "Notes" section of the existing tables. If this is not agreeable, then splitting the article into 50 articles is the next best solution. SnottyWong ^speak 05:40, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Brady scorecard and other maps, continued

In the Proposed removal of all maps subsection, Movementarian said that there is no consensus to remove the maps from the page, however it's equally true that there is no consensus for retaining the maps. In the straw poll in that subsection, 4 editors supported removal of the maps, 4 were opposed, and one said that removal is "probably best". The maps have been added and then removed several times in the last few months. They're there now because it happens that the last edit was to add them again, and also, for the last couple of weeks, to allow other editors to see and comment on them as part of the Request for Comment. It seems to me that we're unable to reach a general agreement on the maps. It is therefore best that the maps not be added, i.e. that they be removed, because a significant number of editors, about half, feel quite strongly that they violate NPOV, and that they are also factually misleading, while the reasons for adding the maps are much less compelling. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 00:05, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Is all of this drama because of the Brady map? Hell, the Brady map makes sense. Unless we can come up with a better system for categorizing the overall level of firearm freedom in a state, let it stay up. For a quick glance, it's completely adequate. Faceless Enemy (talk) 03:12, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

——————

There was no consensus for removal, and the claim that they violate WP:NPOV is not supported by the language of that policy. I am restoring the maps. — JPMcGrath (talk) 07:52, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

There is no consensus for adding the maps, and about half of the editors who have commented agree, after very extensive discussion of the subject, that they do in fact violate NPOV. Therefore the maps should not be added to the article. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 00:18, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

There's absolutely no way in hell the maps describing concealed carry, open carry, and firearms transport laws violate NPOV. They're simply stating the law as it stands. The only map with NPOV issues is the Brady Campaign map, and it would be best to balance that out with a map of overall restrictiveness from another source, rather than tossing the baby out with the bathwater. The maps are a concise, visual representation of the laws across the United States - which is what the article is about, right? Faceless Enemy (talk) 15:05, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Actually, this article gives undue coverage to the laws of interested to the editors in charge here, which is mostly of laws related to the carry of handguns. Missing is weight of coverage of laws of interest to the opposite POV, such as illegal gun trafficking laws, child safety laws, tracing of criminal use of guns, reporting requirements for stolen guns, criminal gun trace data tracking and guns in the workplace/schools. This is evidence systemic editor bias which violates WP:NPOV policy. SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 15:23, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Mudwater: The maps certainly do not violate WP:NPOV, but your removal of the maps does. The policy is absolutely clear: It "requires that all majority views and significant minority views published by reliable sources be presented fairly". It further says "material should not be removed solely on the grounds that it is 'POV'".

If you remove the maps based on a claim that it violates NPOV, you must show how it does. That should be based on what NPOV actually says, not what you imagine it says or what you want it to say.

— JPMcGrath (talk) 07:46, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

After a very extensive discussion lasting several months, quite a few editors are in agreement that the Brady Campaign state scorecard map violates the NPOV policy. The reasons have been explained at length and repeatedly on this talk page. As most of these editors have also stated, the best way to keep this article neutral is to factually describe the actual gun laws of each state, without adding any biased opinions that promote a particular political agenda. Let the arguments about whether the laws are good or bad be included in other articles, not this one. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 15:38, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Of course this isn't about good versus bad. Neither is it about bias. The issue is whether all significant points of view seen in reliable sourcing are represented proportionately in the article. Mudwater here is misusing WP:NPOV policy, misinterpreting it to mean that a POV that he doesn't agree with needs to be removed. The fact now is that Mudwater has removed all mention and all references to the major significant voice of the opposite POV. Yes, zero mention of Brady Campaign in an article about USA gun law! Wow, is that neutral balance? Meanwhile, the article contains WP:UNDUE attention to the pro-carry of handguns viewpoint. (And, the most used source is owned by a company that sells handgun holsters needed to carry these handguns raising WP:COI questions.) This is a NPOV mess which needs fixing if we are to follow policy. SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 16:09, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

For the last time, this isn't about "Point of View" at all! This is an article that is supposed to be a listing of gun laws. Feel free to add any (as per the discussion below), that you feel ar not represented here - I'll agree that this focuses on carry laws and leaves others out - but if you want to include "point of view" in an article, bring it over to Gun politics, because it does not belong here. Rapier (talk) 16:52, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, Mudwater, several people have asserted that it violates NPOV, but nobody has pointed to any part of NPOV that says it does. At the same time, I have pointed out language in NPOV that says it should not be removed, and again, nobody has offered any rationale for removing the maps in violation of NPOV. — JPMcGrath (talk) 16:53, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes, several us us have pointed to WP:NPOV and WP:SOAP reasons for these not to be here. Please stop edit-warring. There is established precedent for not including article information that is not agreed upon by consensus, so I will ask you to undo your edit and remove this material. Rapier (talk) 19:01, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

