8 minutes ago, bobeph said:

Did the end of prohibition stop organized crime? 
 

In regards to running black market liquor, yes it did. Violent crimes also dropped significantly after prohibition ended. 
 

https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa157.pdf

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1088644/homicide-suicide-rate-during-prohibition/

 

1 minute ago, bobeph said:

So making everything in the world non-criminal would fix the problem?  Like even say... Murder?

No, because the act of murder is a clear cut wrong against another person. 
 

Show me where in the Constitution where the government has the authority to protect me from myself. 

2 minutes ago, Tnt4philly said:

In regards to running black market liquor, yes it did. Violent crimes also dropped significantly after prohibition ended. 
 

https://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa157.pdf

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1088644/homicide-suicide-rate-during-prohibition/

 

And then another criminal market comes along.  It’s an endless cycle.

It seems to me that most of you people just like to give a hard time to those who offer their opinion.  How about instead of being dewshy, what are your suggestions?

3 minutes ago, Bill said:

No, because the act of murder is a clear cut wrong against another person. 
 

Show me where in the Constitution where the government has the authority to protect me from myself. 

What is it that you are suggesting that the gov’t allow you to do to yourself?  I’m not following you.

5 minutes ago, bobeph said:

So you believe that the majority of addicts actually do want to be sober?

Yes I do. 

https://www.addictioncampuses.com/blog/the-3-biggest-reasons-people-dont-seek-help-for-addiction/

Quote

The Top Three Reasons People With Addiction Don’t Get Treatment

 

The important thing to remember is when people are in active addiction, their addiction will create any possible means of avoiding getting help. The disease justifies, rationalizes and creates false scenarios to escape the sad reality. The addicted mind will do anything to distract from the issues at hand. And while the survey results show that 96% of people who are addicted to drugs or alcohol don’t believe they need help – the reality is they are either in denial, experiencing shame, or they are afraid.

 

1. Denial
   
   Denial is the biggest factor that allows addiction to thrive. Addiction creates a form of smoke and mirrors that can make a person oblivious to the source of the root of their problems. While many people in active addiction know that they are experiencing hardships and that they are turning to drugs or alcohol to cope with them – they may not see that those very substances are the cause of their problems. A person may drink or use drugs to deal with a job loss or failed relationship, while blaming their boss or spouse for their pain – instead of realizing that their drink or the drug was the very thing that put them in the position to lose those things. Instead of seeing their drug of choice as the source of their problem, they see the drink or the drug as their relief. The person may be so wrapped up in their drinking or drug use that they deny its existence – despite the evidence.
    
2. Shame
   
   For many people struggling with an addiction to drugs or alcohol, it’s difficult to admit there is a need for treatment because of the stigma surrounding addiction and addiction treatment. Because shame can be one of the most overwhelming and painful emotions, it can become a barrier for seeking treatment. When a person experiences shame, they may feel as though they are not worthy of help or attention – and that makes them feel that there is no reason to turn their lives around.
3. Fear
   
   The fear of going to rehab is real – and so is the fear of what recovery may mean. Thing about it: Recovery isn’t a one-time deal. Recovery is a lifelong journey and commitment that is made each and every day. It takes motivation, determination and courage to enter a program for addiction treatment. Detox can be emotionally and physically uncomfortable. Therapy can unearth painful memories and feelings that have buried for years. And a lifetime commitment to sobriety can be overwhelming. If a person has previously entered rehab but has relapsed, they may be afraid of another let down. It’s easy to understand how a person may be afraid to seek the treatment they so desperately need.

 

3 minutes ago, bobeph said:

And then another criminal market comes along.  It’s an endless cycle.

It seems to me that most of you people just like to give a hard time to those who offer their opinion.  How about instead of being dewshy, what are your suggestions?

The endless cycle argument is strawman. 
 

Providing you with links to studies is giving you a hard time? 

End the war on drugs, period. 

Again, my point was to let the addicts who don’t want help to go ukn’ binge until they die.  F em’ if they don’t want help.  For those who do want help, and a place that they can call home (other than the feces infested sidewalks of some sheet city), what do you suggest is something that could be done to help those people?  I’m all for helping people who want to be helped.  

Just now, bobeph said:

Again, my point was to let the addicts who don’t want help to go ukn’ binge until they die.  F em’ if they don’t want help.  For those who do want help, and a place that they can call home (other than the feces infested sidewalks of some sheet city), what do you suggest is something that could be done to help those people?  I’m all for helping people who want to be helped.  

is that different from what's happening with those folks now? 

Just now, Tnt4philly said:

The endless cycle argument is strawman. 
 

Providing you with links to studies is giving you a hard time? 

End the war on drugs, period. 

Ok, let’s decriminalize every ukn’ thing that’s illegal under any criminal law.  Enjoy living in a lawless warzone.

13 minutes ago, bobeph said:

So making everything in the world non-criminal would fix the problem?  Like even say... Murder?

Stop being dew-she with the straw men 

Just now, mr_hunt said:

is that different from what's happening with those folks now? 

Ok, so say we walk up to a homeless drug addict and say, "hey pal, here’s 10k.  Let’s get you some temporary housing, rehab and some food.”  Instead, this person chooses to take our 10k and smoke, inject or drink it.  Then F him.  He was given an opportunity and chose drugs.  Uk em’

Just now, bobeph said:

Ok, let’s decriminalize every ukn’ thing that’s illegal under any criminal law.  Enjoy living in a lawless warzone.

