Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 October 18

= October 18 =

Legal error in "The Chamber"
In the Gene Hackman vehicle The Chamber, based on a novel by John Grisham, Hackman plays a man guilty of a racially-motivated bomb murder in Mississippi in the 1960s (there are some similarities to the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing). He is tried and executed at some point in the 1990s.

Now, this is legally impossible. The death-penalty law that was on Mississippi's books in the 1960s was struck down as unconstitutional in Furman v. Georgia. Mississippi probably had a new death law by the 1990s, but it was not applicable to the crime, because it was not in force at the time the crime took place (see ex post facto law).

I had the notion that Grisham was in general fairly careful to get this stuff right. I haven't read the novel &mdash; is anything mentioned on the point? Or is it just ignored for the purposes of the plot? --Trovatore (talk) 02:43, 18 October 2017 (UTC)


 * No idea, but to be fair to Grisham, he didn't write the screenplay. Maybe better to wonder whether William Goldman and Phil Alden Robinson are generally fairly careful. Roger Ebert wrote a review based on the film based on the screenplay based on the book based on the true story and said it's not a serious movie about anything. He's generally trustworthy. That review notes the maimed attorney "later" committed suicide. If the (or any) resultant suicide was after 1976, subsection 5 here might reasonably be twisted to sentence a quasifictional man to death, in my non-lawyer, non-critic opinion. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:26, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia, much the same thing does happen in the novel.

Side comment: I could see it being argued that what Furman invalidates was not the part of the criminal law that specified death as the maximum sentence, but only the part that specified on what basis it would be decided who got the maximum. Therefore the revised, Furman-compatible death-penalty law did not increase the maximum sentence and was not ex post facto. However, I am not a lawyer and I have no idea of whether that reasoning might be considered valid or if it was ever actually tried, or for that matter, whether anything like it comes up in the novel. --69.159.60.147 (talk) 09:38, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not a lawyer either, but no, I'm pretty sure that won't fly. Any laws passed after the crime cannot be used at all in any way.  The accused must be tried under the law that existed at the time of the crime, stripped of any parts found to be unconstitutional.  That means there is no possibility of a death sentence. --Trovatore (talk) 17:23, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Probably not in the real world. But for the purposes of suspending disbelief, I think "If death results from the acts committed in violation of this section..." is close enough to "death resulting from the acts committed is a violation of this section...". Then again, I'm highly trained in blind referee apologetics and learned to sensationally recap past events from Todd Grisham; I realize an averagely astute viewer (perhaps such as yourself) might not swallow my proposed civil rights bullshit so readily.
 * Before resting my case, I'll remind the jury of the decision reached in the closing arguments of One Fierce Beer Coaster v. 1996: "If you were not entertained, you did not drink enough booze." Rock on, rock on. InedibleHulk (talk) 00:40, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * So the link you posted earlier was about federal law, which is irrelevant here; the case in The Chamber was a Mississippi one. However I'm fairly sure that in any case the important question (for the purposes of ex post facto) is when the conduct occurred (that is, the bombing), not the effect (the suicide).  That's because the defendant cannot have had notice of any law passed after the conduct. --Trovatore (talk) 01:11, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Mississippi law is even simpler to accept, in fiction. Bunch of corrupt hicks. If something doesn't add up, that's just "how we do things down here". More of a B-movie crutch, but they're all B-movies, if you don't think too hard about them. If you insist on thinking hard about this one, I'm out of suggestions. Good luck! InedibleHulk (talk) 02:14, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Today, so long after the war ended for everyone else, I learned Mississippi steadfastly continues to fly the Kingdom of Yugoslavia's flag. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:26, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

American retirement system
The first American retirement system – available only for gun fighters – a colonist in Massachusetts picks up his arms and goes off to defend his settlement against the Indians. They chop off his arm, rendering him unable to participate in the only form of labor that existed in those days (manual). He can’t build shelters anymore, raise animals or till the soil. So the colony takes up a collection, in the form of taxes, which enables the wounded fighter to retire and continue to support himself and his family.

You know who collected these taxes from the colonists? Usually the guy himself. True story.

