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Marijuana Prosecution Not a High Priority, Says Obama
Hugh Pickens writes "VOA reports that President Obama says it does not make sense for federal authorities to seek prosecution of recreational marijuana users in states where such use is legal. 'As it is, you know, the federal government has a lot to do when it comes to criminal prosecutions,' said Obama during a television interview with ABC's Barbara Walters. 'It does not make sense from a prioritization point of view for us to focus on recreational drug users in a state that has already said that, under state law, that's legal.' When asked if he supported legalizing marijuana, the president said he was not endorsing that. 'I wouldn't go that far, but what I think is that, at this point, Washington and Colorado, you've seen the voters speak on this issue.'"
The government has never focused on recreational users. It's focused on the dealers. Recreational users are just targets of opportunity.
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
Is like trying to nail Jello to a wall.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
So after first de-prioritizing medical marijuana raids in places like California (where they are legal)... only to reprioritize them again... he now flips again about deferring to state based decisions? ...or this is one of his much touted 'evolutions'
One day I would love to know what he actually believes in... other than political expediency.
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Dear Mr. President,
Apparently you did your share of pot and other drugs in your youth. Somehow, you avoided getting a criminal record. Please explain to us why giving millions of Black men like yourself a criminal record might not be such a good thing. Please tell us if you think you'd be where you are today if you had gotten busted.
Sincerely,
A lot of us who are tired of wars on nouns.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
The latest news story is the weapons were not bought by the killer. They belonged to his mother.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
to call it "interstate commerce" if a person smokes a plant that naturally grows in his backyard, never actually engaging in commerce or crossing interstate lines.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
It wasn't an "assault rifle". Semi-automatic? Yes. Rifle? Yes. Assault rifle? No.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
.. a rash of busts happening. Given Obama's history of saying one thing and doing another.
Without going into my position on this, let me simply put this thought on the floor:
Here's mom. A schoolteacher. She's buying what look like (but of course aren't, because they work approximately like a revolver that doesn't need reloads, not a machine gun) military weapons. How likely is that? Possible, I'll grant you, but it's really unusual.
My gut tells me it is more than slightly possible that mom was buying those weapons for her son, and that we may see, as we learn more, that son couldn't buy them himself. Or some variation on that theme.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Thus showing that "mentally unstable" or "mentally stable" is useless nattering. These weapons must be banned from private ownership completely.
There is no justifiable reason for anyone to carry around enough firepower to mow down dozens of people within seconds - certainly not self-defense. You don't see civilians driving tanks or carrying rocket launchers either.
Heard this declaration before, only to be followed by the highest amount of FBI raids on legal dispensaries since 1996.
...on same-sex marriage. If our press was as adversarial as it is in England, we might see questions like:
"Mister President, where do you think you would be in life if you had been convicted for felony drug possession when you were a young man?"
and
"Mister President, if your parents had been married when you were conceived, they could have been arrested in half the United States for violating interracial marriage laws. As a former professor of Constitutional Law you know this full well - so how can you, in good conscience, endorse a "states rights" position on same-sex marriage bans?"
The ONLY reason that the feds won't be going after recreational users is that they simply don't have the resources to do so. The DEA has ~5500 agents in total, not nearly enough to go after everybody in WA and CO who likes to smoke grass.
What they are likely to do is much the same as what has been going on in CA and other medical marijuana states--go after the people who are distributing the pot commercially. As soon as the framework is in place for legal distribution and cultivation to start, the federal harassment will kick in. They will start going after stores selling the stuff, shops where people are smoking it, etc.
If the tactics in CA are any guide, they won't even be using the drug laws to do their dirty work. They will use the tax code where they don't allow the dispensaries to deduct the cost of the MJ they sell as a business expense, requiring them to pay more in taxes than they make by selling the stuff. Or they will go after the landlords of the storefronts the dispensaries operate from, threatening property seizure unless the "illegal activities" are evicted. Or go after the banks where the dispensaries have business accounts, wit the threat of prosecution for "money laundering". There are many ways that the feds can make it impossible to run a marijuana business, even without busting anyone for actual drug violations.
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One major effect of the war on drugs (it's not a war on pot) is to channel taxpayer money to the prison system, to law enforcement, and to the corporations that make the various tools that law enforcement uses. To the tune, so far, of about a trillion dollars. That is more than enough money to create a whole swath of lobbyists clamoring for more and harsher drug laws. A very large number of people in the prison system are there for something related to drug charges; that has a direct effect on the amount of money going in that direction.
Then there's the low-hanging candy for politicians to use to pander to the brow-beaten, paranoid parents at vote-collecting time. The whole shooting match is a very big deal, financially speaking, though it isn't exactly all about profit. It supports a lot of jobs, too; just about the entire DEA depends upon the drug war to provide for their paychecks, and that's true for a lot of city cops as well, though most rural shops don't actually have dedicated drug guys, or at least, I hope not. Then there's the prison system, the "rehab" pukes, several generations of psycho-babblers, and on the other side of the coin, the entire alcohol industry which really doesn't want to see a cheaper, more effective, safer high made freely available to the citizens.
