[108248] in Cypherpunks
hunting and ping pong
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Michael Motyka)
Tue Feb 9 21:41:03 1999
Date: Tue, 09 Feb 1999 18:11:13 -0800
From: Michael Motyka <mmotyka@lsil.com>
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Reply-To: Michael Motyka <mmotyka@lsil.com>
JFA,
I've never heard of a ping pong match where a man was responsible for
leaving his nephew fatherless. ( upstate NY ) or where a noncombatant
was killed hanging clothes in her own back yard ( Maine ). A kid who
gets his father's favorite ping pong paddle is not going to kill his
friend by accident ( a judge's son in Syracuse, I forget if he's the
shooter or the shootee ).
I think that most ( all? ) recent gun legislation is irresponsible and
dangerous to because it is emotional and it does not affect those who
are a threat to their fellow citizens but this sort of crap from NSC is
just that, crap. It doesn't help anything.
I like the Sam Clemens quote about "...lies, damn lies, and statistics."
crap, damn crap, and spam, keep it coming
Mike
/*
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"
*/
