Editor:
I am writing in response to the Oct. 4 front page article, “College Gun Owners Prone to Bad Behavior.” While the article itself was fairly well written and reasonably balanced, the headline was poorly chosen at best.
The implication of the headline was that college students who own guns are more likely to engage in antisocial behavior. The article did not prove this to be the case. In fact, only one statistic was cited that supported this suggestion, that being that 12 percent of college gun owners also admitted to driving under the influence of alcohol.
Are we being asked to judge the entire population of college gun owners based on the action of 12 percent, or less than one in eight of them? Is it reasonable to make such a judgment?
Let’s look at a hypothetical situation. Let’s say we choose at random eight members of the U football team, and one of them tests positive for steroids. Can we then say that Utah football players are prone to steroid use?
Here’s an even better example. The football team has played eight games to date and has won two of them. This gives it a winning percentage of 25 percent. I anxiously await a Chronicle headline reading “Runnin’ Utes Prone to Winning Football Games.”
The choice of that headline was not only irresponsible, it was just bad journalism. The headline was biased and poorly worded and should never have made it past any responsible editor.
I can only conclude that people on the staff of the Chronicle are prone to using exaggeration and sensationalism to promote their own agendas.
Michael Scott Martin
Senior, Chemistry Education