So don't kid yourself about there not being a financial motive here. There is, and it's a significant one.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I heard what you heard, and I don't get the same takeaway.
He said they wouldn't go after users. Now look at California: Are they going after users there? No. They're going after dealers, growers, MM dispensaries. Now look at what he said. Did he say that they wouldn't go after dealers, growers, dispensaries? No.
So does it appear that he's changed position? No.
Should he change position? Of course. Would it be the right thing to do? Of course. Would it be the politically expedient thing to do, with over 90% of the country still holding on to "pot is teh badz, dur" laws and Washington awash in lobbyists throwing money at everyone in sight to keep drugs illegal? No.
I don't think this is going to be the big step forward people hope. There's a lot of money at stake here. Over a trillion dollars so far. That money has representation in Washington. So does the alcohol industry. Potheads really don't have any. And then there's the easy pickings of anti-drug rhetoric directed to gullible parents at election time. As with just about everything else in Washington, if you want to predict what they'll do, follow the money, and the power. I think you'll find that it doesn't lead to an end to the drug war, or even that part of it that surrounds marijuana.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Perhaps you should know that the shootings were accomplished using 2 perfectly ordinary pistols. The only rifle mentioned (not an assault rifle) was found in the killer's car unused.
Quick quiz for you: What characteristics make a weapon a rifle? What makes it an assault rifkle? What makes it semi-automatic? If you had to go look that up, why were you spouting off about them before you knew what you were talking about?
But he can say "after scientific review by the FDA, I am moving marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III under the Controlled Substances Act" without any action from Congress. Existing law already allows Obama to stop persecuting marijuana users, growers and dealers.
Then where are the prosecutions for Bush's wars and torture (something REQUIRED by the U.N. Convention Against Torture, signed by that hippie Ronald Reagan) and fraud committed by the banks? Glennzilla:
Obama constantly makes a mockery of the rule of law. If he's going to ignore it, he could at least do it for non-violent non-criminals as opposed to banks that have stolen millions of homes and government officials that tortured over 100 people to death.
...are far more significant than whatever pretty words are coming out of his mouth on any given morning. He also promised to back off state-based medical marijuana, only to prosecute more than 10 dimes the number of medical pot facilities in four years than Bush did in 8.
Obama is a hypocritical pot smoking, "a little blow" using jackass who has no problem ending the careers of future Obama's by throwing their asses in prison for the same offenses that he committed with gusto when he was a young man.
And before someone uses the "but he's gotta enforce the laaaaw" excuse, where are the prosecutions of Bush officials that ordered torture and bankers that stole people's homes? Finally, the Controlled Substances Act allows Obama to reclassify marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule III without having to go through Congress, changing it from contraband to regulated drug overnight.
Thus showing that "mentally unstable" or "mentally stable" is useless nattering.
Please, please do not say this. Improving mental health in this country is preventative while removing guns is mitigating. Both have an equally important role to play in responding to these tragic events. And while mental health gets tossed around by some in the gun debate, it's a different issue, and it should be addressed with as much importance as any gun control debate. This is not an either-or situation. We can take action on both fronts because they are not mutually exclusive. Please don't let EITHER side of this debate use mental health as a dismissive or derogatory tool of their argument, nor let anyone be dismissive of the role it played.
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If we can quit spending money busting and then housing people for doing relatively harmless things to themselves, maybe next we can quit wasting trillions of dollars in decade-long wars and spend some money getting decent care for people so we can go a week without a school getting shot up.
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Conceived as a bastard by a polygamist and raised by his grandparents, that is one issue where Obama is probably not a hypocrite
I'm wondering how the legalization of marijuana in Washington state will affect Microsoft's software quality. Does Microsoft have drug testing?
You are, you know, promoting a second Civil War. I can assure you that the redder parts of these United States would indeed go to war over an attempt to take away their weapons. And given that the military is composed primarily of people who come from those areas, I wouldn't count on them backing the Union this time.
One major effect of the war on drugs (it's not a war on pot) is to channel taxpayer money to the prison system,
Two words: private prisons
That should never have been allowed anywhere under any circumstances. A for-profit prison!
They sign contracts where state guarantees a certain percentage occupation (90%), so it is no surprise when the state works hard to meet that promise
And now these private prisons are selling prisoner labor at under-$1 an hour rates to make more money. How and why is anyone allowed to profit from prisoner labor?
Oh, and some phone company makes a killing at 24c/minute phone calls for prisoners...
If only she had bought more guns, she could then have protected herself against him.
That explains why you're second.
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
As has been pointed out, the 2nd isn't about protecting your home from your neighbor, it's about protecting your country from your government.
