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Silk Road Drug Dealer Pleads Guilty After Federal Sting
Ars Technica reports that
A 26-year-old Columbus, Ohio man has pleaded guilty to selling drugs through the Silk Road website. David Lawrence Handel apparently obtained methylone and other drugs from a supplier in China, which he then sold to buyers on the online black market. Among those buyers were Maryland federal agents, who were making undercover purchases. Handel shipped the drugs to them through the US Postal Service, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Maryland. ... Handel faces up to 20 years in prison for drug trafficking and up to life for using and possessing a firearm. His sentencing is scheduled for May 15.
So he "used" a firearm thru the internet or thru the mail, pretty neat trick. The IoT is more interesting than I thought. :)
He carried it on him while he was doing the rubber meets the road part of his business, and that's using it in the commission of a crime these days. Society's logic goes like this: He wouldn't have been carrying the weapon, nor would he have been risking wanting to use one to protect himself, if he hadn't been transporting illegal goods for commercial gain. Of course, there is also a certain amount of logic to the view that if those substances weren't illegal, none of that shit would have been going on at all, and society not only wouldn't have been risking gun violence but also would be able to tax whatever economic activity did occur. Arguably, it's the state that has created the dangerous situation.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Tell that to the store owner who goes through the psychological trauma of having a gun pointed in there face, many people are seriously fucked up after such incidents. The difference between the two incidents for the victims is massive.
That would only happen if the store owner is *threatened* with the gun. If the crook simply had the gun hidden on his person, the end result would have been the same whether he had the gun on him or not. Of course, a crook simply carrying a gun does increase the chances that he'd panic and shoot someone. On the other hand, a crook using a knife instead has a much higher risk that some idiot will get himself killed playing the hero because "it's only a knife".
Of course, a life sentence for merely carrying a gun seems like begging for said gun carrier to start using it.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
This attitude is part of everything that's wrong with the prison system. The idea that prisoners should be relied upon and expected to met out additional extrajudicial punishment to other prisoners. The idea that prison rape is "ok" because it's happening to other prisoners.