Marshall & Sanow: What to do with a book I wish I had not bought?

[Chuck Dye]

I have a hardbound copy of HANDGUN STOPPING POWER The Definitive Study by Evan P. Marshall and Edwin J. Sanow, the presence of which on my bookshelf is now an irritant. An ethology major in college, I recognized immediately that the statistical analysis was unacceptable when the book was printed in 1992. Given the advance of technology in the past 15 years, there could be little utility in the statistics now even if they were valid. All that really remains of the text are the anecdotes and some photographs: entertaining but little more.

What should I do with this book? Sell or trade it on the local used market in the hope that some interested collector will buy it as the horrible example, rather than some newbie who may come to grief using dubious information that is a decade and a half old? Keep it in my own library specifically for its irritant value? Consign it to the next burn barrel run?

 

[Sarge]

Soak it in water and shoot it.

 

[Rimrod]

I'd hate to see it sold because someone may belive it. Do you have any furniture that needs leveled? Or maybe use it as a deadfall trap for mice.

 

[JohnKSa]

The fact that their statistical analysis is flawed doesn't automatically invalidate all their conclusions.

Unless you are convinced that their specific intent was to mislead then you should consider the book a source of information to be used cautiously without blindly accepting the conclusions and opinions of the authors. Much as one should consider any book.

When I got interested in the Kennedy assassination and started reading everything I could find, I realized that one can often glean considerable useful information from a book that is based entirely on an incorrect assumption.

 

[4719]

Sell it on Ebay.

 

[MPanova]

um throw it in the trash.

 

[Mike40-11]

What John said.

The statistical methods used are incorrect, perhaps even all their conclusions are incorrect. The data and information from the study however, is just that, data.

 

[Tom2]

Get a rebuttal published and make some money off of it. Call it HOLES IN STOPPING POWER-WHY I HATE MARSHALL AND SANOW and you will at least sell copies to some of the forum people here.

 

[blume357]

Keep it,

Never get rid of a book.... it still can be used as a reference as to 'wrong' information.

 

[Boats]

Keep it for SHTF toilet paper. You might need another form of stopping power.

 

[JR47]

Hold on to it. There is a study undergoing peer-review by a Doctor Micheal Courtney and his wife, another doctor, that has found the data in the M&S tests to be more useful than thought.

It would appear that Dr. Fackler was just as blind to some aspects of wounding as M&S. From the general information given for the study, neither was operating off of a fully-integrated information base.

Fackler's studies were also based on technologies of decades past, and new instrumentation and understanding of this instrumentation reveal that M&S were, in many cases, closer to the truth than the jello-junkies would have liked to believe.

 

[armedandsafe]

Go through the book again. Make copious margin notes (sometimes I'll have to staple paper to a book page to hold all the neccessary notes) showing problems with the book. Include cross references to opposing studies.

Now you have a much clearer understanding of what all is wrong with the study, and you have an easily referenced rebuttal platform to use in your discussions.

OR, take it out to use as target backing.

Pops

 

[juliet charley]

The data and information from the study however, is just that, data.

And very questionable "data" at that.

 

[JR47]

The last time you had something published by a major House was?

 

[Mike Irwin]

"The last time you had something published by a major house?"

And that's applicable...

How?


Just what's Dr. Courtney, and his wife, a doctor of?

Fackler is a medical doctor who headed the Army's wound ballistics research program for a number of years.

 

[Charles S]

The last time you had something published by a major House was?

Lets take a look at some of the absolute lies, revisions, and utter ..... published currently by major houses. Well now, that makes me feel better. I have a current text book on history published by a major house that give Jefferson a paragraph, but gives Marlyn Monroe two pages????

Just being published by a major house means nothing...as a mater of fact it means less than nothing.

 

[Joe the Redneck]

I'd keep it. It has historical value. Just remeber, the next book won't be any better than the last.

Stats, regardless of who collected them, are of limited value in the emperical world. But they are the only tools we have. Statistics are used my scientists the same way a drunk uses a lamp-post, more for support than illumination.

I have never believed in the "super caliber" or "super bullet" theory. In the grim science of death, there are just too many variable. All you can do is look for tendances. All things being equal, a 45 will "kill better" than a screwdriver. But there are plenty of people underground because of screwdrivers.

I really think our police officers would be better serwed if they could use the weapon, caliber version that worked best for them. Consdier the Glock, they work fine for me. But I have a friend that has, well, killed more people than he cares to talk about. He can't hit anything with a Glock. Give him a Beretta and he can hit a pop can at 100 yard without trying.

It's all about shot placement.

Joe

 

[Socrates]

Sell it on ebay. People collect out of print books, worthless books to me, or you, but, they want them.

I see the M&S misinformation as a major step in firearms development due to what it did: attempt to quantify actual shootings. Just because they took the data, and tried to make it fit either their financial backers, or, their own personal preferences, well, it's not the first time someone in science, or psuedo science, has mis reped data to support their hypothesis.

S

 

[FM12]

Ship it to me. I'd like to read it.

 

[CarbineCaleb]

It makes for some spellbinding bathroom reading, let me tell you - a real page turner.