It's not the guns that kill people, it's people that kill people. IIRC in Switzerland people got to take home their assault rifles after their (mandatory) military service. I think they abolished that practice, but I cannot really remember Switzerland turning into a ghetto state with gang wars being the issue du jour. Which is odd, by the logic an assault rifle in the hands of every single citizen should ensure a lot of shooting going on.
NEITHER is the right way, neither forbidding guns entirely nor handing them out like we have a "guns for toys" program running. Owning a gun entails the responsibility to wield and especially store it safely. Your right is to have it. Your obligation is to keep everyone safe from it. If you cannot uphold the latter, either by choice or by being too stupid or "psychologically unstable", you do not earn the former.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
That's why handguns are illegal to carry without a permit in my country, while you can buy, and even carry to most places, any kind of sniper gun at leisure.
Of course, you got that sniper gun just because you're a hunter and have to kill that deer from 2km distance lest you be seen and spook your prey...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"VOA reports that President Obama says it does not make sense for federal authorities to seek prosecution of recreational marijuana users in states where such use is legal."
But elsewhere he said (essentially) that the Fed's resources are better targeted at dealers - which leaves medical marijuana providers at risk, as well as the licensed growers/dealers provided for under Washington and Colorado's new laws.
And while he's bound to enforce the laws written by Congress, you'd have a very hard time convincing me that he doesn't have the authority to alter the priorities of enforcing those laws. The Justice Dept is part of the Executive Branch and works for him - not Congress. What I suspect he's really waiting on before making the issue a priority and taking it to Congress is for a critical mass of states to decriminalize. Until then, he's just waffling and blaming Congress rather than taking a stand.
You do that so that you don't make laws based on emotional outbursts. When you start legislating for each tragedy, you can do some pretty stupid shit. That's incidentally why there are pot laws to begin with. They just assumed it was bad for you and made it illegal because they were afraid the country would break down into some massive drug den where no one would work and crime would run rampant. The studies being done were perfunctory and not very many in number at the time. It was all fear. At least for pot anyway. Unless you smoke that shit, in which case, you're smoking and smoking really is bad for you.
No one believes that the gun laws are necessarily there to make us safer individually, they're there to maintain liberty. That is why you can keep and bear arms, to maintain a militia that can fight back, if necessary, against a centralized power that has encroached too far into your liberties. History has shown us that discourse does not always remove those sorts of threats.
Here's what really happened. Some nutjob killed a bunch of kids and adults in one school in the US. It was a tragedy. In some other place, someone is poisoning their husband or wife, or stabbing someone with a knife. In another place, a serial killer is slowly killing off more people who died on this day, only it will take him a few years because he wants to savor every one.
This incident is notable precisely because it is not common. It's not even a statistical blip on the violent crime rate. Yet now, we're going to legislate removal of a guaranteed liberty to deal with it, just like blowing up 3,000 people was turned into two wars and even more people dead than from the initial incident.
It's amusing that we are here now asking, "Why won't someone think of the children," when that line gets ridiculed time and time again in other situations.
Personally, I don't even own a gun and never have felt the need to, but even still, you don't want to be making this sort of thing the reason you make laws.
If you want that, get after a constitutional amendment that makes it possible. That's the only clear path. Make it say that no one but the military (and perhaps the cops, if you believe that's a good idea... but I suggest looking at the events of the last few decades before you go that far) gets to have weapons. Make it unambiguous and clear. Then I, and every other law abiding type, will turn in our weapons. The rest, you can arrest, I suppose, and good luck with that, they're likely to be very, very unhappy, but at least it'd be properly legal, which almost no gun law is at this point.
Having said that, it won't help. The problem isn't guns. The problem is crazy people. See here and here and here? That's what happens when guns are made illegal. Make knives illegal, did I hear you say? Sharpened broomsticks. Motor vehicles. Hammers. Screwdrivers. Chainsaws. Gasoline. Copper Sulphate. Fertilizer. Etc.
No, for certain the problem isn't firearms, or banning them. The problem is we have crazy people. Outright crazy fucktards. Raving loonies. Who we simply can't detect.
So at this point, since we really don't have the tools to detect crazy people, what we need to do is protect vulnerable groups. Armed guards and scanners at school entrances; if you're not student or staff, you don't get in. No one gets in with a weapon. Perhaps bring home all those military types and put them to work actually guarding us from danger, instead of serving as cannon fodder for no more benefit than to keep the arms industry spinning. They can be posted at McDonald's, at stadiums, etc. Everywhere. Make themselves actually useful.
Give us fifty years and I bet we'll have this solved -- we'll either be able to pick you right off the street when you're so fucked up you're actually considering mayhem, or we'll be able to genetically weed out whatever the fuck is wrong with these people, or perhaps even both. There's a really good chance for all of that.
But right now, we have no idea who is nuts and who is not, and we don't have any effective way of telling, even if we gave up every right and liberty we have, much less just regulated firearms.
