[108242] in Cypherpunks
Re: Fwd: NEWS - USA NSC declares hunting safer than ping pong
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (mgraffam@idsi.net)
Tue Feb 9 18:19:23 1999
From: mgraffam@idsi.net
Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1999 17:52:47 -0500 (EST)
To: Jean-Francois Avon <jf_avon@citenet.net>
cc: =?iso-8859-1?q?Le_Qu=E9becois_Libre?= <libre@colba.net>,
"=?iso-8859-1?q?Soci=E9t=E9_Radio_Canada,_auditoire?=" <auditoire@montreal.src.ca>,
=?iso-8859-1?q?Le_Qu=E9becois_Libre?= <libre@colba.net>,
Patry Bernard depute Dollars-Pierrefonds <Patry.B@parl.gc.ca>,
Hon Anne McLellan mp Minister of Justice <McLellan.A@parl.gc.ca>,
"Martin.P@parl.gc.ca" <Martin.P@parl.gc.ca>,
"Axworthy Lloyd L. the Hon. Foreign Affairs Minister" <Axworthy.L@parl.gc.ca>,
Cypherpunks <cypherpunks@toad.com>
In-Reply-To: <199902092216.RAA22756@cti06.citenet.net>
Reply-To: mgraffam@idsi.net
On Tue, 9 Feb 1999, Jean-Francois Avon wrote:
> Mandatory hunter education courses throughout the United States is
> credited with dramatically reducing the number of hunting accidents
> in the last 30 years, making it eight times safer than bowling.
While I appreciate the sentiment that this report tries to foster, these
claims are really a bunch of crap.
While hunting accidents may be rare, when those rare accidents happen,
they can be a lot more serious than bruising your foot, or hitting your
knee with a bowling ball.
So, we _may_ have 8 bumps and bruises per gunshot wound (the sort of
injuries that are sustained in either case are not mentioned) .. I'll
take the 8 bumps and bruises myself.
There is also the question of data analysis. When you ask a hunter,
"have you ever been hurt while hunting?" the person may not even think
about the cuts and scrapes incurred by thorn bushes or the like, which
may be on par with the injuries sustained by bowling.
Now, if this report talks about injuries requiring _hospitalization_ this
would be a far different story, and I'd be rather pleased to see such
numbers.
Until then, as always, 87% of statistics is bullshit :)
Michael J. Graffam (mgraffam@idsi.net)
I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not
desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.
Henry David Thoreau "Civil Disobedience"