Would you please quote or point to the relevant parts from WP:NPOV and WP:SOAP that you think supports this? — JPMcGrath (talk) 22:22, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

1. I don't see why we need the maps here, regardless of whether they comply with wikipedia policy. Every anti-gun and pro-gun web site has maps out the wazoo already.
2. The first issue that I see with the Brady map is the use of the word "restrictive." The person who created that graphic, and it wasn't the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, added that word. WP:NOR
3. The NRA-ILA map for Concealed Carry was also modified from its original version to read "may issue; license often granted" and "may issue; license often not granted" and "no issue" in place of the original "rights restricted" and "right infringed." WP:NOR
4. The cited document "2009 Brady Campaign Scorecard" does not contain any references to what the law actually is. It is simply their statement, to be taken on faith, that a State has or does not have a law that complies with the policy and agenda of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
   1. It qualifies as a WP:POORSRC in that the BCPGV does not appear to have a reputation for accuracy, does not provide any means for verification of the data, and the Scorecard consists of views that might be extremist, data that is certainly promotional, and also relies heavily on personal opinion.
      1. The Brady Campaign Scorecard expresses an opinion of what the laws should be and assigns arbitrary point values to each type of law.
      2. The use of this data within this article attempts to describe whether the laws of a particular state are more or less restrictive of keeping and bearing firearms. That amounts to synthesis of published material WP:SYN because the cited source does not use those terms. In fact, the map on the bradycampaign.org site uses the words "strongest" and "weakest."
5. The NRA-ILA and OpenCarry.org resources appear to be better at citing to actual and reputable legal sources, however their produced data are not different from the BCPGV in that they are also potentially extremist views, contain promotional data, and also rely heavily on personal opinion. They, too, are a WP:POORSRC.
   1. For example, the OpenCarry.org map assigns a value of "Gold Star" to states that comply with their policy and agenda regarding the open carrying of handguns.
6. There may be other resources from these organizations usable in this article, but the only valid use of the following sources are for WP:SELFPUB in articles such as Gun politics in the United States.
   1. Brady Scorecard Map from bradycampaign.org (due to lack of cite to authority, accuracy, opinion-based, and promotion of an agenda)
   2. Gun Registration Laws from opencarry.org (due to describing registration of "so-called" assault weapons; promotion of an agenda)
   3. Concealed Carry Map from NRA-ILA (due to the actual source using the terms "Rights Restricted" and "Right Infringed"; promotion of an agenda; opinion-based)
   4. Open Carry Gun Laws from opencarry.org (due to assignment of "Gold Star" label; opinion-based; promotion of an agenda)

The best sources for this article will be .gov resources including published statutes and common law accompanied by supporting case law, Judges' opinions, Attorneys' General opinions, and Law-Enforcement Agency memorandums; those accompaniments being your only truly reputable secondary sources on law. If the bradycampaign.org or opencarry.org happen to host a copy of an official document from one of the aforementioned secondary sources, then I don't see a problem with using such a link for your reference. Luftegrof (talk) 04:57, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

"I don't see why we need the maps here". Because they're a clear and concise visual reference.

" The NRA-ILA map for Concealed Carry was also modified from its original version to read "may issue; license often granted" and "may issue; license often not granted" and "no issue" in place of the original "rights restricted" and "right infringed."" Well do you want a neutral map or not? "Right restricted" is a pretty POV way to put it. Faceless Enemy (talk) 08:41, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Alright, maps are a clear and concise visual reference. Fine, have maps. That doesn't mean one should use non-neutral maps that were generated by a non-neutral source and change the legends so that the maps appear to be neutral. What you put in the article must reflect what is in the reference material. Brady's scores and maps depict which states' laws are "strongest" and "weakest" based on their arbitrary scale. NRA-ILA's map is based on opinions that certain carry laws are reasonable or unreasonable, restrictive or less-restrictive. The NRA-ILA referenced article is "Right-to-Carry 2010" and the map title is "Right to Carry Laws;" not "Concealed Carry Laws." If you change the legend or title in any way, you are changing the meaning of the map. If the unabridged sources are irrelevant or do not meet the WP, they shouldn't be used. Luftegrof (talk) 16:18, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

BINGO! Maps produced by advocacy groups blatantly violate WP:SOAP, and could even be considered advertising for those organizations. Maps produced by users violate WP:OR, and the "benefit" of having a summary map (what's so horrible about going to the state you want to know about and reading the bloody information?) it can be argued is far outweighed by the potential POV pushing of whatever group produces the summary. As has been stated by me several times in this argument: raw data is neutral, and themoment someone takes that data and starts to analyze or summarize they are automatically going to put their own point-of-view on that information. This is not and article about the politics of gun laws (there is another article for that already, go there and post your NRA and Brady maps), this is an article about the laws themselves. Lazyness is not an excuse to insert information that is not appropriate to the article. Rapier (talk) 17:15, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

Luftegrof: I really have no idea why you replied to my message. It contained a single question, asking Sean to quote the relevant parts of WP:NPOV and WP:SOAP that suggested that the map should not be included. Your reply did not address this, so I wonder what you think you were answering. Nonetheless, I will address the points that you did make:

1: What the article needs is summary. It should provide the reader with information about the kinds of state gun laws that exist, and how they vary among the states. Right now, it just provides the details, requiring the reader to sift through 50 different sections and summarize the material himself. The maps provide some of that, although more is certainly needed.

