# What makes an expert? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 9, 2018, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284 "2018-03-09T15:49:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/21 "2018-03-09T21:47:16Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The difference about guns is that is a subject that has a very large group of knowledgeable enthusiasts. Knowledgeable about what? As I said above, being an expert about using a thing does not make you an expert on that thing’s role in society. Being African American doesn’t mean you know best on how to combat racism. Being a woman doesn’t mean you know best how to end sexism. Being a victim of gun violence doesn’t make you an expert on gun violence and how to reduce it, and neither does being a gun enthusiast. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/22 "2018-03-09T21:50:22Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > I’m not sure what your point is. Are you suggesting that she doesn’t understand even basics about guns? Yes, at least she didn’t understand what she was proposing we make illegal. > [@Eonwe](#): > > What “happened” as a result? She made a fool of herself and her bill got defeated. > [@Eonwe](#): > > … does it matter that I’ve never seen one? Right or wrong, is my position more valid if I’ve used one? … Do you think your odds of succeeding in passing your otoscope ban in a democratic form of government like ours are improved or worsened if it’s found out that you don’t know what an otoscope is? Do you think your position might be better-informed if you went beyond two papers and learned why doctors use otoscopes, given the risks and alternatives you read about? In doing so, you might learn that there are advantages to them that might temper your zeal for banning them. ---
**Author:** ![Falchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@Falchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falchion)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/23 "2018-03-09T21:50:25Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > I would be totally fine with a legislator enacting legislation about, say, medical safety standards, even if they got tripped up between identifying an otoscope and endoscope, or a CAT scanner and PET scanner. If they wanted to ban otoscopes because you’ll burst an ear drum, but they couldn’t identify an otoscope, I might look askance. But, if they can’t tell between otoscope type A and otoscope type B, it would matter less. > > If someone said, “this study shows that gun ownership leads to gun death. We should have fewer guns,” a reasonable response is not “let’s hear from the experts on the other side, who are not data scientists, but can describe different guns accurately.” Those people are not experts on the issue at hand. > > But you’re right in that any given legislator is not inherently an expert on any particular issue of legislation just by virtue of being a legislator, and if I was walking down that path I retract those statements. (paragraph omitted for brevity) If you’re saying that a legislator doesn’t need to be an expert on a subject to legislate on it, I don’t necessarily disagree. If he comes out and says: look, I talked to some people who know what they’re talking about and they’ve written this law and I think we should enact it because I believe them. Then, okay. I _also_ believe that he should be able to speak intelligently on why this law makes sense (other than “those smart people told me”), but I agree that that’s a communication issue. I certainly don’t expect anyone to be an expert on everything. Legislators are inherently generalists. But in that scenario, we wouldn’t consider the legislator an expert on the legislation or the effects thereof. The experts would be the smart people who knew what they were talking about, wrote the law, and told him to vote for it. Now, if the idea is that we need to ban some guns and those things over there are almost certainly guns, so let’s ban them, fine. I agree, you don’t really need to know much about guns to take that position. And if the point of legislation that targets particular firearms is just an incremental approach towards mass prohibition and confiscation of firearms generally, then that’s fine. But if you’re\* going to argue that there is a principled reason to ban otoscope A and not otoscope B–or that the ban of otoscope A is going to help with whatever problem we’re trying to address other than simply limiting the total number of otoscopes in circulation–then it seems reasonable to expect you to have some idea what the difference is and I (for one) find the argument less persuasive if you don’t. \*hypothetical you ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/24 "2018-03-09T22:14:11Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > [Here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ospNRk2uM3U) is an example of what happens when people who don’t understand at least some basics on a topic try to craft legislation about it. Just curious - do you apply the same criteria for other subjects? Scott Pruitt’s opinion on climate science is like someone who is convinced that any gunshot wound is fatal. Ben Carson knows about the same on housing policy. The real question is which weapons, if any, we should ban based on their functionality, not on their name or category. If we do that, we can avoid these details and concentrate on the important part. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/25 "2018-03-09T22:25:23Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Just curious - do you apply the same criteria for other subjects? Scott Pruitt’s opinion on climate science is like someone who is convinced that any gunshot wound is fatal. Ben Carson knows about the same on housing policy. > The real question is which weapons, if any, we should ban based on their functionality, not on their name or category. If we do that, we can avoid these details and concentrate on the important part. Sure. What’s the most embarrassing thing Scott Pruitt or Ben Carson have ever said they don’t understand about legislation they themselves proposed? If there were something on par with Carolyn McCarthy’s, I’d certainly encourage them to learn more about the topic, and their own damn bill, before purporting to legislate on the matter; and I’m sure people on the other side of the aisle would take glee in pointing out their ignorance and make the case that we shouldn’t take their proposed legislation seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Eonwe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eonwe/32/240_2.png) [@Eonwe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eonwe)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/26 "2018-03-09T22:41:58Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Do you think your odds of succeeding in passing your otoscope ban in a democratic form of government like ours are improved or worsened if it’s found out that you don’t know what an otoscope is? Worsened, absolutely. Which is in part what this thread is about, and I think I’ve made my position on that clear so far. I do not in any way question that, when it comes to issues, it seems to matter a lot to people, with varying degrees of consistency, whether or not the people debating an issue have ‘hands on’ knowledge and experience that they can relate. My question is, is that a useful metric for deciding who to listen to. Does the guy who teaches at my local range have an inherently more valuable opinion on gun legislation than I do because I don’t have specific knowledge about guns themselves? If so, why? > [@](#): > > Do you think your position might be better-informed if you went beyond two papers and learned why doctors use otoscopes, given the risks and alternatives you read about? In doing so, you might learn that there are advantages to them that might temper your zeal for banning them. Sure, and one would hope that people who position themselves as experts have done more than read one study or two. I concede that my hypothetical was pretty narrow, but the basic point there is that there is a level of specific knowledge that is ultimately not relevant one way or another about making good decisions about a thing. If I say “I think X about this subject”, “But you don’t even know Y about the subject,” is not an inherently meaningful rebuttal. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/27 "2018-03-09T22:44:06Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > The difference about guns is that is a subject that has a very large group of knowledgeable enthusiasts. I’m sorry, but again I disagree. There are large numbers of enthusiasts on pretty much every popular subject - and many unpopular ones. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2018, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/28 "2018-03-09T23:02:06Z")
> [@Eonwe](#): > > … My question is, is that a useful metric for deciding who to listen to. Does the guy who teaches at my local range have an inherently more valuable opinion on gun legislation than I do because I don’t have specific knowledge about guns themselves? If so, why? … Apologies, I believe I misunderstood the point you were trying to make. As for the questions above, being knowledgeable on the topic makes an opinion more valuable if the legislation is sufficiently-specific, but not in all cases. To provide another example (that I’m sure will also prove imperfect): bicycles. If I were a legislator that wanted to propose a ban on bicycles on the roadway because I felt they were dangerous and I had made myself aware of the number of fatal auto-bicycle crashes each year, it wouldn’t matter much if I knew the difference between a mountain bike and a road bike, or could name all the parts of the bicycle or describe their function, or whether I’d ever ridden a bike or not. If, however, I wanted to ban mountain bikes but not road bikes, but I couldn’t tell you the first thing about what distinguishes the two, my ignorance would seem to be a more significant issue. If I proposed legislation that banned bicycles with more than 4 gears, but couldn’t give a coherent explanation for why 5+ gears are ban-worthy (or couldn’t comprehend why anyone might need more than 4 gears), my ignorance would be a significant factor. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/29 "2018-03-10T01:32:45Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Sure. What’s the most embarrassing thing Scott Pruitt or Ben Carson have ever said they don’t understand about legislation they themselves proposed? > **[The left and right agree: Fox News destroyed EPA chief Scott Pruitt over...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/04/03/the-left-and-right-agree-fox-news-destroyed-epa-chief-scott-pruitt-over-climate-change/?utm_term=.acf9a25ae043)** > > "Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace grilled the controversial new head of the Environmental Protection Agency. > [@](#): > > The left and right agree: Fox News destroyed EPA chief Scott Pruitt over climate change > > Wallace noted that the EPA, under Obama’s administration, had set a number of health milestones attainable by 2030 — if the Clean Power Plan were implemented. Those included 90,000 fewer asthma attacks, 300,000 fewer missed work and school days, and 3,600 fewer premature deaths per year. > > “Without the Clear Power Plan, how are you going to prevent those terrible things?” Wallace asked Pruitt. > > Pruitt argued that Trump was “keeping a promise to the American people to roll back regulatory overreach.” He also noted that the Clean Power Plan was subject to a stay by the Supreme Court; he did not mention that he, as former Oklahoma attorney general, was one of several Republicans who had originally filed the lawsuit against Obama’s regulations. > > Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 25 in Oxon