Of course what's going to happen here is exactly the wrong thing, if anything. And these pointless slaughters of innocents will continue unabated.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Nope. Tanks aren't really useful against infantry. Great against tanks and buildings, but lobbing a arty shell at an individual doesn't net you much. Airforces still need fuel, which that fuel is stored in country the people in country can dispose of it rather quickly and ground that airforce.
All the big bad ass things that the government could use against us can be stopped in short order since they all depend on american citizens providing the supply chain.
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No, but ignoring the local decisions isn't a good idea either.
I'm a firm believer in the federal character of the US, the choice of every state to make their own decisions and their own laws at the very least in regards that do not affect other states. Of course this cannot reach towards foreign policy and defense, but if ANY kind of decision has only local effects without affecting other states, it's the question whether some kind of drug should be legal or not.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
It might also have to do with the fact that an assault rifle is not the right weapon for a gang war and that you can't buy ammunition for the assault that easily in Switzerland. Just saying.
Didn't work so well in the middle east and their airplanes and ground vehicles are a lot more vulnerable than what the US government has at it's disposal.
Again, as has been overly proven in the middle east. They are most definitely not needed.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Constitution: 13th amendment. Read it. There's your answer.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Conceivably, that's gross, archaic framing. Because pejoratives should be aimed at kids, because it's totally their responsibility to make sure their parents are married before the sperm meets the egg. In advance, or something.
Unless Obama taught that "states rights" was a valid defense of Jim Crow in his Constitutional Law class, of course he's a hypocrite.
My understanding of the 2nd amendment is that it was so you could repel invaders (ie, the British) during a time you didn't have a standing army. It would allow the President to call up the population to bear arms and fight back.
Because honestly, how much shit will you let your government do before you rise up against them like you genuinely believe you will? Do you think for even a second you would be able to start the movement for such a revolution without the government snatching you up as a 'terroris't and throwing you in a dark hole?
"Dre don't get as high as me.... I'm Cheech and Chong" - Snoop Dogg
There is no justifiable reason for anyone to carry around enough firepower to mow down dozens of people within seconds - certainly not self-defense. You don't see civilians driving tanks or carrying rocket launchers either.
Not seconds, moroon, minutes. Any .22 caliber semi auto pistol could have done that sort of damage. What you are trying to justify is making muzzle loading black powder guns the only legal firearm.
Nice try. Next time work on the real issues.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
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Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
If they are banned from private ownership then they need to be banned from police organizations as well. It doesn't require military weapons to defend yourself from the police. Just a level playing field. If the police are allowed to carry so called 'assault rifles' then we should be as well.
Take my situation for example. I was seriously injured by a police officer who clearly broke the law, but I cannot report him to anyone because I believe that if I did so he would come to my house and simply kill me. If I had some way to defend myself against him I would be willing to take the risk of reporting him like any good citizen should be able to.
The fact is the government consists of ordinary peope. People who are far from perfect. It makes no sense to allow one group to have real weapons, but not allow another to have the same. It is an unjust imbalance. You want to ban firearms? Fine. But you'd better be willing to have a police force armed solely with tasers if you do.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
I hope he tells his justice department and starts pardoning all the people his DoJ has prosecuted over the past 4 years, which is higher than Bush in all 8 years.
You criminalize everyone.
Unenforced laws create a de facto law of "don't anger the government." If you start doing something disruptive, but perfectly legal (like campaigning for equal rights for oppressed groups, for example), the government will investigate and find some unenforced-but-still-illegal law to nail you with.
This arrangement of federally illegal but state legal greatly increases the power of the executive branch.
There is no such thing as a "semi-automatic assault rifle". "Assault rifles", by definition, are selective-fire or fully automatic.
What you are perhaps thinking of is what the media and anti-gun nuts call an "assault weapon", which is functionally identical to a semi-automatic deer rifle...or a .22 LR, for that matter.
Note, by the by, that semi-automatic .22 LR is pistols are used in several Olympic sports....
Note further that if Butthead had not had any "semi-automatic assault rifles" to use, he could have used a pump-action 12 gauge shotgun, and done much MORE damage....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
It's one thing to invade and occupy foreign land, and never see victory because of local efforts. But to overthrow your own oppressive government, when they have vastly superior arms, yes, look to Syria. And maybe Libya, before foreign support.
Maybe they'll succeed, although I'm not quite sure if there are just two sides operating there, one that wins if the other loses. But you're going to need an actual militia at the very least. Not just individuals armed to "fight the government" all by themselves.
We are all God's parents.
A well organized, large section of the population people could defeat the government. Although they should have a far easier time doing that through the democratic channels. Even with the inherent faults, those can be dealt with if there is will.
The biggest problem of all, is how organized the elite are, and how good they are at setting everyone else up against each other.
We are all God's parents.
