Talk:Kennesaw, Georgia

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Mandatory firearm law
Wasn't the mandatory firearm law in retort to a NJ city/county that banned firearms? -CasualSax

No. It was a town in Illinois that sparked, as we in Kennesaw like to call it, "The Law Heard 'round the World." I believe it was Oak Grove (or Park), IL.


 * Morton Grove, IL was the first, in 1981, and according to the Kennesaw Historical Society, was the trigger for Kennesaw's law. Oak Park, another Chicago suburb, passed its handgun ban in 1984 (following Evanston, in 1982). will.jennings 01:07, 2 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The rest of the country makes fun of y'all for passing such a law, the rest of North Georgia makes fun of y'all for needing it in the first place. :P
 * ~Firestorm from Pickens County.170.215.105.210 07:09, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


 * The rest of the country thinks the law is pretty cool and yes, Kennesaw is a nice place to live. Everytime I hear Pickens County in the news, I automatically think hicktown so unfounded bias can go both ways can't it?
 * ~Firehurricane from Cobb County. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.245.244.2 (talk) 17:56, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Isn't it rather simple to post the statistics in the article and say truthfully, whether or not the crime rate decreased after the gun law was put in effect? I don't understand why this has to be ambiguous. 208.59.130.243 19:47, 30 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. The stats should be settled one way or the other. Brian Pearson 01:41, 18 April 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed. So, if anyone can find them... Mordac 17:08, 26 April 2007 (GMT)


 * I am concerned that it may misrepresent correlation as causation; crime rates are sensitive to a number of factors and base rates are also important to consider. Since it is not typical to include this information about any municipality, I fear that including it just leads people to associate it with the gun law, and that's fallacious and a subtle form of misinformation. Unless we can find a published study that connects or disconnects the two, it should be left out.134.114.98.42 (talk) 17:30, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Here is a link to the relevant FBI crime statistics page. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_08_ga.html

I'm not a statistician, so I can't parse the data, but from a quick search and scroll for Kennesaw the crime rate looks low relative to towns of about the same size.


 * I agree completely. As it stands now, the article makes it seem as though no one is sure whether crime rates have fallen or not, but everything I can find indicates that they have definitely fallen. I'm going to add some links to that effect. Bigpeteb 14:48, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Pre-European history
To whom It may concern: What happen with the pre-european or pre-colombian history of Kennesaw without it this is not complete. In Spanish american regions the history is explained relating the available information of all the different Ethnical groups, tribes, nations or World powers that inhabited the area of the Article. Relating the history only giving facts of the European ocupation pictures the begining of the civilization as it started with the arrival of the europeans which is unaccurate and incomplete. Martin R. Rodriguez — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.98.136.127 (talk • contribs) 03:29, January 29, 2006‎

Latest edits not justified
I'm thinking of reverting the latest set of edits, which removed material citing criminologists who claim there was an increase in Kennesaw's burglary rate. Granted, I think those people are distorting the facts, and all evidence I've found shows that the crime rate is significantly lower, but that's my opinion. The facts are that qualified people haven't agreed on whether the crime rate has dropped, so I think all WP can do is present what experts say in both directions, and then provide facts for the reader to figure it out for themselves. That's the most NPOV way to handle things.

Unless someone can make a convincing counter-argument, I'm going to revert these edits soon. Bigpeteb 17:54, 9 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Oh, and the edit about Kennesaw not having a homicide since 1986 is just plain incorrect. That's coming out right now... Bigpeteb 18:35, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Legacy Park entry unfounded.
I believe the entry under the heading of Legacy Park is a corporate plug; Legacy Park is a HOA run community, and has plugged in the Kennesaw article, not only in the wrong section, but with un-cited and opinionated information as well. I believe this section should be removed altogether. Ecstasis 04:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm deleting this
Read this paragraph:

''Gary Kleck, a criminologist and gun-control critic attributes a drop of 89% in the residential burglary rate to the law.[1] Kennesaw is often cited by advocates of gun ownership as evidence that gun ownership deters crime. (see, for instance, this 2004 sheet of talking points from the Gun Owners Foundation). This is obviously highly biased and "cherrypicked" data. Gun Control Critics, of course, do not take into fact you are 43 times more likely to shoot a family member than a criminal, and do not include any data on family gun violence, the majority of the gun violence that occurs. All their data is based on rare violent crimes against individuals from complete strangers. Studies show that kids, even those taught not to touch a gun, cannot resist picking up a gun when they find it and emulating the play they do with toy guns. A preschooler is 17 times more likely to die from an accidental gun wound in a state like Georgia, than in a state that controls their guns. The majority, if not 100%, come from guns in their home or a friend's home.''

"obviously", "you are 43 times more likely" "studies show that kids" "a state like Georgia".

Encyclopedias are boring and factual, that's the sad truth. You can't go on the Hitler page and say "antisemetism is bad" in 10 different ways because it doesn't cite any outside work and it isn't relevant to the facts of who Hitler was.