2: This is a rather absurd claim. The map is based on information published material from a reliable, third party, secondary source. There is nothing in WP:NOR that says we must use the exact same wording that the source does. Althouh the Brady Campaign used the word "strong" rather than "restrictive", it accurately reflects the information they present, and is less likely to be interpreted as an endorsement of their position of whether restrictive is good or bad. Of course, if you believe that the word "strong" would be more accurate, then I would have no problem using that word.

3: This is the exact same issue as #2. As with the Brady map, the wording was chosen to accurately reflect the information about what the concealed carry laws are, but avoiding including their position on what the laws should be. The former is appropriate for this article, while the latter is not. It is appropriate to include only the relevant information in the article.

4: Do you think there is some Wikipedia policy that requires that a source provide every bit of information that went into their thinking? If there were, it would disqualify the majority of the sources cited on Wikipedia.

4.1: You claim that the Brady Campaign "does not appear to have a reputation for accuracy", but what do you base that on? Do you have some source, aside from opposing advocacy groups, that supports this, or is this just your personal opinion?

4.1.1: The Scorecard primarily expresses what the laws are, and also includes their opinion about what the laws should be. The former was included in the map, while the latter was omitted, which is appropriate for this article.

4.1.2: You seem to be claiming that including some of the information, the relevant part, without including irrelevant parts constitutes synthesis. WP:SYN talks about combining information from multiple sources in order to imply a conclusion, not about selecting information from one source. I cannot imagine how you think this applies, and you have not quoted the part of the policy that you think does apply. Would you please do so?

5. You claim that the NRA/ILA and OpenCarry.org are poor sources, yet they are both referenced multiple times in this article - the former 24 times and the latter 9 times. Isn't this a little ridiculous?

5.1: Same issue as #2 and #3.

6: I have no idea what you are talking about with regard to WP:SELFPUB. Obviously, the Brady Campaign, the NRA-ILA, and OpenCarry are published experts in the field of gun laws. This makes no sense at all. If you think it does, please explain.

If you really believe that WP:NOR, WP:POORSRC, WP:SYN, and WP:SELFPUB apply here, would you please quote the part of those policies that you believe do apply?

— JPMcGrath (talk) 06:19, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

WP:NOR -- What's the source for "license often not granted" and "license often granted?" The cited NRA-ILA article does not provide any information as to the frequency of issue (number issued vs. number of applications made). The original map said "discretionary/reasonable issue" for what I think was called "license often granted" on the map previously displayed here. -- "The term 'original research' refers to material—such as facts, allegations, ideas, and stories—not already published by reliable sources."

WP:SYN, WP:NOR -- How do you paraphrase a one-word thought with another one-word thought when each word has a different meaning? Strong != Restrictive. They're not even close to being synonyms. The BCPGV did not say any particular state's laws are "restrictive." So what's the source? The NRA-ILA map does use the word "restricted." That's quite a coincidence. In referring to BCPGV's "strong" states as "restrictive", the meaning of the BCPGV map was changed to something that neither the NRA-ILA nor the BCPGV sources actually mentioned. The states to which the NRA-ILA attributed the word "restricted" are not all the same states that the BCPGV called "strong." Now, if it's true that "restrictive" wasn't, even if subconsciously, taken from the NRA-ILA publication, then I'll retract my WP:SYN argument and simply stick with WP:NOR. The short of it is that the BCPGV map previously displayed in this wikipedia article had a different meaning than the original source. -- "The best practice is to write articles by researching the most reliable sources on the topic and summarizing what they say in your own words, with each statement in the article attributable to a source that makes that statement explicitly" and "Source material should be carefully summarized or rephrased without changing its meaning or implication. Take care not to go beyond what is expressed in the sources or to use them in ways inconsistent with the intent of the source, such as using material out of context." and "[d]o not combine material from multiple sources to reach or imply a conclusion not explicitly stated by any of the sources."