Hill, Md. (The Washington Post) > > “The president’s keeping his promise to deal with that overreach, Chris,” Pruitt said. “It doesn’t mean that clean air and clear water is not going to be the focus in the future. We’re just going to do it right within the consistency of the framework that Congress has passed.” > > Wallace was not having it. > > “But sir, you’re giving me a regulatory answer, a political answer,” Wallace said. “You’re not giving a health answer.” > > The “Fox News Sunday” host repeated the statistics he had cited earlier, adding that half of all Americans live in counties with unhealthy air, according to the American Lung Association. > > “You’re talking about regulatory overreach,” Wallace pressed. “But the question is, there are 166 million people living in unclean air, and you’re going to remove some of the pollution restrictions, which would make the air even worse.” > > Pruitt did not address that question directly, instead asserting that the country’s air quality was not as bad as it had been in the past, and that the United States was now “actually pre-1994 levels with respect to our CO2 footprint.” > > The back and forth continued. Pruitt’s performance on the Sunday show earned the rare distinction of being panned by both climate change advocates and skeptics alike. > > “New EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt embarrassed himself repeatedly on Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, who kept Pruitt on the hot seat for 14 minutes as he pressed to get past Pruitt’s paper-thin talking points,” Jeremy Symons of the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund > [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > If there were something on par with Carolyn McCarthy’s, I’d certainly encourage them to learn more about the topic, and their own damn bill, before purporting to legislate on the matter; and I’m sure people on the other side of the aisle would take glee in pointing out their ignorance and make the case that we shouldn’t take their proposed legislation seriously. As the interview showed, almost all of what Pruit advanced then was false, I will still think that when someone gets one detail wrong on some guns that that is not as bad as what Pruit and many Republicans in government are currently doing. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/30 "2018-03-10T01:54:42Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **puddleglum** : > > Guns are different in that most people realize that it is impossible to ban all guns so the question is then which ones to ban. The same is true of drugs, and yet we’ve got an attorney-general making drug policy who doesn’t know the difference between marijuana and meth. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/31 "2018-03-10T02:44:42Z")
Going a bit meta, one should never forget that many Republicans in congress, starting specially with Newt Gingrich, knew that congressional offices with experts that helped explain things properly to congresscritters needed to be removed. For the simple reason that on many occasions they reported facts that got in the way of their plans. [https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/gingrich-and-the-destruction-of-congressional-expertise/](https://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/29/gingrich-and-the-destruction-of-congressional-expertise/) > [@](#): > > On Nov. 21, Newt Gingrich, who is leading the race for the Republican presidential nomination in some polls, attacked the Congressional Budget Office. In a speech in New Hampshire, Mr. Gingrich said the C.B.O. “is a reactionary socialist institution which does not believe in economic growth, does not believe in innovation and does not believe in data that it has not internally generated.” > > Mr. Gingrich’s charge is complete nonsense. The former C.B.O. director Douglas Holtz-Eakin, now a Republican policy adviser, labeled the description “ludicrous.” Most policy analysts from both sides of the aisle would say the C.B.O. is one of the very few analytical institutions left in government that one can trust implicitly. > > It’s precisely its deep reservoir of respect that makes Mr. Gingrich hate the C.B.O., because it has long stood in the way of allowing Republicans to make up numbers to justify whatever they feel like doing. > > For example, Republicans frequently assert that tax cuts, especially for the rich, generate so much economic growth that they lose no revenue. This theory has been thoroughly debunked, most recently by the tax cuts of the George W. Bush administration, which, according to C.B.O., reduced revenues by $3 trillion. Nevertheless, conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation (where I worked in the 1980s) still peddle the snake oil that the Bush tax cuts paid for themselves. > > Mr. Gingrich has long had special ire for the C.B.O. because it has consistently thrown cold water on his pet health schemes, from which he enriched himself after being forced out as speaker of the House in 1998. In 2005, he wrote an op-ed article in The Washington Times berating the C.B.O., then under the direction of Mr. Holtz-Eakin, saying it had improperly scored some Gingrich-backed proposals. At a debate on Nov. 5, Mr. Gingrich said, “If you are serious about real health reform, you must abolish the Congressional Budget Office because it lies.” > > This is typical of Mr. Gingrich’s modus operandi. He has always considered himself to be the smartest guy in the room and long chaffed at being corrected by experts when he cooked up some new plan, over which he may have expended 30 seconds of thought, to completely upend and remake the health, tax or education systems. > > … > > In addition to decimating committee budgets, he also abolished two really useful Congressional agencies, the Office of Technology Assessment and the Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations. The former brought high-level scientific expertise to bear on legislative issues and the latter gave state and local governments an important voice in Congressional deliberations. I still remember that later Newt reported how glad he was when he noticed that he and many Republicans afterwards could find many experts that did agree with their harebrained ideas; of course, experts brought forward by special interests or conservative lobbies. