Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2019 December 18

= December 18 =

projectile attacks against cars
There has been a series of incidents where cars have been hit by "projectiles", most recently 5 attacks in a 6 minute window.

What the heck does "projectile" mean in this context? Thrown objects? A euphemism for someone shooting at cars? Quick web search doesn't yield anything more specific but maybe it's a known phenomenon with some solved cases. Thanks. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 03:03, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * A Projectile can be almost anything, but in this context it probably means stuff thrown from an overpass. It were gunshots, they would probably say so. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:26, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I live in Northern California and saw a TV report about this case in recent days, with video of the aftermath of one of these instances. In that case, the driver's window was shattered, which is inconsistent with an object thrown from an overpass. I suspect that the projectiles were fired from the passenger seat of another car through an open window, using an air gun firing pellets or BBs. When gunshots are involved, the police are crystal clear about that, since there is a grave risk of death. If the projectiles in this case shattered the safety glass but did not penetrate the windows, then they bounced off and are very difficult to find on a heavily traveled freeway. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  04:20, 18 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I figured it couldn't be stuff thrown from overpasses because of how the projectiles consistently hit the drivers' side windows across multiple cares. Stuff from overpasses would be sort of random.  If it was gunshots, I wondered if the police would avoid saying so because they didn't want people to panic.  With this many incidents I'm surprised no dash cam video has turned up, at least that we know about. 67.164.113.165 (talk) 08:18, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The most recent news stories report that the projectiles are approximately the size of a marble, too large to be fired from common air guns. There is such a thing as a Marble gun, though. Cullen328  Let's discuss it  09:07, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * In my youth (and before) hand-held catapults (as they were called in the UK) were favoured by mischievous boys, sufficiently so that they were a stereotype in various UK comics. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.199.211.222 (talk) 09:57, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Most notably Dennis the Menace and Gnasher. However, this sort of equipment ("50 steel balls included") which is available nowadays, would do a moving car no good at all. Alansplodge (talk) 16:02, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
 * The recent fiasco over the modernistic truck with "unbreakable" windows happened from merely throwing a steel ball at a car window. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:17, 21 December 2019 (UTC)
 * In this report, the police "declined to describe the nature of the projectiles because of the ongoing investigation". Alansplodge (talk) 16:56, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Saw this linked on the talk page so was wondering if there's anything new. I found [//www.sfgate.com/commute/article/prunedale-101-156-projectiles-windows-cars-14922667.php] which will still providing little info about the nature of the projectiles does specifically say they weren't from a firearm. This says the same thing [//www.montereycountyweekly.com/blogs/crime_blog/prunedale-projectile-perpetrator-s-back-at-it-after-a-brief/article_4082d8ec-2bf6-11ea-8a2b-a33b26dc0c83.html] and confirms it hasn't stopped and the perpetrator probably hasn't been caught as of Monday. Nil Einne (talk) 15:31, 1 January 2020 (UTC)
 * And still nothing as of a few days ago [//www.thecalifornian.com/story/news/2020/01/14/police-arrests-man-suspected-shooting-out-car-highway-101-salinas-police/4470504002/]. BTW the not firearm is not a new thing even if it was missed before. This from late November [//www.thecalifornian.com/story/news/2019/11/29/california-commuters-terrorized-highway-101-projectiles-objects-thrown-monterey-county-danger/4323964002/] says Nil Einne (talk) 03:48, 19 January 2020 (UTC)
 * possibly some of you are already aware of this news, if so apologies. But a suspect was charged with the attacks back at the end of January. (My response above missed the arrested by a few days.) [//www.thecalifornian.com/story/news/2020/01/27/man-accused-shooting-projectiles-prunedale-highway-101-156-charged/4591126002/] [//www.ksbw.com/article/projectile-alley-suspect-has-ties-around-the-state/30648707] [//www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-01-24/freeway-vehicle-projectile-alley-attacks-arrest-prunedale] [//www.kcbx.org/post/chp-announces-arrest-prunedale-projectile-attacks] [//www.mercurynews.com/2020/01/23/chp-arrests-suspect-in-spate-of-highway-projectile-attacks/] The answer to the original question seems to be that these weren't simply the size of marbles, the projectiles were glass marbles. It's also suggested a slingshot was use, but that he had a means to launch them while driving (but they've declined to release further details), but that he worked alone. The GMC Sonoma doesn't seem to have any self-driving ability. So maybe it involved attaching the slingshot somewhere so he only had to pull back and release, or maybe it was even set-up so he just had to hit something to release it. He evidently owned a silencer but it's still said no firearm was used. And no word on motivation although it is suggested his targets were random. Frankly the details make any connection to environmentalism unlikely, but I guess time will tell. IIRC the first known attacks were in February last year so I guess they found the suspect in just under a year. Nil Einne (talk) 14:29, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * thank you for the followup. Where were my original comments on this? I can't find them. I continue to suspect that the perp might have been environmentally motivated in the same very general sort of way Ted Kaczynski was. EllenCT (talk) 17:45, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
 * , thanks for the update. I had missed the news of the arrest. Who knows what is going on in this man's mind? Cullen328  Let's discuss it  22:31, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

How often both houses of the US Congress are controlled by one party?
Either Democratic or Republican, holding a majority in both. Thanks. 212.180.235.46 (talk) 18:50, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Quite often, if this chart is accurate: RudolfRed (talk) 20:30, 18 December 2019 (UTC)
 * I'd say "Usually", if that chart is accurate! --142.112.159.101 (talk) 20:36, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, that's hardly a surprise, is it? Only two parties currently have a realistic chance of controlling either chamber, so if control were uncorrelated and the parties had an equal chance, the houses would be controlled by the same party half the time.  But it seems reasonable a party's control of each house should be correlated with the broader fortunes of the party as a whole, and therefore control of the houses should be positively correlated. --Trovatore (talk) 20:43, 19 December 2019 (UTC)
 * My first response had an error; it was implicitly assuming the Democrats and Republicans had an equal chance of controlling each house. If one party has an overall advantage, then even if control of the two houses is uncorrelated, you would still see both houses controlled by the same party more than half the time.  If one party has an overall advantage in the House and the other party has an overall advantage in the Senate, then the results could be uncorrelated and nevertheless control of the two houses would differ more than half the time. --Trovatore (talk) 20:52, 19 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Lower-population states tend to vote Republican, and every state gets two Senators, plus a number of Representatives roughly proportional to its population. The Senate is sometimes more heavily Republican than the House because of this.  173.228.123.190 (talk) 18:56, 20 December 2019 (UTC)
 * Not particularly so. Since Senators started to be popularly elected starting with the 1914 United States Senate elections, there have been 6 election cycles (out of 52) that the two Houses were led by different parties, the Senate was led by the Democratic Party in 2 of those 6 and by the Republican party in 4 of those 6, which is only 1 away from perfect 50/50.  It's much too small a sample size much to make broad statistical statements about.  Broadly speaking a divided Congress is exceedingly rare, too rare to make any statements about meaningful trends.  -- Jayron 32 19:08, 20 December 2019 (UTC)