At least 6 dead in Mass Shooting du Jour

[bilby]

I’m skeptical that legalization of all drugs would reduce most crime except for crimes related to use and distribution of a controlled substance. Sure, drug dealers would not be killing each other abs any innocent person in their periphery. Legalizing alcohol did not mean that alcohol use/abuse is not responsible for many crimes, especially assault, sexual assault, vehicular homicide, theft, child abuse, all manner of domestic violence, etc.

Legalization ended the bootleggers shooting it out with each other.

And these days alcohol is affordable enough that the wino commits only minor crimes to support his habit. The crackhead sticks people up because he needs a lot more money to support his habit.

Prohibition doesn't cause gangs.

It just makes them hugely profitable and powerful.

That's probably something we ought to not do.

 

[Toni]

I’m skeptical that legalization of all drugs would reduce most crime except for crimes related to use and distribution of a controlled substance. Sure, drug dealers would not be killing each other abs any innocent person in their periphery. Legalizing alcohol did not mean that alcohol use/abuse is not responsible for many crimes, especially assault, sexual assault, vehicular homicide, theft, child abuse, all manner of domestic violence, etc.

Legalization ended the bootleggers shooting it out with each other.

And these days alcohol is affordable enough that the wino commits only minor crimes to support his habit. The crackhead sticks people up because he needs a lot more money to support his habit.

Prohibition doesn't cause gangs.

It just makes them hugely profitable and powerful.

That's probably something we ought to not do.

I realize most people think of drug related crimes to be gang related, etc. while that’s true, substance abuse—including legal prescriptions misused, perfectly legal alcohol and recreational drugs ( illegal) DO cause substantial negative effects and are eve proximal cause of a lot of crimes. I’m thinking about domestic abuse, all manner of assaults and of course sexual assaults and raped —and child abuse, and neglect. Abuse of these substances is also responsible for substantial absenteeism and loss of legal employment, disability, fraud, embezzlement and theft. I mean no, they don’t make blockbuster movies out of this. No Hollywood type will play the rogue cop or FBI agent making the raids, no glamorous rough but sexy criminals. There will be low birth weight babies, born addicted to whatever or with fetal alcohol syndrome. Disabled from
birth.

Just a lot of ordinary people whose lives are destroyed by the abuse of drugs and alcohol.

Every single attorney I know who has worked in any capacity in small towns and rural areas will tell you these cases clog the court systems. People with these convictions have difficulty securing employment or housing. They have difficulty maintaining stable relationships. They get sicker and stay sicker and die younger than they should.

I honestly don’t care if people want to spend their waking hours high on whatever. But the damage done does not stop at the one who had the fun.

 

[bilby]

That's a good side effect of traffic stops

No, it fucking isn't.

It's a bad loophole in the right not to be searched or arrested without a warrant, and is the antithesis of freedom.

Once the cops are permitted to stop and search any citizen on suspicion of a trivial breach of a minor traffic regulation, the right not to be arbitrarily stopped and searched has ceased to exist.

Of course, I don't expect an American to grasp what freedom actually is; Because they are so completely immersed in a society thst uses it as a mindless slogan, where it's just a placeholder for 'oppressive actions I don't personally object to'.

 

[bilby]

I’m skeptical that legalization of all drugs would reduce most crime except for crimes related to use and distribution of a controlled substance. Sure, drug dealers would not be killing each other abs any innocent person in their periphery. Legalizing alcohol did not mean that alcohol use/abuse is not responsible for many crimes, especially assault, sexual assault, vehicular homicide, theft, child abuse, all manner of domestic violence, etc.

Legalization ended the bootleggers shooting it out with each other.

And these days alcohol is affordable enough that the wino commits only minor crimes to support his habit. The crackhead sticks people up because he needs a lot more money to support his habit.

Prohibition doesn't cause gangs.

It just makes them hugely profitable and powerful.

That's probably something we ought to not do.

I realize most people think of drug related crimes to be gang related, etc. while that’s true, substance abuse—including legal prescriptions misused, perfectly legal alcohol and recreational drugs ( illegal) DO cause substantial negative effects and are eve proximal cause of a lot of crimes. I’m thinking about domestic abuse, all manner of assaults and of course sexual assaults and raped —and child abuse, and neglect. Abuse of these substances is also responsible for substantial absenteeism and loss of legal employment, disability, fraud, embezzlement and theft. I mean no, they don’t make blockbuster movies out of this. No Hollywood type will play the rogue cop or FBI agent making the raids, no glamorous rough but sexy criminals. There will be low birth weight babies, born addicted to whatever or with fetal alcohol syndrome. Disabled from
birth.