As a Colorado resident, I'm not particularly inclined to deliver a "guilty" verdict if I'm ever sitting in the jury for such a case. The ambiguity of the state saying it's OK and the fed saying it's not makes it effectively impossible to prosecute such a case without serious doubts in the minds of the jurors. Of course, if asked I'm going to come right out and say that, too, so I'm not likely to make it in to the pool for any such jury. Sorry, potheads.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
His mom bought the guns legally. He stole them from her. He tried to buy a gun and was turned down because he wouldn't go through a background check or wait as the law required.
Turns out, psychopaths don't follow the law and find ways around it.
Work Safe Porn
I value my brain enough not to feel the need to alter it with chemicals natural or synthetic. I do however fully support your desire to alter your own in any way you see fit. At the end of the day it simply makes me more competitive not only at work but in life as well. "Smoke it if you got it"
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From Wikipedia:
Historically, selective enforcement is recognized as a sign of tyranny, and an abuse of power, because it violates rule of law, allowing men to apply justice only when they choose. Aside from this being inherently unjust, it almost inevitably must lead to favoritism and extortion, with those empowered to choose being able to help their friends, take bribes, and threaten those from they desire favors.
...state that has already said that, under state law, that's legal.
State law cannot make something legal which is illegal under federal law. You would think the president of the U.S. would know that.
If he really had some guts, he would call for Congress to change the federal law to match what the citizens of the U.S. support. At the very least, it's fairly clear that a majority of voters are in support of medical use of marijuana.
How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
The people in the United States can be heard. It's now been proven over something as stupid as marijuana. Now, if we can make ourselves heard on important matters like reform of our financial institutions!
America will always give you hope, and occasionally something much more.
Not true. Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya. Syria. Or are you trying to tell me that a bunch of peasants in those countries are richer and more sophisticated than the average US citizen? Get it through your head. Tanks and planes only work against other armies that have tanks and planes. You cannot win a guerilla war with conventional weapons. But you sure can lose one.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You think Russia and/or China are not going to RUN to support a revolution in the US? Of course they are. The won't be caught doing it, but they will. Just like the US supports its favorites around the world.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
You realize that the "war on drugs" costs a lot more money, lives and federal resources than one of these shootings?
And if you want to prevent so many random shootings, it might be a good idea to change the constant worship of "problem solving by violence" that the country is used to.
"Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
In Switzerland the ammo is free. It's a social benefit for citizens to be good shots. They are required to keep them at ready. Being Switzerland they can be fined for not keeping them clean.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
And as a lifelong Democrat, I think you're a bit too uptight. For me this issue hasn't got anything to do with the drugs themselves, it's got to do with families being ripped apart, overcrowded jails in which addicts are put alongside murderers, and a society which treats the illnesses underlying addictions as a stigma instead of a sickness. It's the same attitude that blames mentally ill patients for their diseases. You don't go around blaming men with prostate cancer for having the lack of willpower to prevent their own cells for dividing improperly, do you?
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
Barak's not here, man.
Do you think the jails, court costs, and police work are free?
We cannot afford to jail and arrest such a great amount of the population.
How much of you tax money do you want invested in a losing, pointless, discriminatory war?
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
We can tackle multiple issues at once. That said, I believe the TSA safety mentality is an eyesore anyway.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
And there are still multiple states with statutes that say atheists cannot serve in various political offices.
That's just the tip of the iceberg. A great deal of state and federal law (and court decisions) are really, really wrongheaded. Some of it is straight up unauthorized. There are ex post facto laws. The constitution has been relegated to the "who cares" zone. And very little of it will ever get straightened out. That's not what congress or scotus or the executive wants to do, and we have almost zero control over any of them. And the public not only doesn't care, they don't even faintly grasp the problem.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Yeah right. Then check is in the mail. I really do love you. I won't come in your mouth.
These myopic asshats don't know the difference between pot or hemp any more than they know the difference between shit and shinola. Besides, look how lucrative alcohol was during prohibition.
The mind conceives, the body achieves, the spirit manifests.
In 1791 (when the bill of rights were ratified), “arms” included all manner of pistols, rifles, muskets, cannons, explosive and solid cannonballs, cannonballs filled with shards, frigates with multiple decks of cannon, wagons with explosives and multiple guns rigged to fire in unison, chain shot, flaming missiles soaked with pitch and other inflammable, easily spread and hard to extinguish compounds, swords, knives, bayonets, fighting canes, brass knuckles, battering rams, catapults, siege towers, glass bottles, garrotes, whips, chains, both fused and mechanically triggered explosives, striking weapons like sticks and poles and quarterstaffs and maces and war-hammers, spears, bows, axes, arrows and crossbows, caltrops... I could go on for quite a while. All of these arms, and more, were in common use in warfare and self-defense at the time, and all of them were in private ownership and possession. Yet, knowing all these things, all they put in the 2nd amendment was “arms.” So clearly, that’s what they meant. Arms of any kind. They didn’t say “muskets and pistols.” They said arms.
Just as a point of reference, paper cartridge loaded weapons had been around since the 1500's.
