Letters

People Kill: So Do Guns
Thanks for Lisa Davis' piece ("Tale of a Gun," May 6). I am an investigator for defense attorneys on capital murder cases and have come to the conclusion that a huge percentage of murders would not be committed if guns were significantly harder to obtain. This point should be stupifyingly obvious, but it seems to be lost on most folks. It is way too easy to get a gun, and it is way too easy to pull the trigger of a gun. It is much more difficult to kill somebody by stabbing them or beating them with a stick of rebar.

Note how all of Johnson's and McClure's acts of violence were committed from a distance, almost anonymously. I guess these guys weren't up for the emotional intensity of sticking a knife into someone's stomach, repeatedly. Sure, there would still be murders if guns of all varieties were much harder to get, but the quantity would plummet. In my job, I usually find myself returning to this point: If the gun hadn't been there, the murder would not have gone down because the guy didn't have the emotional/intellectual/whatever capability to kill without the ease and anonymity of pulling a trigger. Davis' piece is good because it focuses on the element of the equation that is frequently minimized.

Name withheld
Mission

Hey, Punks -- Take This!
I can't bear to listen anymore to the bad-mouthing of Karen Carney by the former denizens and employees of the Chameleon ("Yeah, Well We're Tired of Hearing About Bar Closings Too," Riff Raff, April 29). I really have no stake in defending Carney or her club (having been banned from it for one reason or another during most of its existence). However, it's impossible to ignore the hypocrisy inherent in people's attitudes toward the Chameleon's demise.

These people who used to pack the Chameleon, whom the Chameleon gave an opportunity to form a community, these former runts of high school with about as much creativity as a dirty tube sock, who now have all migrated down the street and over a block like roaches relocating after a fire, should take a look at themselves and their position in this world before they open their mouths about the woman who did more for their "scene" than they could ever do for themselves. Not that these people even warrant a place to congregate. Punk rock? More like ineffectual, ugly pansies with a nonexistent work ethic save scribbling in their meaningless and soon-forgotten zines. No real fangs behind their bark. Open the mouths of these "punks" and you'll merely find ground-down and missing brown teeth, the result of all that "work" they've been doing for the scene.

If these people had any sense of soul, they would put their "problems" with Ms. Carney's "lifestyle" aside and hold a benefit show to get her on her feet, as she's done for them for the past six-plus years!

At some point these people should save a tip they make at the coffee shop, copy store, thrift/curio boutique, or messenger gig and use it to buy a clue that clears their hazy, bar-popcorn brains to the realization that just because you're past or going on 30, still can't wash your clothes, decorate your house, maintain a driver's license, or hold a job doesn't mean that you're a punk. It makes you a poor, meaningless, bottom-feeding consumer who will be ignored until the Man deems it time for you to quit.

The one thing you people had going for you was a place to call your own, a fort, a compound, and you give that up without a fight because standing out to make an effort isn't the popular thing to do. Oh you are so hip, so hip, popular, and spineless. Play your generic chord riffs and play them loud. Hopefully that new place you are sliming up has a good exterminator to rid itself of you before your insect mentality has a chance to manifest itself there. Punk this. My ass!

Devil James
Lower Haight

Clarifications
Former Oakland Athletics pitcher John "Blue Moon" Odom called this month to correct two aspects of George Cothran's story, "Baseball's Orphans," published April 15. Odom says the late Charles O. Finley, former owner of the A's, did not create the "Blue Moon" nickname, as Cothran reported. Rather, Odom says, he was tagged with the moniker in the fifth grade by a friend.

Odom also felt the story mischaracterized his financial situation. He would like it known that he is not struggling financially, and that he takes particular exception to the description of his Grand Prix as "rust-tinged." Odom says he has other automobiles, and the Grand Prix is merely the car he drives when he goes fishing.

Due to a typographical error in Lisa Davis' "Tale of a Gun" (May 6), the name of the manufacturer of the Ruger Mini-14 was misspelled. The correct name is Sturm, Ruger & Co. Inc. SF Weekly regrets the error.