Just a lot of ordinary people whose lives are destroyed by the abuse of drugs and alcohol.

Every single attorney I know who has worked in any capacity in small towns and rural areas will tell you these cases clog the court systems. People with these convictions have difficulty securing employment or housing. They have difficulty maintaining stable relationships. They get sicker and stay sicker and die younger than they should.

I honestly don’t care if people want to spend their waking hours high on whatever. But the damage done does not stop at the one who had the fun.

Sure.

But substance abuse isn't lessened by prohibition. Therefore the fact that substance abuse has unwanted and severe consequences isn't an argument for not ending prohibition.

Making something illegal doesn't stop it from happening, and in the case of recreational substances, there's very strong evidence that making them illegal actually increases their level of use.

 

[Elixir]

The really perverse thing about the US drug abuse industry, is the pretense that legalization is a radical leftist thing that would bring ruin. But it turns out that there are numerous counterexamples to those claims. In fact, national decriminalization policies have become common, and don't bring ruin. All these States have decriminalized to some degree.

Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nervada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington D.C.

What's missing from the list? Red US States (exc Alaska).


Countries (and States) that have decriminalised drug use

• Antigua + Barbuda
• Argentina
• Armenia
• Australian States: South Australia, Australian Capital Territory, Northern Australia
• Belize
• Bolivia
• Chile
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Croatia
• Czech Republic
• Estonia
• Germany
• Italy
• Jamaica
• Mexico
• Netherlands
• Paraguay
• Peru
• Poland
• Portugal
• Russian Federation
• South Africia
• Spain
• Switzerland
• United States of America: Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nervada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington D.C.
• Uruguay
• Virgin Islands (US Territory)

 

[Toni]

I’m skeptical that legalization of all drugs would reduce most crime except for crimes related to use and distribution of a controlled substance. Sure, drug dealers would not be killing each other abs any innocent person in their periphery. Legalizing alcohol did not mean that alcohol use/abuse is not responsible for many crimes, especially assault, sexual assault, vehicular homicide, theft, child abuse, all manner of domestic violence, etc.

Legalization ended the bootleggers shooting it out with each other.

And these days alcohol is affordable enough that the wino commits only minor crimes to support his habit. The crackhead sticks people up because he needs a lot more money to support his habit.

Prohibition doesn't cause gangs.

It just makes them hugely profitable and powerful.

That's probably something we ought to not do.

I realize most people think of drug related crimes to be gang related, etc. while that’s true, substance abuse—including legal prescriptions misused, perfectly legal alcohol and recreational drugs ( illegal) DO cause substantial negative effects and are eve proximal cause of a lot of crimes. I’m thinking about domestic abuse, all manner of assaults and of course sexual assaults and raped —and child abuse, and neglect. Abuse of these substances is also responsible for substantial absenteeism and loss of legal employment, disability, fraud, embezzlement and theft. I mean no, they don’t make blockbuster movies out of this. No Hollywood type will play the rogue cop or FBI agent making the raids, no glamorous rough but sexy criminals. There will be low birth weight babies, born addicted to whatever or with fetal alcohol syndrome. Disabled from
birth.

Just a lot of ordinary people whose lives are destroyed by the abuse of drugs and alcohol.

Every single attorney I know who has worked in any capacity in small towns and rural areas will tell you these cases clog the court systems. People with these convictions have difficulty securing employment or housing. They have difficulty maintaining stable relationships. They get sicker and stay sicker and die younger than they should.

I honestly don’t care if people want to spend their waking hours high on whatever. But the damage done does not stop at the one who had the fun.

Sure.

But substance abuse isn't lessened by prohibition. Therefore the fact that substance abuse has unwanted and severe consequences isn't an argument for not ending prohibition.

Making something illegal doesn't stop it from happening, and in the case of recreational substances, there's very strong evidence that making them illegal actually increases their level of use.

I get what you’re saying, but I’m not sure it’s accurate to say that making substances illegal doesn’t cut down on substance abuse. Plenty of people get addicted to things they tho k are harmless or ‘ok’ because they are perfectly legal and prescribed by their doctor…

And there are a certain set of people who, no matter what is legalized…will always go for what isn’t legal—because that stiff’s gotta be good, right?

