“Sociogeographic Space”

WTF?

P-D:

Stray bullets claim victims with no warning

(snip)

Despite such carnage from “errant gunfire,” public health officials know little about it. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracks accidental shootings. But they do not count stray bullets.

Dr. Garen Wintemute wanted to know more. He is a professor of emergency medicine at the University of California-Davis. Wintemute and his colleagues first had to decide what made a bullet a stray one. They came up with a bullet that “escaped the sociogeographic space or perimeter customarily set by the circumstances surrounding the firing of the gun …”

Basically, Wintemute said in an interview, you know it when you see it. A bullet fired at five men on a corner but that hit the wrong person was not a stray. But it was stray if the unintended victim stood a block away.

IOW, “stray bullet” is like “porn.”  You know it when you see it, but if you have to define it for legal purposes, you wind up with some convoluted language.  In the case of legislation that attempts to define “porn,” the wording is pretty much verbal porn all by itself.  I’ll give you a hint:  The words “penetration” and “emission” (use your imagination) are found in numerous places in Missouri’s criminal statutes.  In the case of “stray bullets,” one has to invent a new vacuous phrase like “sociogeographic space.”  I get the feeling that “sociogeographic space” is a politically correct way of saying that black thug doesn’t have a good enough aim to hit another black thug.

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