Furthermore, those same people had watched arms technology advance, and of course they were aware of its long history of advances, and still they said arms. They meant for the populace to be armed, and they were serious about it. When the copper cartridge and rimfire primer were introduced (about 1845), any of them still living would probably have just rubbed their hands together in glee and congratulated each other on their choice of the word "arms."
So don't get too excited about cartridges. A face full of chain shot will do you in just fine.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Unfortunately, it isn't. Google up some knife massacres, check out mass poisonings, study up on some of the mass killings in countries like Japan where guns are outlawed. Enlighten yourself, you're in serious need of it. The problem isn't guns. You can't fix or ameliorate the problem by restricting guns. The problem is batshit crazy fucktards that we cannot identify. And the only solution is arranging for a way to stop them when they finally fall off the edge.
Unless your plan is to have everyone live in a padded room, your "removing guns" idea is utterly worthless. Knives, sharpened broomsticks, hammers, copper sulphate, vehicles, construction equipment, chainsaws, rotary hand saws, nail guns, screwdrivers, a sharpened fingernail and and a little bit of any of a vast array of toxins... there is not, and never will be, a shortage of tools with which to massacre people. And it'll be a long time before there's a shortage of crazies. So if you want to solve this instead of indulging in worthless feel-good activities like banning firearms, start thinking in terms of stopping the problem at execution time.
Me, I'm a good deal more concerned with highway deaths, but I've always been fond of dealing with reality. Makes me an outlier, but I can deal.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Perhaps like, for instance, mentally-unstable individuals able to obtain semi-automatic assault riffle, also legally
You must be referring to the paramilitary police officers that prosecute the war on drugs. They tend to invade homes in the middle of the night using their government issued assault rifles and hand grenades, shooting people and their dogs. What mentally stable person would build a career on that sort of behavior?
Palm trees and 8
Yeah.... yeah... unfortunately, it doesn't work that way, and that's a problem we've been completely ineffective in resolving.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
The unanswered question is whether the federal government will use its resources (DEA etc) to target those producing and selling Marijuana when its being legally produced according to Washington and Colorado law.
Given that the DEA has carried out raids against those dispensing marijuana for medical use in states where such use is legal and given the hardline stance taken by the DEA against marijuana in general, I wouldn't be surprised if they did carry out raids in Washington and Colorado.
As a person who cluelessly implies "addiction" in a post about marijuana, you may rest assured that the vast majority of readers with a decent education are completely ignoring you.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Here's a missile-armed drone. Flying over your house. Auto-profiling you. No, don't thank us. Our pleasure.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Don't even try it.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
No, it's not. According to the revised Waffengesetz of Dec 12 2008, you can only buy ammunition for weapons you own rightfully. But you don't own the Ordonanzwaffe, your personal army weapon. It is forbidden to own Serieschusswaffen (full automatic weapons) at all. Until 2007, you got Taschenmunition (pocket ammunition) to be stored at home, a packet of ammunition, that was sealed, and which had to be brought unopened back to the army everytime you returned there. Basicly, it was nearly impossible to use the army weapon for personal usage. After leaving the army, you could actually buy your Ordonanzwaffe, but it had to be rebuild to a semi-automatic first. (Actually, those are the only converted weapons you are allowed to own in Switzerland).
This is the closest I've ever heard a sitting president come to endorsing pot. He's basically saying that it's a State issue and unless you're pushing huge amounts the Feds are going to leave you alone. You know what...he's right. How many people out there are now saddled with criminal records for possessing small amounts of weed for personal use? It's ridiculous. I've always felt that alcohol is much, much more harmful than pot.
I don't think people should be driving a car or operating heavy machinery or sitting across the desk from you at an office meeting if they are stoned...basically the same rules as alcohol...but if someone wants to light up on their own time, in their own home I say have at it. If the government wants to do something useful here they should narrow the war on drugs to things like cocaine and heroin and meth and stop wasting our time and money on recreational drug use.
Note quite.
Running out of heroin in an environment where heroin is difficult and expensive to obtain will cause acts of desperation.
Running out of it in an environment where it costs what it's worth, which is about a penny a hit, won't cause anything but reaching into a pocket and taking another hit.
The problems with these drugs are caused by the drug war. They're not inherent to the drug.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Is an electromagnetic coil in the door frame an realistic idea?
While it was a cool trick in Cryptonomicon, the reality is that you'd probably rip the drives out of the person's hand before you actually managed to erase it. It's pretty hard to do from outside the case.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
I'd mod you higher if I could. Just a few stats for y'all:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/nine-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/?wprss=rss_business
The majority of recent American mass shootings have been commited by mentally unstable people, most of whom were identified as such by people around them.
Perhaps if the care these people really needed was not so far out of their financial reach that they or someone close to them would have considered treatment then at least a few of them would have been avoided?
A school teacher, who had two 9mm handguns and a rifle. I say there's a good chance she was mentally unstable too.
Pot, meet kettle?