If you're ideology is the correct one then the truth should be good enough...document the truths of your ideology with data and put it in a wikipedia article clearly meant to address the facts of gun law efficacy.--Gtg207u 05:28, 2 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I concur...very little of that paragraph have anything to do with the city, or what the city claims, but is an opinion of the editor. Gun control debates need to be posted in the appropriate areas, not on a page about a city or what a city claims. Kennesaw itself claims its crime rate is lower (as noted on its website), the statement of the claim itself is a fact, whether or not the information in the claim is factual, is not a fact to be debated on the Kennesaw page. Deltaecho5 (talk) 19:38, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

More gun law editing
An editor deleted the following for being unresearched and unreferenced:

''Noted: []'s added to denote not referenced quotes. Also, the above references(ref name="isbn0-472-03162-7")(/ref)(ref name="isbn0-415-17087-7")(/ref) do not address violent crime or crimes other than home burglaries in their long term statistical review and may therefore be inaccurate.''

I guess I didn't care much for the presentation of the material which could be improved. The "footnoting" of material just looks funny. Nevertheless, the book clearly addresses the Kennesaw situation head on. And is its own reference. So it should be restored, however removing the funny "explanation" at the top. Student7 (talk) 23:23, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Gunlaws, crime stats and graphs
A graph might provide a clearer picture by virtue of additional context: FBI's UCR stats for Kennesaw, and select others. It seems like the narrative that has Kennesaw benefiting from an extraordinary reduction in crime due to the gunlaw is built on a series of omissions. un☯mi 10:27, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Also - the page currently states "Crime rates declined from 2003 through 2008". And yet the page it uses for evidence has a chart which clearly shows that violent crime was higher in 2008 than they were in 2003. Plus, the source article starts by suggesting that violent crime in the city is actually on the rise and that rates for 2013 are estimated to exceed 2011. Perhaps the source article has outpaced the original statement, but the original statement certainly appears blatantly false now. I would recommend replacing the phrase with the introductory quote from the source article. Inkless (talk) 03:25, 27 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Basically, Kennesaw is too small and homogenous to tell whether "armed households" reduce crime rate or not. There is no real control group. And no one is enforcing the "requirement" that every household own a gun.
 * "Violent crime" is different from crime, generally. Violent crime often has, as a major component, domestic disputes. Hopefully not "solved" by weapons. The statements, as presented, are not at variance with one another.
 * However, one would suspect that burglaries might drop if they thought homeowners were actually home and armed. The "actually home" part is the problem. Burglars usually skip those homes anyway, not bothering to check whether some city has a gun ownership law or not, however poorly enforced. Student7 (talk) 18:37, 31 January 2013 (UTC)

The previous edit was changed in what seems like a highly erroneous way. While the last sentence might fall under WP:Crystal, the rest of the paragraph - based on past data, clearly does not. Now the text gives the opposite information from the original source article while removing any citation. Removing the final sentence makes sense, but changing the first two to contradict the source article makes no sense at all. If you want to make sure that the past data is being highlighted, the text could be made to read:

"From 1999 to 2011, Kennesaw crime statistics reported an overall upward trend in crime with violent crime increasing and property crime increasing."

And source the original article. However, the current edit is giving false information again. Inkless (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:09, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

Also, the wnd.com article being cited in the Gun Law section offers no references itself and the numbers don't seem to add up against anything else. Kennesaw was never higher than the national average for crime, and the numbers for 2005 were higher, not lower. In fact, by 2005 overall crime appears to have nearly doubled in Kennesaw. Inkless (talk) 15:33, 2 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Crimes rates are still lower even though they have risen. Probably similar to most suburban locales. Student7 (talk) 19:13, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

You are still saying that crime rates have risen, as do the stats. Yet a year later, the article reads as if crimes rates have been lowered due to the mandatory gun law. Stats show they have not and the article should read to reflect that. Inkless (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 14:35, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

And why was the "ironically a gun free zone" comment edited out, and then edited back in? The edit notes, correctly, that the cited source does not identify the Fed Ex a such. Plus - ironically? Seriously? That's not irony, people, and it shows the bias of the edit. Inkless (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 14:44, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

biased and not up to standards
Ths sentence, "Later research claims that there is no evidence that [the law] reduced the rate of home burglaries [in Kennesaw],[20]"

Whoever added the above line is clearly grasping at straws here. One, the cited material is not "research" about Kennesaw - it's a book. Two, opinion pieces don't qualify under wikipdias standards of cited material.". Might as well change his sentence to read "some author wrote a book that suggests the law didn't reduce crime, while there are also authors that have written books tht suggests it does reduce crime." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.194.216.173 (talk) 22:18, 31 March 2013 (UTC)