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/32 "2018-03-10T04:49:26Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Sure. What’s the most embarrassing thing Scott Pruitt or Ben Carson have ever said they don’t understand about legislation they themselves proposed? > > If there were something on par with Carolyn McCarthy’s, I’d certainly encourage them to learn more about the topic, and their own damn bill, before purporting to legislate on the matter; and I’m sure people on the other side of the aisle would take glee in pointing out their ignorance and make the case that we shouldn’t take their proposed legislation seriously. Umm - they don’t propose legislation. But I think saying climate change is a hoax is twice - no a hundred - times as clueless as getting anything about guns wrong. I was wondering if your were as strict with people like Pruitt about things that matter a lot more than guns as you are with random legislators who offer erroneous bills. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 4:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/33 "2018-03-10T04:56:25Z")
BTW, if the NRA suddenly decided that we need to do something to limit what many people call assault weapons, I’d be happy of those writing the legislation use their expertise to get it right. I’m not holding my breath. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/34 "2018-03-10T05:00:42Z")
Gun enthusiasts are nit-picking over details that aren’t relevant to the issue. If somebody proposes regulating AR-15 to reduce the number of people who get shot, then you’re got a valid point if you offer evidence that an AR-15 isn’t capable of shooting a person. But if your argument is that the person who’s calling for the regulation doesn’t know how much an AR-15 weighs, your point is irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/35 "2018-03-10T16:35:50Z")
The issue with guns specifically is that journalists and politicians very often sound like complete dumbasses because they obviously don’t know the first thing about what they are talking about and people don’t listen to obvious dumbasses. An analogy is that some people are really into cars. It isn’t a problem if you don’t know the difference between tire marks from a 60’s era Buick Skylark and a Pontiac Tempest but it is a huge problem if you call a 1965 Ford Mustang a high-powered, automatic pickup truck when proposing legislation. It simply makes no sense and makes you sound like an idiot so people that actually know anything about the subject discredit everything you said. There may be some solutions to the gun issue but they won’t sell if the people talking don’t stop making really blatantly false statements. Going to the gun range won’t hurt anyone. I would love it if the people talking about such things would actually try it as an educational exercise before they pretend to be knowledgeable on the subject. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/36 "2018-03-10T20:03:07Z")
Scientists are experts, no? [Here’s a good mini-documentary outlining strong similarities between the NRA and sciencetology.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6yPZB9O2HU) ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/37 "2018-03-10T21:40:08Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Umm - they don’t propose legislation. But I think saying climate change is a hoax is twice - no a hundred - times as clueless as getting anything about guns wrong. More than that, our friend **HD** has exhibited such a profound lack of understanding of the difference between a cabinet secretary and a legislator, that his position on all further matters regarding American government and politics should be disregarded. After all, this is the standard that gun rights activists seek to apply to newspapers when they make a typo about a particular caliber of bullet. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/38 "2018-03-10T22:39:17Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > … After all, this is the standard that gun rights activists seek to apply to newspapers when they make a typo about a particular caliber of bullet. That’s a pretty disingenuous characterization of my position. I didn’t particularly mind the original mistake so much as the erroneous “correction”. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/39 "2018-03-10T23:04:03Z")
> [@Ravenman](#): > > More than that, our friend **HD** has exhibited such a profound lack of understanding of the difference between a cabinet secretary and a legislator, that his position on all further matters regarding American government and politics should be disregarded. Another factor is that bills introduced get looked at by committees and usually revised, so typos are easy to correct. (Except of course bills pushed through by Republicans on minor things like health care and taxes which are kept hidden until the last minute.) Actions by Cabinet secretaries may or may not get reviewed. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2018, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284/40 "2018-03-10T23:16:41Z")
Speaking of experts, in the Times last week there was testimony from surgeons, many of whom had experience in war zones, on what high velocity weapons does to you, versus what a pistol does. [Link.](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/04/health/parkland-shooting-victims-ar15.html) This is expert information maybe slightly more important than what the guns are called. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-makes-an-expert/810284.md?page=3)