I can understand your thinking though. Things have only recently started to be made right in Britain after a long period of decline:
Self-Defense: An Endangered Right (March/April 2004)
The withdrawal of a basic right of Englishmen is having dire consequences in Great Britain, and should serve as an object lesson for Americans. Today, in the name of public safety, the British government has practically eliminated the citizens’ right to self-defense. That did not happen all at once. The people were weaned from their fundamental right to protect themselves through a series of policies implemented over some 80 years. Those include the strictest gun regulations of any democracy, legislation that makes it illegal for individuals to carry any article that could be used for personal protection, and restrictive limits on the use of force in self-defense. Britons have been taught, in the words of a 1992 Economist article, that such policies are “a restraint on personal liberty that seems, in most civilized countries, essential to the happiness of others.” The author contrasted those policies with “America’s vigilante values.”
The result of that tradeoff of rights for security has been disastrous for both. Many Americans, either unaware of, or unconcerned with, the perverse impact of British policy, insist that our public safety demands a similar sacrifice. But an examination of the experience of the British people offers a cautionary tale. A few examples underscore the situation in Britain today.
A homeowner who discovered two robbers in his home held them with a toy gun while he telephoned the police. When the police arrived they arrested the two men, and also the homeowner, who was charged with putting someone in fear with a toy gun. An elderly woman who scared off a gang of youths by firing a cap pistol was charged with the same offense. The government is now planning to make toy guns illegal.
The BBC offers this advice for anyone in Britain who is attacked on the street: You are permitted to protect yourself with a briefcase, a handbag, or keys. You should shout “Call the Police” rather than “Help.” Bystanders are not to help. They have been taught to leave such matters to the professionals. If you manage to knock your attacker down, you must not hit him again or you risk being charged with assault. . .
. . . The impact of such policies on public safety has been stark. An amazing trend of nearly 500 years of declining interpersonal violence in England reversed abruptly in 1954 as violence began to increase dramatically. In 2001 Britain had the highest level of homicides in Western Europe, and violent crimes were at three times the level of the next worst country. “One thing which no amount of statistical manipulation can disguise,” the shadow home secretary, Oliver Letwin, pointed out in October 2003, “is that violent crime has doubled in the last six years and continues to rise alarmingly.” Indeed, with the exception of murder, violent crime in England and Wales is far higher than in the United States. And while the American murder rate has been in decline for more than a decade, the English murder rate has been rising. You are six times more likely to be mugged in London than in New York City. More than half of English burglaries are “hot burglaries”(someone is at home), while in America, where burglars admit to fearing armed homeowners more than the police, only 13 percent are “hot burglaries.” As for the effectiveness of stringent gun control, since handguns were
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
A rifle has a rifled barrel and fires ammunition with a larger cartridge than a pistol.
An assault rifle has select fire (fully automatic self-loading) capability and a somewhat shorter barrel than a hunting or sniper rifle, but longer than a carbine.
A semi-automatic gun fires a single round for each pull of the trigger, and uses a magazine or clip instead of a revolver system.
A "semi-automatic assault rifle" is a contradiction in terms, and makes about as much sense as a horseless racehorse.
Not a sentence!
the public won't ask for prosecution until enough people die for marijuana legalization to be rescinded until it's seen as a crisis.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
I learned about drugs from public education. Do you know what I learned? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. So I never touched them, because my personality naturally doesn't jump into the unknown. That makes me one in a million. How many other people ignore that worthless advice, and do it anyway?
The American education system teaches drug use the same way it teaches abstinence. "It's bad, don't do it". Well guess what. People do it anyway, and now they have no idea of the real dangers involved. So they score from shady sources, mix things that shouldn't be mixed, and delve into shit that is truly and uncompromisingly dangerous. Without any preexisting knowledge of rec drugs, the odds of going through without permanent damage are absolutely slim.
I am fortunate enough to know an experienced drug user, and he's a pretty damn cool guy. Friendly, sociable, and a far more rounded person than I actually am. Truth be told, such people are distressingly few and far between. But if I wanted to have a good time without scorching my brain, I know who to call. And that's enough for me.
Do you realize that your statement has now been proven untrue, and that the rifle was used in the killings? Care to comment?
Sorry, my crystal ball was in the shop at the time. Of course, the people spouting off at that time WERE spouting off because they had the same (ultimately incorrect) information the rest of us did.
I stand behind my comment that people (most likely including the poster I was responding to) haven't the slightest clue what they're talking about, they just throw cool sounding terms together to invent a new weapon. I'm just waiting for the double action semi-automatic machine assault shotgun (with laser sight, naturally).
Speaking of that, a pump action 12 gauge would have been just as deadly and would neatly sidestep any 'assault rifle' ban.
Except the ammo is free at the range and it's only their honesty keeping them from walking out with pockets full. Granting they are Swiss, most would never think of steeling ammo.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Pot, meet kettle?
Well I'm certainly not a gun--nut.
However the far right wing people who wrote the rants you link to probably are. The first in particular appears to be written by someone who doesn't know Britain at all. Perhaps he's not even visited.