Is there any truth to this colorful anecdote? Mũeller (talk) 03:39, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * My browser won't allow access this article, but the title sounds promising:
 * — 2606:A000:4C0C:E200:ACC4:13C2:F9BB:C86F (talk) 07:28, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * I was allowed to read it. It contains nothing relevant to the colorful anecdote; it's about how people came to have the expectation of being able to retire in later life, and starts with the old age pension created by Otto von Bismarck in the 1880s. --69.159.60.147 (talk) 09:04, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

+
 * The questioner conflates a "retirement system" which provides some support for a long-term worker who is too old and feeble to continue working, so he doesn't starve or die of exposure in his declining years, with a system which provides for those injured in military service or otherwise, which would be a disability system. Frm England the colonies brought with them the "poor laws" wherein everyone was taxed to support those who could not support themselves, such as idiots, the blind or crippled, the elderly or maimed, and widows and orphans. One way this was done ws via a workhouse or a poor farm. See "1601 Enactment of the English Poor Law, requiring parish governments to tax households in order to care for the “worthy” poor. A system of public “outdoor” relief that was carried to the Colonies." ... "1624 Virginia Colony passes the first legislation recognizing services and needs of disabled soldiers and sailors based on “special work” contributions to society. 1642 Enactment of the Plymouth Colony’s Poor Law.", Poorhouse and the flawed article Almshouse which includes some dubious claims. Edison (talk) 13:22, 18 October 2017 (UTC)

what was the total amount of people in the WORLD who died by gun in 2016?
And why is it so hard to find a neutral source that will cite this statistic reliably? I don't want to know a rate, or a cross-country comparison, I just want to know the total amount of people who died by a gun, 2016, in the entire world. Why is this so hard to find? Why doesn't our article for gun deaths by country include an AGGREGATE? Yanping Nora Soong (talk) 15:52, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Because you would need to have a person who actually counted those figures. If no person or people have done that count, the data just doesn't exist.  -- Jayron 32 16:51, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * This paper and its attachments, from the Small Arms Survey seems promising: . In the summary, it mentions a global average rate of 214,000 firearms death per year for the period 2010-2015. --Xuxl (talk) 17:04, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Is that sufficiently reliable data to add it to the article? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 17:14, 18 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Are you counting suicides? μηδείς (talk) 18:06, 22 October 2017 (UTC)

Janissary weaponry
Janissaries says that they were typically armed as archers before hand cannons came along. Would all of the fighting men have been equipped as archers, or were there typically some batches armed otherwise, e.g. pikemen or swordsmen to fend off enemy heavy units? Nyttend backup (talk) 16:43, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * According to the section titled "Training", Janissaries were trained to use a variety of weaponry depending on the skills of the specific soldier, so it seems likely they were trained to use whatever specific weapons were particular to infantry of the time period. -- Jayron 32 16:50, 18 October 2017 (UTC)


 * According to A Military History of the Ottomans: From Osman to Atatürk by Mesut Uyar, Edward J. Erickson: "Initially, they were all equipped with composite bows and swords. They also used a special short spear, battleaxes and other infantry weapons, but only as secondary weapons or on special ceremonial occasions. Over time, the Janissaries acquired some of the weapons of their adversaries as preferred weapons, the Mamluk sword, Damascene knife and European battleaxe for example. Most probably firearms were introduced to the corps in the first half of the fifteenth century" (pp. 41-42).

Do some people in Indonesia eat pork?
Despite the Muslim majority, do some Indonesians eat pork?--Hofhof (talk) 17:33, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * A search for "Balinese pork" tells me that, yes, they do. --Golbez (talk) 17:35, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * See PIG PRODUCTION IN INDONESIA. Alansplodge (talk) 17:49, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
 * See this discussion of the cultural importance of pigs in New Guinea, including the western half (Irian Jaya). Also see this book, a study of Taenia solium, the pork tapeworm; its chapter on Asia has a section on Indonesia.  If you look for <"new guinea" and pork>, I'm sure you'll find other information.  Nyttend (talk) 02:50, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Related, see Eat Frozen Pork; most of Singapore's pork is imported from Indonesia. Nyttend (talk) 04:34, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
 * Have you ever eaten babi panggang? It's a traditional Indonesian way of eating pork, although nowadays often blended with other cuisines. Religion in Indonesia tells us that although the majority is muslim, there are substantial minorities of christians, hindus, buddhists and confucians, often blended with some traditional animism, many of whom don't mind eating pork. Note that the pie chart at the top of that article is biased, as Indonesia only recognises 6 religions. The islamic part of Indonesian society occasionally tries to impose islamic rules on non-muslims, but with limited success, in particular in areas were the majority is not muslim. PiusImpavidus (talk) 07:34, 19 October 2017 (UTC)