WP:POORSRC First of all, I want to clarify that I'm not trying to say that everything published by the BCPGV, the NRA-ILA, and OCDO are poor sources; just that some of the information, particularly these maps, are poor sources. The OCDO maps, for instance, were created by either or both John Pierce and Mike Stollenwerk on their own. Neither even had a law degree when most of those maps were produced, though they have been attending law school. OCDO does not have a "professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments." They may have consulted with experts when compiling their research, but nothing to that effect is noted. In fact, if you click through the map into the state pages, they say right at the top of each one "any and all information you glean from this site should be independently verified!" The NRA-ILA and BCPGV are basically equal, but on extreme opposite sides of the issues. By equal, I mean they do have a "professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments." However, they both have reputations for slanting their representation of facts and evidence to promote their agenda. I claim that the NRA-ILA map in question has errors as well, mainly because they omitted that the map represents concealed carry; there are several states that have not required a permit to carry for a very long time, but are represented on the map as "shall-issue."

BCPGV was formerly HCI:

In 1999, HCI claimed that between 1992-1997 violent crime declined less in RTC states than in other states.17 (HCI previously claimed RTC caused crime to rise.) HCI erred in categorizing 31 states as having RTC during the period, since only 17 of the 31 had RTC in 1992. HCI calculated crime trends from 1992 to under-represent the impact of RTC laws; by 1992 many states had RTC for many years and had already experienced decreases in crime. HCI misclassified Alabama and Connecticut as “restrictive,” and credited restrictive laws for crime decreasing in some states, though states that had restrictive carry laws had had them for many years, and crime did not begin declining in those states until the 1990s, for reasons unrelated to guns.

The BCPGV map, as I said earlier, is based on an arbitrary point system. The entire basis of the BCPGV map of scores is the compliance of a State's laws with the BCPGV agenda. Because of those reasons, it is a self-published source.

Quotes from WP:SOURCES, WP:POORSRC -- "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party (independent), published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy" and "[i]n general, the best sources have a professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments" and "[s]elf-published expert sources are regarded as reliable in limited circumstances" and "[a]ll self-published sources, whether experts or not, are considered reliable as sources on themselves, especially in articles about themselves, subject to certain criteria, though no article should be based primarily on such sources" and "[questionable] sources include websites and publications expressing views that are widely acknowledged as extremist, or promotional, or which rely heavily on rumor and personal opinion. Questionable sources should be used only as sources of material on themselves, especially in articles about themselves;"

Luftegrof (talk) 04:18, 22 July 2010 (UTC)

I presume that Mudwater made those changes based on the content of the web site. If he did so based on his own beliefs about the state laws, that would be original research and the original wording, or something equivalent, should be restored.

I am really quite stunned at your suggestion that the word "restrictive" in the Brady map is somehow derived from the NRA/ILA. The Brady map was added on March 3rd, and the NRA/ILA map was added over 3 months later, at the suggestion of Mudwater. Your conjecture that one came from the other does not make sense.

For future reference, you have misread WP:SYN. Even if I had taken the wording from an NRA/ILA map and applied it to the Brady map (which I did not), that would not apply. Synthesis is when one takes statements from separate sources and juxtaposes them, so as to imply a conclusion that neither source implied. That would not apply, even in your imagined scenario.

As you point out, WP:NOR suggests expressing the views of reliable sources "in your own words". But then you attempt to suggest that "own words" means the source's words with simple synonym substitution, which is not what it says. When the Brady Campaign talks about strong gun laws, they mean laws that restrict how guns are transported, exchanged, and used, so I chose the word "restrictive". If you believe that does not accurately reflect what they mean by "strong", you could make an argument for different wording, even the word "strong". But it would not justify removing the material entirely.

As for WP:POORSRC, you appear to have misunderstood what it says as well. When it talks about "questionable sources", it is indeed talking about sources, not material published by the sources. It does not make sense to argue that it is a poor source in one situation and the claim that it is not when you like what the source says. You can't have it both ways.

While I do not know much about OpenCarry.org, I wonder on what basis you say that it does not have a "professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments".

The source you cite as a basis for criticism of the Brady Campaign is a rival advocacy group, which is not at all surprising. These groups criticize each other - that is their nature. But what is really hard to understand is why you are citing a source that you say is a "poor source". If the NRA is a poor source, how can you use that as a basis for your criticism of the Brady Campaign? It does not make sense.

Of course, what is really confusing is that the sources you are impuning are heavily cited in this article. If they are not reliable, then all material sourced to them should be removed from this article. I think these make up a significant part of the secondary sources cited, which would leave the article almost entirely original research. That is a significant issue with this article now, and it would be made even worse. Is that what you are suggesting?