Probably if you did the numbers, you’d be right: overall, crime, including the everyday crimes I’ve described would decrease.

I cannot stop thinking about a couple of kids—well, they’re adults now—whose lives were turned upside because of their parents’ addictions. Both are doing ok right now but one took a detour if his own abs did a bit of time. Their siblings, though? Not great. At all. One young man in particular really really really gets to me because once he turned 28, his family announced that now he was a man and responsible for his grandmother. Who stole the rent money to give to her addicted son and to spend on her own bad habits. Kid ended up having to drop out of college—which was something of a miracle that he was admitted. The real reason this is so horrendous is that he managed an extremely good GPA despite being forced by his unstable grandmother to change high schools 10 times. That’s a lot in 4 years. He’s a very bright young man who deserved much better. He’s stable, employed and has a young family of his own.

I keep thinking about the damage done to do many kids.

 

[Elixir]

Our county got a fucking tank as well as armored trucks and then smugly showed them off in parades and talked about how great they would be against meth labs.

I'd bet that your garden variety meth lab has stuff that would be effective against a tank if deployed correctly.

 

[Metaphor]

The really perverse thing about the US drug abuse industry, is the pretense that legalization is a radical leftist thing that would bring ruin. But it turns out that there are numerous counterexamples to those claims. In fact, national decriminalization policies have become common, and don't bring ruin. All these States have decriminalized to some degree.

Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nervada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington D.C.

What's missing from the list? Red US States (exc Alaska).


Countries (and States) that have decriminalised drug use

• Antigua + Barbuda
• Argentina
• Armenia
• Australian States: South Australia, Australian Capital Territory, Northern Australia
• Belize
• Bolivia
• Chile
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Croatia
• Czech Republic
• Estonia
• Germany
• Italy
• Jamaica
• Mexico
• Netherlands
• Paraguay
• Peru
• Poland
• Portugal
• Russian Federation
• South Africia
• Spain
• Switzerland
• United States of America: Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nervada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington D.C.
• Uruguay
• Virgin Islands (US Territory)

"Decriminalised drug use" is too broad. "Legalised some previously-banned recreational drugs" would be better.

Many countries and states/localities are moving towards legalising marijuana use, but I don't see much good from legalising crystal meth. I've been on the receiving end of a person in ice psychosis and it's not pleasant.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I’m skeptical that legalization of all drugs would reduce most crime except for crimes related to use and distribution of a controlled substance. Sure, drug dealers would not be killing each other abs any innocent person in their periphery. Legalizing alcohol did not mean that alcohol use/abuse is not responsible for many crimes, especially assault, sexual assault, vehicular homicide, theft, child abuse, all manner of domestic violence, etc.

Legalization ended the bootleggers shooting it out with each other.

And these days alcohol is affordable enough that the wino commits only minor crimes to support his habit. The crackhead sticks people up because he needs a lot more money to support his habit.

Winos only commit minor thefts, sure. But alcoholics or drunks commit many other types of crime: vehicular manslaughter, assault, murder, rape, a variety of domestic assaults. Also a fair amount of white color crime, medical malpractice, etc.

You are right: liquor store owners are not shooting it out in the streets nor are beer distributors. But there is still a lot of crime committed while under the influence of alcohol, including crimes that probably would not happen if alcohol were not a factor.

So, while I am not opposed to legalizing marijuana, I do have some concerns with regards to public safety. As for other drugs: those include everything I've mentioned above plus crimes related to impure or misrepresented drugs being used, etc.

Of course, there is the absolute fact that alcohol abuse leads to many deaths annually, as does drug use/abuse.

I'm not proposing criminalizing alcohol. I'm just pointing out that a lot of crimes are committed by people who are abusing alcohol or under the influence. Those types of crimes with the root cause being drug use will not lessen with legalization and in fact may increase.

The real issue is that we very much need to address mental health issues---and also chronic pain treatment. Both are seriously underfunded, scare, and too often overlooked.

The highest DUI rates are in dry counties. And alcohol consumption at the end of prohibition was about the same as before prohibition--it didn't help with the consequences of consumption.

