I think that approach sounds more reasonable than it is, Ieyasu, and members of this forum are better able than most others to know why it isn't.
Those of us interested in self defense, for example, know that it's dangerous to ignore signals telegraphing that something isn't right. That fellow wearing a hooded sweatshirt and sweatpants on the hottest day of the year might be a stockbroker trying to lose a few pounds, but if he also slips his hand into his waistband as he approaches and appears to be nodding at someone behind you, then takes a few quick glances to your right and left, it is a good idea to get away from that messenger before he delivers his message.
When something doesn't look right, smell right, or behave right the overwhelming odds are that it is not right. What happened here, I think, is that forum members were manipulated into giving a significant platform for the promotion of a vanity press book by an author who has no claim to be read on a subject in which he has no standing. If McDowell had self published a book on
The Elements of Self Defense that advocated shooting people because they dressed differently, lying to the police, fabricating evidence, and concealing crimes, I doubt--and I hope--that forum members would resist any suggestion that they debate those ideas with him. My guess is that a moderator would terminate such a debate fasterthanaspeedingbullet. Now, as was predictable, McDowell has some degree of standing because of his invited appearance here.
It should be obvious that McDowell wrote a book on a subject for which he has no apparent credentials and no background, about which he seems to have only derivative information, and with which he seems to have no training in the techniques of researching, investigating, and evaluating sources of varying degrees of value on this complex, controversial, and extremely important subject. If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, we have at least to consider the possibility that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands.
That's the context for my previous note that McDowell's book is self published. Reputable publishers of scholarly books and editors of responsible academic journals have manuscripts on controversial subjects evaluated by several experts in the field and consider their reports before publishing. The idea is to subject the product to quality testing before--not after--it is presented to public view and for the author to meet any reasonable objections he might have overlooked.
The most likely possibilities to me are that either McDowell's book was submitted to and rejected by reputable publishers or he decided to skip them entirely. I don't discount the possibility that he sought the opinions of friends, sympathetic colleagues, and others with opinions similar to his, but I simply would not believe that he got tough evaluations from established scholars such as John Lott who would have challenged him. McDowell appears to have done research that satisfied himself, formulated opinions that he judged to be good, wrote them as he pleased, and paid to have the result published. Of course it is possible that such a message could be better than such a messenger, but the probability surely is infinitesimal. In the United States of America everyone has an opinion about everything, but I hope it is not undemocratic or elitest to suggest that not all opinions on any subject have equal value. If I'm wrong, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy deserves more respect for her opinions about firearms than I'm inclined to give her and Michael Moore is a cutting edge intellectual.
The subtitle of McDowell's book is "An Outline of the Need for Increased Federal Legislation" but I'm not aware of any evidence that McDowell has more than a general awareness of firearms, law, federal legislation in general or firearms legislation in particular, politics, government, or anything else that could give his opinions substance. For me this book is a rather sad curiosity with no claim to be read or given any attention.
What I do see is evidence that McDowell's pronouncements on the subject matter of this book are of much less value than most. Look at its front cover in the attached illustration for a significant clue to what I mean. Where a reputable book publisher might use that cover to attract readers by proclaiming the author's distinguished work on the book's subject, McDowell's vanity press book cites him as "Author of
Interviewing Practices of Technical Writers and
Research in Scientific and Technical Communication." There's substantial disconnect here between the book's subject and the author's claim to be read on it.
According to the University's web site McDowell is a semi-retired professor in its Department of Writing Studies. His Ph.D. is in "Speech Communication." His research experience is in "employment cycle interviewing, including employment, appraisal, disciplinary and exit interviews." His teaching has been "courses in interviewing and research in scientific and technical communication." And his specialties are:
- Technical communication apprehension
- Technical communication programs
- Employment cycle interviewing
- Conflict
- Gender and psychological sex
- International aspects of technical communication
- Comparison of U.S. and Japanese students on different communication variables
"Professor McDowell," according to his University web page, "is currently on 50% time phased retirement." From the slight available evidence--the slightness of which itself is suggestive--I cannot evaluate a claim that McDowell is, or was, a distinguished rhetorician but I doubt it. McDowell looks to me like someone who spent his academic career teaching students in the writing department how to handle interviews, write resumes, and such--what some academics call "service courses." Somebody has to do them but better you than me, and rarely are they the province of distinguished scholars. Now on his way to full retirement, McDowell has set forth in a new direction, an argument for
more federal gun control. Igor's comments, above, hit the mark.
I don't understand why people here lend McDowell a hand to accomplish what we don't want.