SF Examiner newspaper "380 gauge revolver"

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http://www.sfexaminer.com/articles/2005/05/03/news/20050503_ne11_boy.txt

Boy, 15, caught with loaded gun at high school
Latest in string of incidents brings call for answers
By Alison Soltau
Staff Writer
Published: Monday, May 2, 2005 11:16 PM PDT
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A high school student is in custody after a loaded gun was found in his backpack and three students have been suspended for allegedly discussing a gun sale, in separate incidents at two city schools, according to police.
A 15-year-old Mission High School sophomore was charged on Monday with possessing a .38-caliber handgun on campus, after a fellow student alerted authorities to the weapon, school officials confirmed.
In the second case, police were called to Thurgood Marshall Academic High School last week after a teacher reported overhearing two female and one male student discussing a gun sale, said Gang Task Force Lt. John Murphy.
One student asked the 14-year-old girl if she "was sellin'," and the girl replied, "yeah, I got a .38," according to a police report. No weapon was found on campus and the youths denied the incident happened, police said. The pair and another student were suspended, according to school official.
The grandfather of the female student told police he suspected his granddaughter had stolen his .380-gauge semiautomatic gun and .38-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver, Murphy said. Police said the girl told her grandfather she sold both guns, but she returned the .380-gauge revolver. It wasn't clear if the second weapon was recovered.
The incidents come after rival youth gangs engaged in a gun battle that killed John O'Connell High School student Javon King on a Bayview District street on April 8, in what homicide investigators said stemmed partly from a fight that day at Mission High School.
San Francisco Board of Education President Eric Mar said he was concerned at the recent "rash of events" and would ask the school district to see if it could identify any trends or problems, and make recommendations to the board.
Following the shooting death of Balboa High student DeShawn Dawson on a Municipal Railway bus in 2003, measures such as metal detectors and transparent backpacks in schools were debated. Board member Dan Kelly and Mar said Monday such measures only induced anxiety. Instead, they advocated increasing counseling and after-school programs.
E-mail: [email protected]
 
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I am trying to do the math...a 12 gauge is the width of a pound of lead melted into 12 balls. So a 1 gauge would be the width of a pound of lead in one ball. Therefore a .380 gauge would be a ball of lead that weighs roughly three pounds.

Talk about a hand cannon!!!! :eek:
 
Well all of this is going on in the most liberal part of left-wing California. The reporter probably went to one of they're public schools. A pretty good description of what goes on in the schools is contained in the article. Why would anyone expect the reporter to be able to write or know anything about guns? Or for that matter anything?
 
I first misread...

the article and read "380 Gauge revolver" and started thinking...

One pound of lead molten into 380 balls would give us quite a small caliber, possibly about the stopping power of a dog flea sneezing.

But a .380 gauge revolver....hmmm....maybe a five-inch gun? Did this studed show up with a complete MBT at school?
 
It doesn't matter if they print correct terminology or not.

Here's what the average reader sees in a firearm related article:

Xxxxxx xx xxx xxxxxx xxx glock xxxxxx xxx xx xxxxxx xxx xx uzi xxxxx xxx xxxxxxx xx x xxxxxxxx xxxxx assault rifle xxx xxx xxxxxxxxx xxx x xxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxx xxx.


.
 
I've sent several emails to SF Chronicle ("SF Comical") & SF Examiner about murky/incorrect gun 'facts' in stories. In fact, IIRC, I believe I wrote to this Alison Soltau awhile back about this and got a friendly reply.

Quite often, the writer gets it correct but the editor(s) downstream mangle it. Awhile back, one SF Chron writer specifically told me he went back & forth with editor(s) about these issues and they didn't budge: his text was printed in the "corrected" version.

For example it's quite common to see ".38 cal automatic" referred to in inner city shootings when I'm sure it's really a ".380 automatic". Copy editor thinks .380 == .38; in the world of numbers that may be true, but not in calibers. (And, yes, while there do exist .38 automatics, $750 Colt .38 Supers are all but invisible in crime stats.)

Bill Wiese
San Jose
 
i am generally ok with news media, but the SF Chronicle is a piece of news garbage. i refused to read it when i lived in California. and that is coming from a Berkeley alumni.
 
"Here's what the average reader sees in a firearm related article:

Xxxxxx xx xxx xxxxxx xxx glock xxxxxx xxx xx xxxxxx xxx xx uzi xxxxx xxx xxxxxxx xx x xxxxxxxx xxxxx assault rifle xxx xxx xxxxxxxxx xxx x xxxxxxxx xxx xxxxxx xxx."

As a not so gun-intimate person myself, I wholeheartedly concur. I couldn't care less what caliber the gun was, because, theology depending, I would never know the difference as the slug imbedded itself in my skull. The important thing is that some kid out there was a danger to me, and I need to know about it. What I don't need to know is the muzzle velocity of the revolver he was carrying :)

Ps, I don't think this is media bias, I think its just a gun-illiterate reporter; Most are.
 
Welcome indeed, NicoFoxFire!
While not all of us are intimate with our firearms :eek: we tend to regard reporters with a bit of well deserved skepticism. When they clearly don't understand caliber nomenclature we suspect them of being ignorant on other issues.

Many articles are written with the standard "The gun just went off". The story gets printed as if that were possible: five drunks arguing over an insult at two in the morning and bang! one of them guns just went off! Or, when the AWB ends the streets will run red with the blood of children in a sea of fully automatic AK-47's.

A reporter first and foremost, must get the facts right. Otherwise the article is just opinion, and that is the rub!
 
You guys are overlooking the decimal point. A .380 guage would be a bit over a third. If a 12 guage is a pound divided into 12 equal parts (balls or slugs, etc.), then this would be roughly 2.6 * 12 = 31.2. Say one-thirtysecond the bore of your 870.

Must've been a .17 HMR! :neener:
 
Let's do the math!

A 12 gauge is the diameter of one ball of lead that came from one pound of lead melted into 12 equal balls.

A 20 gauge is the diameter of one ball of lead that came from one pound of lead melted into 20 balls.

As the gauge number goes up, the diameter comes down. Now for the fun part, as the gauge number goes down, the diameter goes up.

A 4 gauge elephant gun :what: is a very large bore, in fact it is the diameter of one ball made from one quarter pound of lead!

Theoretically, a 1 gauge would be the diameter of a one pound ball of lead, and a .5 gauge would be one ball made of 2 pounds of lead.

Therefore, unless my publick skewl mathemagics totally fales mee, a .380 gauge is the diameter of a barrel needed to spit out a ball of lead that weighs 2.63 pounds. And a 380 gauge would be a pound of lead cut into 380 pieces of sand, each weighing a quarter of a hundredth of a pound...
 
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