As for the deaths--there is no question that the deadliest drug out there is nicotine. About 4x the alcohol deaths. It's not so clear beyond that because the reporting is bad (if someone is both drunk and on any degree of drugs it gets reported as drugs; contaminated drugs get reported as drugs rather than contamination; murder by overdose is pretty much undetectable etc), but it looks like alcohol is well ahead of any of the illegal drugs.

Make all recreational drugs either legal or prescription for addicts and you'll cut the crime rate (not counting drug use) in half right there. Now you have twice as much police power to go after the remaining criminals and you have deprived the criminal organizations of a big source of funding, making them much weaker and thus less able to hide their crime. Expect the crime rate to drop even further. Direct savings to the government of $50B/year (old data, it's most likely higher now) and indirect savings that are probably even higher.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

And note that "rifles" includes more than just assault rifles.

Assault rifles have been demonized but in practice they are simply too big to be desirable to most criminals.

They are certainly the weapon of choice of many mass murderers.

There is simply no legitimate reason for people to use assault rifles or semiautomatic weapons.

And mass murders are less than 1% of all murders.

And do you realize the majority of guns are semi-auto?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

In the US there is enough of a racial pattern that you can make a chart like this, but race is just a proxy for the true issue.

And that issue is poverty.
But since it correlates with race due to long term structural economic racism, it makes a great tool with which to claim, without lying, that black people commit disproportionate amounts of homicides, implying a race based proclivity for crime. Then they chant ‘lock em up’ as if that was a solution.

Poor people also commit more crimes. We should lock them up too. And anyone else who can be identified with a carefully constructed crime profile. /

It's more than just poverty. You don't see as much crime in poor white areas--density matters. Poor white areas are generally fairly low population density, poor black areas are generally high population density.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I still disagree about legalizing all adult sex work for all the reasons we've battled about many times.

No one has claimed that Wright was a saint but no, I don't think he deserved to die. The officers should never have pulled him over in the first place per pandemic instructions in effect at the time. They did NOT know there was a warrant out for his arrest until he was pulled over. It is still unclear whether or not he was ever served a warrant so it is possible he was unaware. Do I think he was a good person? Almost certainly not but I also don't believe in the death penalty and certainly not prior to even being arrested on those charges, much less tried and convicted. It was a terrible tragedy all around.

Note that he was committing two offenses at the time--the tag which they weren't stopping people for at that time and the air freshener hanging from the mirror (obstructed windshield) that we have no indication they weren't stopping people for.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Our county got a fucking tank as well as armored trucks and then smugly showed them off in parades and talked about how great they would be against meth labs. A fucking tank. As well as military arms and explosives.

I'm sure they didn't get a tank, they are too destructive to the terrain.

Rather, what you are calling a tank is no doubt some sort of armored vehicle. They have legitimate police use in barricade situations.

 

[Toni]

I still disagree about legalizing all adult sex work for all the reasons we've battled about many times.

No one has claimed that Wright was a saint but no, I don't think he deserved to die. The officers should never have pulled him over in the first place per pandemic instructions in effect at the time. They did NOT know there was a warrant out for his arrest until he was pulled over. It is still unclear whether or not he was ever served a warrant so it is possible he was unaware. Do I think he was a good person? Almost certainly not but I also don't believe in the death penalty and certainly not prior to even being arrested on those charges, much less tried and convicted. It was a terrible tragedy all around.

Note that he was committing two offenses at the time--the tag which they weren't stopping people for at that time and the air freshener hanging from the mirror (obstructed windshield) that we have no indication they weren't stopping people for.

The air freshener was also something that drivers are rarely stopped for. However during the time period in question, stops for hanging air fresheners were also suspended.

The vehicle he was driving was one he had borrowed. He did not let the registration lapse but even if he did, during that time period, there was wide forgiveness for lapsed registration because most people had difficulty updating their registration. Most DMVs were not open and could not handle even the online registrations.

Those ‘offenses’ were minor at any time and were supposed to be ignored during the time he was pulled over. No one is suggesting that Wright was a good guy. But he should never have been pulled over.

Do you need for me to find links to prove it?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Registration, licensure, mandatory background checks and mandatory gun safety and mandatory gun safe or other means to secure weapons should be enacted but honestly, we need to get rid of most of the guns.

Add to this, ALWAYS ADD TO THIS, tightly controlled and deeply accurate audits of gun sellers’ records and inventory.

The guns get out to the criminal through legal shops that are not monitored. The gun industry fights tooth and nail to preserve a condition where gun sellers can make straw sales without consequences.