— JPMcGrath (talk) 17:09, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I did not suggest adding the NRA/ILA map of concealed carry laws. As for my change to the legend of the map, here, that was an attempt to make the map less POV, by changing the wording to be more neutral and less pro-gun-rights. But it's a moot point now. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 08:40, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

It's clear that a significant number of editors agree, after much discussion, that the Brady Campaign state scorecard map violates the Neutral Point of View principal, and so should not be added to the article. Please refer to the following sections or subsections of this talk page:

• #2009 Brady Campaign State Scorecard
• #Brady and other maps
• #RfC: Should the Brady map be removed or retained?
• #Proposed removal of all maps
• #Brady scorecard and other maps, continued (i.e. this subsection)

— Mudwater ^(Talk) 01:53, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

MORE MAPS!!!1

"Actually, this article gives undue coverage to the laws of interested to the editors in charge here, which is mostly of laws related to the carry of handguns. Missing is weight of coverage of laws of interest to the opposite POV, such as illegal gun trafficking laws, child safety laws, tracing of criminal use of guns, reporting requirements for stolen guns, criminal gun trace data tracking and guns in the workplace/schools. This is evidence systemic editor bias which violates WP:NPOV policy." SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 15:23, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I think the guy raises a good point, in that the maps should address more issues. However, I don't think that we should remove good visual representations of laws, which by their very nature are NPOV. To that end, I'm going to try to make more maps using the tools found at the NRA site and Brady site. The fact of the matter is that the way to make an article like this more NPOV is to add aditional information, rather than blanking and destroying whole sections of good info. Faceless Enemy (talk) 21:19, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Another useful source for gun law data to give POV balancing weight is the [10]. SaltyBoatr ^{get wet} 22:10, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Wow, I'm impressed; and slightly surprised at the detail and accuracy I've seen, so far, in the information on that site. I will definitely incorporate some of the resources from that site into the Virginia section. Luftegrof (talk) 16:25, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

New Intro suggestion

I've been reflecting on SB's comments above re systemic editor bias. In this area I believe he is correct. This article looks for the most part to be "concealed carry laws in the US by state" rather than a more general "gun laws" article. With that in mind I wonder if we can build consensus to alter the intro somewhat to include an explanation of what kinds of laws there are related to firearms, and what kinds of differences exist between the states. I'd like to hear if other editors agree. To that end, I'm starting a list - feel free to add/edit:

• Concealed Carry
• Waiting Period
• Storage (locks, disassembly, etc.)
• Child-safety (as exists other than storage above)
• purchase limits
• transfer / registration rules
• education/testing requirements (many states require training and/or tests for handgun license, hunting license, etc)
• tracing laws (SB suggested - perhaps he can elucidate)

If we do this, we probably will want to break-up the article as suggested. In that case having an infobox for quick assessment of the state of each state might be nice. Looking for feedback. AliveFreeHappy (talk) 23:05, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I think it is a great idea to expand the article to include some/all of the items in your list, but I think we should only add them to intro after we've fleshed them out in the body of the article. But we might want to condense or combine a couple of the items (e.g. Storage and Child-safety) since some of them will only apply to a few states (ballistic fingerprinting and microstamping would also fit into that category).

However, I think it is imperative that the article focuses on stating the laws and not go into discussing whether the laws are good/bad, strict/lax, etc. And I know that someone is going to come back with "...but we should present all significant POVs as found in reliable sources..." But as soon as we start adding that kind of stuff, we'll end up duplicating the back and forth arguments found in articles like Gun politics in the United States, Political arguments of gun politics in the United States, Gun violence in the United States, etc.

I also think it would be nice to have a single table listing all of the states and summarizing the status of at least some of the items in your list. But I'm not sure how feasible that would be, and incredibly large tables are pretty unwieldy to glean information from, as well. --Hamitr (talk) 23:50, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I have no problem adding to the variety of laws that are tracked. I'm not against any of the laws you mentioned, but for the record it might be difficult to track things like "Storage: Locks, disassembly, etc" when Heller v DC stated that it was unconstitutional to require that people use gun locks on their handguns because it violated the principle of self-defense. That is the kind of issue that comes up when going through a list of laws - people start thinking about what they believe should be there, rather than what is actually there. It's certainly worthwhile doing the research to put such a list together, but in the end it would probably be better of there were wikilinks to individual articles for the gun laws of each state. My 2 1/2 cents. Rapier (talk) 00:38, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Most of the categories I've seen suggested here could be consolidated within more general categories. I'm partial to the way I organized the Virginia section last year. Every state will be slightly different, but the following categories cover just about every type of firearm law. Luftegrof (talk) 02:52, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

