Friday, July 29th 2005
Random Letters
Some random letters from the Daily Planet:
It was shocking to read of the enormous number of weapons, ammunition and explosives that were found only by accident by the Fire Department near the liquor store in Berkeley. And that machine guns were a part of this cache reported by the Daily Planet in the edition of July 22-25. I found it both interesting and disturbing that in this very same issue was a follow up account of the tragic shooting of Meleia Willis-Starbuck by her friend and letters (some hysterical) from members of the National Rifle Association advocating people owning guns. Where in the world and how did such an arsenal including machine guns get into Berkeley ? If this bizarre collection of guns and ammunition was only found by accident one wonders how many other such collections exist in the Bay Area and how many will be used.
Max Macks
I’m sure Mr. Macks is part of the Becky O’Malley school of thought when it comes to guns. He can keep on wondering. When was the last machine gun attack in the Bay Area?
How come the Daily Planet includes gender information when describing assailants in the Police Blotter? Doing so gives readers the fanciful impression that nearly all violent crimes are committed by males—a statistical impossibility since more than half the population is female.
P. Wooton
Is there something wrong with this claim? I don’t want to badmouth my gender, but I’m pretty sure that most violent crimes are commited by males. The overwhelming majority even. It’s like saying that the claim “Most terrorism is caused by Islamic extremists” is a statistical impossiblity since more than half the population is not Muslim. Come on now.
My education gave me the fanciful impression that almost all penis-bearers are male– a statistical impossibility since half the population is female.
Comment by Beetle — 7/29/2005 @ 5:23 pm
Pat, I think if you take a span over both modern times and recent history, and examining cases where Americans are not the victim, I think you will see that the terrorism statement is particularly wrong. See the IRA, partisan/underground resistance movements, Oklahoma City, communists, nationalists, abortion clinic bombings, the French anti-semitic movement, etc.
Additionally, while Wooten’s statement is somewhat ridiculous (it is important that criminal descriptions with gender be published), I have not see evidence that shows any correlation between gender and violence, but there has been none disproving a correlation. Simply asserting statistical “improbabilities” as “impossibilities”, as Beetle points out, is very poor reasoning.
Comment by Ben N. — 8/1/2005 @ 11:01 am