The primary means criminals obtain guns is theft, or a purchase on the street of a gun that somebody else stole. While I don't like straw purchases the obsession with them is really a backdoor means of getting the holy grail of the gun banners--a list of all firearms in civilian hands. Street guns are cheaper than legal guns, there simply isn't much market for straw purchases other than by those without the connections to buy a street gun.

 

[Toni]

Registration, licensure, mandatory background checks and mandatory gun safety and mandatory gun safe or other means to secure weapons should be enacted but honestly, we need to get rid of most of the guns.

Add to this, ALWAYS ADD TO THIS, tightly controlled and deeply accurate audits of gun sellers’ records and inventory.

The guns get out to the criminal through legal shops that are not monitored. The gun industry fights tooth and nail to preserve a condition where gun sellers can make straw sales without consequences.

The primary means criminals obtain guns is theft, or a purchase on the street of a gun that somebody else stole. While I don't like straw purchases the obsession with them is really a backdoor means of getting the holy grail of the gun banners--a list of all firearms in civilian hands. Street guns are cheaper than legal guns, there simply isn't much market for straw purchases other than by those without the connections to buy a street gun.

And yet there are many many straw purchases.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I realize most people think of drug related crimes to be gang related, etc. while that’s true, substance abuse—including legal prescriptions misused, perfectly legal alcohol and recreational drugs ( illegal) DO cause substantial negative effects and are eve proximal cause of a lot of crimes. I’m thinking about domestic abuse, all manner of assaults and of course sexual assaults and raped —and child abuse, and neglect. Abuse of these substances is also responsible for substantial absenteeism and loss of legal employment, disability, fraud, embezzlement and theft. I mean no, they don’t make blockbuster movies out of this. No Hollywood type will play the rogue cop or FBI agent making the raids, no glamorous rough but sexy criminals. There will be low birth weight babies, born addicted to whatever or with fetal alcohol syndrome. Disabled from
birth.

Just a lot of ordinary people whose lives are destroyed by the abuse of drugs and alcohol.

Every single attorney I know who has worked in any capacity in small towns and rural areas will tell you these cases clog the court systems. People with these convictions have difficulty securing employment or housing. They have difficulty maintaining stable relationships. They get sicker and stay sicker and die younger than they should.

I honestly don’t care if people want to spend their waking hours high on whatever. But the damage done does not stop at the one who had the fun.

In other words, making them illegal doesn't stop the problem. Look at that data from Portugal, though--legalization does reduce the problem. England used to have nearly zero heroin addicts because they went with a policy of making it available to addicts. The illegal marketplace couldn't compete, you couldn't obtain bootleg heroin and thus the addiction rate was basically zero--the addicts were people that got addicted while not in England.

Step #1 when you find yourself in a hole: stop digging!

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The really perverse thing about the US drug abuse industry, is the pretense that legalization is a radical leftist thing that would bring ruin. But it turns out that there are numerous counterexamples to those claims. In fact, national decriminalization policies have become common, and don't bring ruin. All these States have decriminalized to some degree.

"Decriminalised drug use" is too broad. "Legalised some previously-banned recreational drugs" would be better.

Many countries and states/localities are moving towards legalising marijuana use, but I don't see much good from legalising crystal meth. I've been on the receiving end of a person in ice psychosis and it's not pleasant.

Note that your quote omits some important words: "....to some degree."

I'm in one of those places that legalized pot. The only bad things I've heard about it stem from government actions--keeping them out of the financial system and apparent bias in issuing licenses. I have accidentally driven to one of the dispensaries here, no shady characters about, it didn't seem seedy. (Google said "turn left", I turned left. My actual objective was the next driveway.) I didn't even realize what the place was until someone came out thinking I was hesitant about entering--yeah, I wasn't going to enter the door with the wrong number on it, I was just trying to find the right number.

 

[bilby]

the air freshener hanging from the mirror (obstructed windshield)

If that's an excuse to stop and search, then the cops basically have the right to stop and search on a whim.

I don't think you should be OK with the cavalier abandonment of the fourth amendment without so much as a debate.

But it's your freedom. It's not my place to defend it.

 

[Elixir]

I still disagree about legalizing all adult sex work for all the reasons we've battled about many times.

… and Derec successfully derails yet another thread to feed his hobbyhorse.