• Constitution
  • Is there a provision in the Constitution regarding firearms or arms in general?
• Preemption/Local Regulation
  • May localities regulate firearms; and if so, what may they regulate?
• Legality of Certain Firearms
  • What firearms (or accessories) are legal/illegal?
  • Who, if anyone, may manufacture firearms?
  • What condition do firearms have to be stored or used in? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Luftegrof (talk • contribs) 02:59, 13 July 2010 (UTC)
• Prohibited Places
  • Where may you not have a gun?
• Prohibited Persons
  • Who may not have a gun?
• Purchasing of Firearms
  • Who may purchase firearms?
  • Who may sell firearms?
  • Are there any dealer regulations?
  • Are there restrictions on the purchase of firearms or accessories?
  • Are there qualifications or requirements prior to the purchase of firearms or accessories?
• Carry
  • Open Carry
    • How is it defined in the state?
    • Is it legal? Does it require a permit?
    • What supporting laws, legal opinions, or court rulings affirm that open carry is legal or illegal?
  • Concealed Carry
    • How is it defined in the state?
    • Is it legal? Does it require a permit?
    • What supporting laws, legal opinions, or court rulings affirm that concealed carry is legal or illegal?
  • Carry Permits (if they exist)
    • Who may get a permit?
    • How does one get a permit?
    • What are the qualifications?
    • Are there Permit Exemptions?
      • Do some laws not apply to people who have a permit?
    • Are there Permit Restrictions?
      • Are there extra requirements or rules of conduct specifically for those who are carrying with a permit?

• Here's how your list would fit under my proposed organization:
  • Concealed carry fits better under general "carry," as there are two (or more) types of carry.
  • Waiting periods fit under "Purchasing of Firearms."
  • Storage might fit under "Legality of Certain Firearms" in that a firearm without a lock may be illegal, or an assembled firearm may be illegal.
  • Child-safety is something that falls under more than one category. In the categories I listed, it falls under "Prohibited Persons" as well as "Legality of Certain Firearms."
  • Purchase limits, transfer, and registration are all under "Purchasing of Firearms."
  • Registration is also under "Legality of Certain Firearms"
  • Testing/education requirements under either or both the "Purchasing of Firearms" and "Carry" sections, if applicable.
  • Tracing laws, such as ballistic fingerprinting, serial number registration would fall under either "Legality of Certain Firearms," "Purchasing of Firearms" or both.
  • Any of the above may also fall under "Local Regulation" Luftegrof (talk) 02:52, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

• Another peeve that I have, which someone had hinted earlier on this page and I hope we can address, are the sources/references not being straight from a State's on-line code library; or from some other .gov site. If this page is supposed to be State gun laws, then ALL of the sources should be from .gov sites; except in cases where there absolutely is not a .gov statute code source. I haven't found a state yet that doesn't have its statutory laws on-line. Most have their administrative laws on-line, too. Luftegrof (talk) 02:52, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

This sounds excellent. Does anyone here know how to make an infobox? Faceless Enemy (talk) 03:54, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

An infobox may be a good addition to each state sections, but it does not excuse the poor organization of the main content, nor does it replace the need for a more in-depth description of the laws. Here's a sample infobox I just created for Virginia, what do you think? When implemented, the code sections listed would be links as well... I didn't do that here in order to save time. Luftegrof (talk) 13:27, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Virginia Gun Laws

File:Va-flag.gif
Constitution
Constitutional Provision	Yes - Article I, Section 13.
Preemption/Local Regulation
State Preemption	Yes - § 15.2-915.
Local Regulation	Yes - § 15.2-915, § 15.2-915.2, § 15.2-915.3, § 15.2-915.4, § 15.2-914.
Legality of Certain Firearms
Prohibited Firearms, Ammunition, or Accessories	Yes, Striker 12 Shotguns - § 18.2-308.8.
Registration of Firearms or Accessories	Yes, machine guns - § 18.2-295.
Prohibited Places
Yes - § 18.2-283, § 18.2-283.1, § 18.2-287.01, § 18.2-287.4, § 18.2-308.1, § 18.2-308, § 18.2-308.1, 4VAC5-30-200, 4VAC15-40-60, 4VAC10-30-170, GA JRC Rule, 8VAC35-60-20, 8VAC90-10-50.
Prohibited Persons (including children)
Yes - § 18.2-308.1:1, § 18.2-308.1:2, § 18.2-308.1:3, § 18.2-308.1:4, § 18.2-308.1:5, § 18.2-308.2, § 18.2-308.2:01, § 18.2-56.2, § 18.2-308.7, § 18.2-56.2.
Purchasing of Firearms
Private Sales	Yes - § 18.2-308.2:1.
Dealer Regulations (licensing, background checks, etc.)	Yes - § 18.2-308.2:2.
Purchase Restrictions (age, type, quantity, etc.)	Yes - § 18.2-308.2:2.
Carry
Open Carry
Definition	The carrying of a handgun in plain view. Virginia defines concealed as "hidden from common observation."
Legality	Yes - No law can be found prohibiting open carry.
Age Restriction on Open Carry	Yes - § 18.2-308.7, § 18.2-56.2
Vehicle Carry
Legality	Yes - Without a CHP, the handgun must be in plain view; not hidden from common observation; or secured in a compartment or container. With a CHP, the handgun may be carried in any manner. § 18.2-308.
Concealed Carry
Definition	Virginia defines concealed as "hidden from common observation."
Legality	Yes, with a permit; or for certain persons/positions - § 18.2-308.
Restrictions on Permit Holders	Yes - § 18.2-308, Subsections J1, J3, and O.
Exemptions for Permit Holders	Yes - § 18.2-308.2:2, § 18.2-308.1, GA JRC Rule, 4VAC5-30-200, 4VAC15-40-60.
Virginia Gun Laws

Luftegrof (talk) 13:27, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Gun laws infobox?