The second fails at the very first fact check - there were not 927 homicides in the UK in 2007, there were 773. But either number is a far lower per capita rate than the US, thus making a mockery of the thrust of the article.
Right wing nuts - gun nuts. There's an enormous overlap.
Half a million dollars - or as we call it in California, two bedrooms! (And wood's a much better building material in earthquake country than brick or stone are, but even in the East Coast, I've worked on woodframe houses over a century old; they last just fine if you keep them dry.)
And the asset-forfeiture drug warriors don't really care if you owe half a million dollars on your mortgage, as long as it officially belongs to you, because they're confiscating your assets, not your net worth. If you're stuck with the debt afterwords, they don't care, and if you go bankrupt to get rid of it, that's not the police department's problem, that's the banking regulators' problem, and that bank was too big to fail anyway.
But for the most part they'd really rather confiscate your car, because it's easier for them to get away with, and it lets them drive Porsches as cop cars, while it's tough for the cops to benefit personally from having confiscated a house. (It happens, especially in corruption-friendly places like New Jersey, but it's tougher.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Recreational users aren't usually a Federal target (with a few exceptions like confiscating a boat that had a roach in the ashtray.) They're a really big target for local police, because it's a way to get a lot of arrests for your quota, and to arrest people you suspect are gang users but can more easily convict for having a joint in their pockets. Too much volume to waste the time of a small number of Feds.
But the Feds are really more interested in going after large growers, and here in California they've been aggressive about going after the large and medium dispensaries, because they're a serious threat to the Drug War business. Obama promised us last election that he'd leave medical marijuana alone, and kept that promise for almost a month after he got in office, but that doesn't mean that this time we can trust anything he says about it.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
This post is the best post. Thanks!
That number may be wrong, but did you not notice the insanity of charging someone who used a toy gun to scare off someone attempting to steal from them? Please refute something worth refuting. I find it deplorable that people don't realize just how skewed the world is.
right wing, left wing, conservative, liberal, I dont bloody care what you call yourself and those 'other people' you dont like the opinions of. I want concealed carry with harsher penalties for people breaching the trust granted a person offered the right to carry a concealed weapon on their person. Is that liberal, no, is that conservative, nope. Gee, that would mean I must want to set fire to the entire system and live in anarchy, nope I like my fair taxes (hate corporate tax avoidance, so while Im ranting fuck you larry & sergei, not paying your taxes is evil, fix your company or change the motto) and my heavily subsidized public healthcare, while also thinking not enough of the education system is subsidized.
In short, get off my lawn.
XML - A clever joke would be here if
That's how we pretty much lost the last of our guns here in Australia.
Three words, "Port Arthur Massacre", I couldn't bloody believe it, now even bloody paintball weapons are heavily regulated here, its pathetic.
XML - A clever joke would be here if
It's one thing for a soldier to point a gun at someone in a turban that they don't identify with at all, it's another thing to point a gun at someone from they went to high school with. It's easy to bomb a city with a name you can't pronounce it's much harder to bomb your home town. Not to mention that a portion of the military is going to be on each side.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
If you smoke it, they will come...eventually.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Planted a flag on the moon too. Symbolism has nothing to do with reality.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
That number may be wrong, but did you not notice the insanity of charging someone who used a toy gun to scare off someone attempting to steal from them?
Of course it's insane. And you'd think that living in Britain I'd have heard the news. Or something like them. Or even recognised that the law even has that potential. But no. It's insane because it doesn't ring true. And without a link, nor a searchable name nor location nor anything substantive at all, and considering the rest of the description of Britain, which I also don't recognise, I assume it's not true.
Who'd have thunk it. A right wing blogger making stuff up.
Please refute something worth refuting. I find it deplorable that people don't realize just how skewed the world is.
Perhaps you shouldn't be so credulous. When someone says something that sounds bizarre, don't just accept it. By cynical. Expect a link, or at least some means by which you can fact check it. If it's too vague to be fact checked, and doesn't sound right, it probably isn't. This goes double if it otherwise fits your prejudices.
The 9mm is the best pistol round. It's cheap and ubiquitous. Unless you are planning on shooting people, 9mm should be a preferred round.
Learn to love Alaska
So why is this? Do they commit more crimes ? I.e. guilty Or are they innocent but accused and falsely imprisoned?
Both are concerning alternatives.
You specify people of color as black or Latino excluding Indian and oriental peoples, it's this because the war on crime is less devastating to these groups? Or they commit less crimes?
From what I know of the USA it seems as the top three racial groups are white, black and Latino , please correct me if I am wrong. So do white people commit less crimes? Or are caught less? ... etc) more than other crimes (generalizing here) cyber crime, white collar crime.
Seems as most white collar crimes are by white people.
Society does punish crimes which are physically committed (rape, murder mugging
Physical crimes are a lot easier to catch.
Be interesting to know if certain groups commit more crimes per capita and why?