Flagged as potentially not neutral
As the talk above can show, this article has routinely either mischaracterized sources, removed sources, or accepted edits without citation to support the idea the Kennesaw's gun law supports David Kopel (a well known gun rights activist) and his opinion that "guns save lives". Despite the fact that Kennesaw may be "lower than the national average", the stats (http://www.cityrating.com/crime-statistics/georgia/kennesaw.html#.UVrxXqtASb0) still show that violent crime has been on the rise and continues to be on the rise. Now that there has been a mass shooting in Kennesaw, the discussion has increased importance and edits have already show to continue this bias by only giving the shooting a casual reference while emphasizing the importance that the FedEx building was "gun free", despite no clear citation to that fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Inkless (talk • contribs) 15:12, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Frankly, this article appears to be nothing more than a platform for the pro-gun lobby. I don't see any reason to discuss the gun law any further than its existence.  Anything else is just begging for POV, and is frankly beyond the scope of this article.  This article is about a very historic city, yet a goodly amount of its content is discussing what is fundamentally a current event.  Applicable policy here includes WP:NOTNEWS and WP:UNDUE, plus of course WP:NPOV. John from Idegon (talk) 20:52, 2 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Today, I removed all the content that was sourced to non-WP:RS sources. John from Idegon (talk) 20:11, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The paragraphy rm was
 * "Gun rights activist David Kopel stated that there is evidence that this gun law has reduced the incident rate of home burglaries citing that in the first year, home burglaries dropped from 65 before the ordinance, down to 26 in 1983, and to 11 in 1984. The overall crime rate had decreased by more than 50% between 1982 and 2005. Another report observed a noticeable reduction in burglary from 1981, the year before the ordinance was passed, to 1999. A 2001 media report stated that Kennesaw's crime rates continued to decline and were well below the national average, making citizens feel safer and more secure. The city's website says that the city has the lowest crime rate in Cobb county."
 * Removing this implies that David Kopel is WP:NN. The quote appears to be in an Amicus Curiae before the US Supreme Court, which I suppose anyone can file. I agree it is quoted off his website.
 * Is your objection to newsmax as a rs?
 * Everyone seems to be making a big deal out of this. It has made national news a number of times. I don't think anyone in his/her right mind would base a national policy that homeowners should or shouldn't own weapons based on Kennesaw's experience. It is simply a national news story for a small town.
 * Their "sister" town, Acworth, Georgia passed an ordinance (also not enforced) just afterwards suggesting that "everyone" must own a leave rake or a broom or something. The inference being that if you're going to make someone own something, it should be "useful!" This too made the news, but not quite as much publicity as Kennesaw. Student7 (talk) 21:50, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for stopping by, . Actually, I do object to newsmax and WND.  Read their user terms.  Their content is user-driven and they disavow any responsibility for it, pretty much the definition of a non-WP:RS.  Although others mileage may vary, I don't put all that much credence in the city's own reporting of crime stats either, as they have a political agenda to support the law they passed.  The FBI crime stats may be a bit more reliable, but even then, an analysis or an analytical discussion of the ramifications of a given law are really beyond the scope of this article.  If someone were to want to write an article on the law, more power to them.  The law is mentioned, although it could use to be referenced with some of those national discussions you have mentioned.  So, in summation, the info from Kopel is self-sourced--not reliable.  The amicus brief is just that: A brief and worthless as a source.  Newsmax and WND are user driven and hence not reliable.  The city is a primary source and IMHO not very reliable for potentially controversial info on themselves.  After that there are no sources.  Add to that the conflict level this one section has generated and I think we'd be better off with the implications of the law being spun off into its own article.  Let someone ho doesn't watch settlement articles worry about it.  John from Idegon (talk) 22:45, 13 May 2014 (UTC)
 * One thing that's gone missing (not sure when) is the history of the law, specifically that it was passed as a reaction to Morton Grove's law banning handguns. Any objections to adding this info back in? --Bigpeteb (talk) 14:05, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * My problem here would be perception. If it so stated in the ordinance, I guess okay. My objection is that it may be non-WP:TOPIC to Kennesaw. That is, the national news did not report it as a "Morton Grove reaction" but rather stand-alone (news). The flip side to this is would the Kennesaw ordinance be allowed in the Morton Grove article? Student7 (talk) 14:51, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * For, David Kopel is notable ("expert"). I concede that I wouldn't want everyone notable person's remarks in here, but let's just take the one by himself. Since he is notable, can his remarks (from an otherwise reliable source) be used? Student7 (talk) 14:51, 14 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I would have a problem with Kopel's statements being in the article. Why?  Simple, really.  The discussion that was there was pretty unbalanced to the so-called "Pro-gun" side of the issue.  This is a contentious issue that must be balanced to provide the required WP:NPOV.  The whole thing, IMHO, should just be avoided.  After all, we are not discussing the political issues that caused the civil war in the section here on the extensive civil war history associated with this community, right?  By the time we include enough content to balance the issue POV-wise, we are back to the section on the gun law, which in historical perspective, is rather minor, being as big or bigger than the section on the civil war, which is clearly WP:UNDUE.  It is my feeling that anything beyond the fact that the law was passed is a WP:TOPIC issue.  As people who watch this article on a city in Georgia, it is an unneeded burden and a distraction to the people who come to this article looking for info on a city in Georgia.  It is far from being anything in the way of a major part of the overall story on this community and allowing anything more than the existence of the law in is inviting a big political debate.  No-one is going to be coming to this article to get informed on gun policy issues;  they are looking for info about a community in Georgia. John from Idegon (talk) 18:01, 14 May 2014 (UTC)

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