Does it make sense to try to create an infobox for gun laws? What sort of things should be included? I can think of: concealed carry, open carry, storage, registration, NFA regulations, ballistic fingerprinting/microstamping/whatever, and "assault weapon" bans (or maybe just bans on standard-capacity magazines). Any other ideas? Faceless Enemy (talk) 02:42, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

I like this idea a lot! Let's develop this a little so we can be sure to include the primary laws that people are concerned about (personally,, I like what is there now, and we don't want to make it too big, but others may have more/better ideas)Rapier (talk) 16:54, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

It's actually pretty awesome, but it might be better to have the legal code things as plain old references, rather than a long, drawn-out thing. Faceless Enemy (talk) 01:25, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

At this moment, I'd prefer to use the reference tags for the main body of text and use direct links for the infobox. I'll think about it for a bit... By the way, I went ahead and added an infobox to the Virginia section. I'll probably change it a lot over the next few days or weeks, but it's there for now. Luftegrof (talk) 02:38, 14 July 2010 (UTC)

There appeared to be a consensus on shortening the length of the article, but not a consensus on splitting the article up; Virginia was one of the longest and was getting unmanageable and difficult to read in its present format. The infobox was a good idea, but after using it and trying to adequately summarize the gun laws within it, it became clear that it was inadequate. There's just not enough room in an infobox. I ported everything into an embedded list, like what was done for some other states. I think it's much cleaner, easier to read, and will be much easier to keep up-to-date than the outline format previously used. Having the embedded table deprecates the use of an infobox. Luftegrof (talk) 18:45, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

State sections -- tables and text

In the last several weeks, editor Luftegrof has changed the Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania sections of the article, adding fairly large tables and removing the text of each section. The new tables certainly have their good points, and Luftegrof has done a nice job of linking the table entries to the actual state statutes. However, I think each state section should still have a few paragraphs of text, summarizing the highlights of the particular state's laws, whatever those may be. This will make it much easier for the casual reader to pick up on the main points of each state's laws. As an example, the Maryland section used to include this paragraph:

New handguns sold in Maryland must include a sealed envelope, provided by the manufacturer, containing a shell casing from a cartridge fired by that gun. When the gun is sold, the dealer must send the envelope with the shell casing, along with information identifying the purchaser, to the state police, for inclusion in their ballistics database, known as the Integrated Ballistics Identification System (IBIS).

Text paragraphs like this are great for summarizing the main points and bringing them to the attention of the average reader. It's more a matter of presentation, even if similar information can also be found in the table. In my opinion the article should keep some text for each state, whether the new tables are kept in their present form or not. What does everyone else think about this? — Mudwater ^(Talk) 23:22, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

I think a topic such as gun laws, by state, is rather difficult for both editors and readers alike.

• There are tons of them.
• Many states have very similar laws.
  • For example, the machine gun laws are nearly identical for Maryland, Virginia, and other states as well.
• Many states have very different laws.
  • For example, in Virginia concealed means "hidden from common observation" but in Mississippi it means "[hidden] in whole or in part" and the implications of each definition are drastically different.
• All states' laws can fit into a relatively small number of categories.
  • The categories I've used in my tables aren't written in stone, but almost every gun law can fit into one of those categories.
• Most of us probably aren't lawyers; neither the readers nor the editors.
• Many times, readers will just have one or two particular questions they want to answer. They're not usually here to read from top down, A to Z.
• It is impossible to summarize most states' gun laws in a short paragraph.
  • Your example from Maryland is not a "main point." It's simply one of several dozen gun laws.
  • We have to be careful not to call one law a main point while not another one. In order to remain neutral, we must give all of the laws equal representation.
  • What could you say in a summary paragraph? "Maryland has gun laws regulating the purchase, sale, transfer, possession, minors, and blah..." I don't think that adds much, if any, value to the reader when the table says the same thing.
  • I do think, however, there ought to be a good summary at the very top of the article summarizing state gun laws in general, not really any particular state.
    • Something that explains the types of gun laws that will be included and why, the types laws that might not be included and why, and a notice to the reader that the article deals with State laws only and that some of these State laws may be moot, nullified, or illegal because of Federal statutory, administrative, or case law. I know some of that is already there, just stating here for completeness.

