[David Armstrong]

Well David, I thought I was on your ignore list I guess you "changed your mind"

No, you are on my ignore list, along with a few other folks who I have found to be problematic in the past. I wish you would have the same courtesy and put me on yours, but of course that lack of courtesy is one thing that got you put on the ignore list to start with. However, since I found that it was a quote of yours that I was responding to in one of JohnKSa's posts I thought it only fair to continue the dialogue directly.

No that is a bad example. Academic studies say all sorts of things. They are far from any gospel. While many purport to use rigorous methods many do not and so cannot always be taken at face value. Anyway, I didn't say all statistics and all studies are bad, I just said that they weren't much good for these discussions since many of the "statistics" thrown about are not well explained or in context. Like saying we all have a 1 in 200 chance of needing a gun.

No, it is a great examply because you are doing exactly what the antigunners do. And nobody has ever claimed that academic studies are gospel, just as the popular literature from your "experienced" folks is not gospel. However, one at least has the benefit of peer review and having any shortcomings openly challenged and discussed. As for whetgher the studies are any good or not, that is more a problem with the reciever than the sender. If one is unable or unwilling to learn to use the information available, that is not the problem of the person providing the information.

There are plenty of voices out here on the TFL doing such for "non-academic" writings as well. Some of these folks flush things out quite well.

But the basic problem is that in a non-reviewed and refereed arena, such as this, there is often no way to know the source of the person who is flushing, no way to check their honesty, and a very regular problem of thinking that an opinion is the same as a fact. Way too many folks here and on other forums (and off the forums!) believe what is essentially myth and mythology.

Here it is if this helps:

Yep, it is the one I thought you might be talking about.

No, I think it was the NRA that questioned it first and it didn't require an academic to discover them.

I don't think it was the NRA that questioned it first, but yes, the NRA did publicize the issue. AND the person doing the publicizing, criticizing, etc was an ACADEMIC, a full-blown Ph.D. type, working with the NRA.

However, when it comes to tactics and training which this forum is about I find it odd that some choose to throw statistics about without showing what they mean; context or otherwise and who don't provide sources for that data.

Most stats tossed around here are pretty straightforward. I haven't seen anybody try to discuss things by talking about different types of test, data comparison, SPSS runs, and so on. Most of it is pretty direct---the odds are that this is most likely to happen, in this situation "X" is the msot probable outcome, etc. Not much need to show what that means, since it means exactly what it says. And sources are frequently provided for those who are too lazy to do a simple Google search, but even then they are rarely looked at.
As my dear Mother has been known to say, "Ignorance is bliss" and for whatever reason way too many folks in the gunworld have way too much bliss.