This page contains links to some articles I have written from the 1960's to the present. To retrieve an article click on the title. The early articles are included because they were written before electronic indexing became popular and they are often hard to find. In the early articles the language is not as gender inclusive as it is in the later articles, but the text was not changed so that quotations will be true to the original source.

A Theory of Rumor Transmission (THE PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY, Vol. 29, No. 1, Spring 1965, pp. 54-70) Do rumors become more or less accurate as they are passed on? The answer depends on the structure of the situation in which the rumor spreads, and particularly on two variables that are discussed in detail. A careful and assiduous student reading the major works in the field of rumor transmission will finish knowing neither whether rumors expand or contract, nor whether they become more or less accurate. The important studies come to apparently contradictory conclusions.

The Transvestic Career Path (PSYCHIATRY. Vol.: 33, No. 3. August,1970. Pp. 381-389) The heterosexual transvestite provides an interesting example of a socially induced "pathology" because he seems to have internalized part of a social relationship, and acts toward himself in a way that a normal person acts toward a socio-sexually significant other. 

The Transvestic Career Path 2016 update: It has been nearly 50 years since the research for The Transvestic Career Path was carried out.  Since then society has changed in ways unimaginable at the time.  In the 1960s most transvestites thought that they were the only person alive with these secret, shameful feelings.  Homosexuality was rarely mentioned, and widely condemned.  The transvestite had a lonely evolution; every reaction conditioned by fear of discovery and censure.  Today, the President of the U.S. says that transgender students should be able to use the bathroom of choice. By Supreme Court ruling, homosexual marriage is legal everywhere in the U.S.  Practically every school has a counselor knowledgeable in LGBT issues.  Transvestism, transsexuality, bi-sexuality and homosexuality are common themes in television dramas.  The young person with transvestic feelings, while still possibly facing negative reactions at home, can find help and support in the school and community.  Given this fundamental change in the surrounding society, I expect that the twenty-first century Transvestic Career Path may be quite different from the path outlined in this 1960s article.  It would be interesting to see further research done.

Transformations of Reality in the Legal Process (SOCIAL RESEARCH, Vol. 37, No. 1, Spring, 1970) "REALITY" is not always constructed according to the same rules and processes. People construct their sense of everyday reality in differing ways, and there are many specific enclaves of reality wherein certain formalized rules prevail over common sense rules. "There is a right way, a wrong way, and the Army way." The legal system provides a very formal example of the process of group reality formation: its procedures and precedents for coming to agreements are recorded and stand as guides for the formation of further agreements within the frame of reference of legal reality.

Deviance, Reality and Change, Random House, 1971.  The thesis of this book was that definitions of deviant behavior change over time.  This has certainly been true in the 46 years since the book was published.  Uploaded August 2017.

Flying Saucers and New-Age Reality (From: H. Taylor Buckner Deviance, Reality, and Change. Random House (New York) 1971. Pp. 381-389) Flying saucerians live in two realities at once. In their daily round of activities they rely upon the scientific laws of physics; they carry out normal transactions in legitimate institutions relying upon conventional reality. When they meet together the laws of gravity and inertia dissolve, the dead speak, auras glow, and Jesus Christ becomes a saucer pilot.

Concordia's "Gun Control" Petition: Ignorance of the Law is the Only Excuse. (Presented at the Canadian Law and Society Association Meetings, University of Calgary, 14 June 1994) A representative survey of Concordia University undergraduate students (n=780) taken in February and March 1984 was the basis of an experiment designed to discover whether the students who signed the Concordia "gun control" petition were in reality asking for a new law that would prohibit the possession of handguns, except for the police and army. In a random double-blind experiment half of the students were asked if they supported the policies demanded by the petition, the other half were asked if they supported the present law. They were equally likely to support either policy. Other questions revealed that the students had very little knowledge of gun control laws, Canadian handgun murder rates, or guns.

Sex and Guns: Is Gun Control Male Control? (Presented in the Deviance and Control: Quantitative Studies session of the American Sociological Association 89th Annual Meeting, Los Angeles, 5 August 1994) Three surveys of Concordia University undergraduate students are used to explore the motivations for supporting gun control. The men who favor gun control are those who reject traditional male roles and behavior. They are opposed to hunting, are pro homosexual, do not have any experience with or knowledge of guns and tend to have "politically correct" attitudes. The women who support gun control do so in the context of controlling male violence and sexuality. Gun control is thus symbolic of a realignment of the relation between the sexes.

Research on Firearms Registration: A Presentation to the Parliamentary Justice Committee 8 May 1995. Under-Estimation of Number of Firearms in Canada; Registration - Compliance; Registration - Logistics.

Some Methodological Problems in "Gun Ownership and Homicide in the Home" - (Kellermann et. al., New England Journal of Medicine. Oct 7, 1993) Kellermann and his colleagues concluded that a person who had a gun in his or her home was 2.7 times more likely to be a victim of homicide than someone who did not (1087). They further "found no evidence of a protective benefit from gun ownership...(1087)." Neither of these conclusions are justified on the basis of their research.

Gun Control - Will It Work? (An Address to the St. James Literary Society, 98th Session 17 October 1995
When people ask if gun control will work, the answer depends on what is meant by gun control and what is meant by working. There is much confusion and dissent over the meaning of "Gun Control," and considerable disagreement over what might be taken as evidence of it "working," or "not working."

Zweckrationalität versus Wertrationalität: an Examination of Rationalities in the Gun Control Debate. (Presented at the Canadian Law and Society Association Meetings, Brock University, June 3, 1996) Conflicts over many social problems may be characterized as a confrontation between instrumental and value rationality, as defined by Max Weber. People with a value orientation see their opponents as "evil" and attack them on a personal basis. People with an instrumental orientation see their opponents as "irrational" and attack their ideas on the basis of their impracticality.

Canadian Attitudes Toward Gun Control: The Real Story (Gary A. Mauser & H. Taylor Buckner. A Mackenzie Institute Occasional Paper, January, 1997) PDF Version Gary Mauser and Taylor Buckner make no secret of their own views on Bill C-68. In the passage of the Bill, the Government relied on a public opinion poll that claimed that a vast majority of Canadians supported gun control. Mauser and Buckner undertook a more precise process that reveals an altogether different attitude. It is also the only existing tool that charts how Canadians really viewed gun control during the debate over C-68. | Table of Contents | Foreword | Executive Summary | Ch 1 Opening Shots | Ch 2 Methodology | Ch 3 Basic Values | Ch 4 Knowledge of Laws | Ch 5 Perception of Problems | Ch 6 Utility of Gun Control | Ch 7 Registration | Ch 8 Confiscation of Handguns | Ch 9 Firearms Ownership | Ch 10 Self-Defence | Ch 11 Politics | Ch 12 Conclusions | Annex A Text of Questions | About the Authors | References | Annex B Cross-Tabulations |  Annex B: PDF Version

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