As such, this article requires an approach that may not be common or standard in other wikipedia articles.

Plain text paragraphs are more free-form and the order in which things are presented and the words used to present them are so different from state to state, and from editor to editor.

• Going from one state section to another, sometimes you have to sort-of change gears in your head to read the work of a different editor.
• People have a tendency to run on and on when a simple 10 word sentence would be easier to understand and more than sufficient, especially when the actual law text is linked-to for the reader.
• Plain text paragraphs could be the number one reason that this article is full of unvalidated/unreferenced information and non-neutral points of view.
  • Tables can still be abused as such, however it will be easier to spot them than when they're buried in the middle of or one of several paragraphs.

Tables will encourage editors to be more compliant with the style and structure of the rest of the article; and to be more succinct.

• Editing these state sections is so easy now.
  • Everything has a place.
  • There is perceived limited space, so I'm careful to stay clear, concise, and on-point.
  • The format of the table ensures that an editor includes all of the pertinent information as well. It's almost a sort of check-list for the editor (and the reader).

In summary: While the tables take up more space on the page for some states, the amount of text in them is considerably less than there would be in paragraphs that contain summaries of the same laws. Most of the short state sections are only short because they are missing a ton of information. In the long run, I think the use of tables, without plain text paragraphs for each state, will shorten the amount of text one must parse when they read this article, without decreasing the amount of knowledge they gain from it. In fact, it may increase. I am against having both paragraphs and tables because the duplication of data will only make it more difficult to keep up-to-date when laws change; and it's not only duplication of data, it's duplication of work. I think summary paragraph(s) should be at the top of the article in the introduction and be so generic that they do not need to be updated every time a state law is amended; the state sections should just be tables. Luftegrof (talk) 15:23, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, just for the record, I have been careful to keep all of the referenced, verifiable, accurate information from the pre-existing paragraphs in the new tables. That includes the Maryland IBIS example above. Luftegrof (talk) 15:23, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I really think the article will be much better with each section including several paragraphs of text. The text should summarize the most important points about each state's gun laws. This would include things like an overview of the state's concealed carry laws, whether or not they have preemption, and so on. It would also include things that are unusual or different about that state's laws, and the Maryland ballistics database is an example of that. Your idea that "We have to be careful not to call one law a main point while not another one. In order to remain neutral, we must give all of the laws equal representation," doesn't really hold up. In fact it's the editors' responsibility to emphasize the important points and omit the trivial, in this article as in any other Wikipedia article, and if there's disagreement about what's important and what isn't, that should be discussed on the talk page. I also disagree with your statement that "this article is full of unvalidated/unreferenced information and non-neutral points of view." In fact I think the opposite is true. I do agree however that the prose style of the different state section of the article is inconsistent. Also some of the sections are too long. The solution there is edit the text, not remove it. In summary, I'm not objecting to adding or expanding the tables in each section, but by removing the text paragraphs, you are making the article worse instead of better. When appropriate the text should be improved, made more consistent between sections, or edited down, but not removed. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 23:34, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this more and after reading your recent points, I think I can see the benefit of one or two paragraphs highlighting points of common interest and things that are unusual or rare for each state. Do you agree that such paragraphs should be concise? About the size of the Alabama or Arkansas sections, for instance? Regarding the unvalidated/unreferenced information and non-neutral points of view, perhaps "full" was too strong of a word. It's not that bad, but there's a lot of work to be done in many sections. Anyway, the next time I hit a state section with a table, I'll either keep what text is there; or in the case of a large section of text I'll edit it down to the key and novel points. FYI, WV is probably next; at this time I'm sticking with the states I'm the most familiar with. I'll start with VA to see if I can write a decent introduction paragraph. Luftegrof (talk) 02:04, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for keeping an open mind about this. In my opinion, the text sections for Alabama and Arkansas are fine, but so are somewhat longer sections, for example, Nevada, New Jersey, and New Mexico. Sections that are probably too long right now include Arizona, Michigan, and New York. If someone significantly shortens a really long section, they should consider creating a separate article with the original text, as was done in the past with California. Also, I would encourage other editors to post their opinions on this subject. The more people who join the discussion, the better. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 03:10, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

More input would be nice, but this talk page has been quiet for a while... I threw a few paragraphs together for Virginia, as discussed. Does anyone have any feedback on that? Luftegrof (talk) 03:48, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I just found out about this collapsible feature. I applied it to the Maryland table. What do y'all think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Luftegrof (talk • contribs) 17:01, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd like it if each row of the table could be collapsed instead of the whole table. Maybe the only way to do that is to create a bunch of one-row tables? Luftegrof (talk) 18:06, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

My initial reaction is that a "regular" collapsible table is a good way to go. — Mudwater ^(Talk) 23:37, 5 August 2010 (UTC)