Yay, more straw men. 
 

Not every crime, just victimless ones.

2 minutes ago, Tnt4philly said:

Stop being dew-she with the straw men 

You have yet to offer an opinion of any sort.  Try getting off your ukn’ high horse and contribute to a conversation rather than being an elitist a-hole.  Put your opinions out there for ridicule.

5 minutes ago, bobeph said:

Ok, so say we walk up to a homeless drug addict and say, "hey pal, here’s 10k.  Let’s get you some temporary housing, rehab and some food.”  Instead, this person chooses to take our 10k and smoke, inject or drink it.  Then F him.  He was given an opportunity and chose drugs.  Uk em’

Is anyone proposing this?

I still don't understand how anything your saying is a solution to the crime problem.

1 minute ago, bobeph said:

Ok, so say we walk up to a homeless drug addict and say, "hey pal, here’s 10k.  Let’s get you some temporary housing, rehab and some food.”  Instead, this person chooses to take our 10k and smoke, inject or drink it.  Then F him.  He was given an opportunity and chose drugs.  Uk em’

Who the eff ever suggested we treat addicts like this? 

2 minutes ago, bobeph said:

Ok, so say we walk up to a homeless drug addict and say, "hey pal, here’s 10k.  Let’s get you some temporary housing, rehab and some food.”  Instead, this person chooses to take our 10k and smoke, inject or drink it.  Then F him.  He was given an opportunity and chose drugs.  Uk em’

so, give them $10k to overdose?  that's a bold platform! 

14 minutes ago, bobeph said:

What is it that you are suggesting that the gov’t allow you to do to yourself?  I’m not following you.

Whatever the F I want. 

12 minutes ago, Bill said:

It’s pretty obvious that you don’t know about guns when you refer to an AR15 having a high amount of kinetic energy. The 5.56x45mm round is not heavy.  You get more kinetic energy from a hunting rifle. Also you talk about the volume of fire, which isn’t what an AR15 does. That’s what a machine gun does. Semi auto rifles exist for precision, not volume. 
 

But if someone wants to own an M2, they should be able to do so. In the history of the United States only one legally owned machine gun was used to commit a murder, and the murderer was a police officer. As a matter of fact you can legally own an automatic weapon, just not one made after 1986. There are civilian owned mini guns floating around. 
 

The second amendment exists as a backup in case the government is too oppressive, which for many Americans it is. If you want to argue that the second amendment doesn’t matter because weaponry is much more advanced, then the fourth doesn’t matter either because the founders never envisioned someone having electronic devices that could store an incredible amount of information.

Want to know something else? There are modern artillery pieces that are owned by civilians. 

you keep doing what gun-rights activists always do and trying to pretend that if you expose some minor detail that I didn't volunteer that I'm somehow arguing from a position of ignorance and since I'm not an expert on guns I should just STFU. I guess since none of us are politicians we shouldn't be on this board complaining about them?

it has a comparatively high amount of kinetic energy paired with a comparatively high rate of fire with it being a semi-automatic, and is also able to take a large magazine. ignoring the upper-end of the rate of fire since you will of course trade accuracy the higher you go, you can realistically shoot at least 15 rounds a minute fairly accurately in close quarters (say within 50'), and each round has a very large amount of kinetic energy compared to other weapons with similar rates of fire. point being: semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15 allow a person to dish out a huge amount of damage accurately if you've been training with it, in a very short amount of time, without reloading if you have multiple guns and magazines (as the LV shooter did).

there's a reason why Paddock had over a dozen AR-15s and only a couple bolt-action rifles, even though the latter has more kinetic energy: you can't fire as many rounds as quickly. and Paddock was over 1000' away from his targets.

I understand that some M2s are still floating around, grandfathered in. but again, as I stated, my point was not WHERE the line exists necessarily, but that there IS a line. and if there IS a line, there can be reasonable debate over where that line should be.

I don't think the comparison to the 4th is apt because it doesn't stress the same tension between public safety and individual rights. at the time of 2a's writing, there was basically no tension between public safety and the right to bear arms. that's not true in 2020.

I have no desire to roll back the 2nd amendment, I just think gun control is a reasonable debate for we, the people, to have. there was a time when the responsible gun owners of this nation were amenable to a certain level of gun control. certainly some of this was motivated by fear of too many guns in the hands of the "great unwashed," but there is also plenty of legitimate concern among the populace about the availability and proliferation of incredibly deadly weapons in this country. 

7 minutes ago, Tnt4philly said:

Who the eff ever suggested we treat addicts like this? 

 

4 minutes ago, Bill said:

Whatever the F I want. 

You two idiots should go back and see where I jumped into the conversation.  You’re taking it way off track.

34 minutes ago, Bill said:

It’s pretty obvious that you don’t know about guns when you refer to an AR15 having a high amount of kinetic energy. The 5.56x45mm round is not heavy.  You get more kinetic energy from a hunting rifle. Also you talk about the volume of fire, which isn’t what an AR15 does. That’s what a machine gun does. Semi auto rifles exist for precision, not volume. 
 

But if someone wants to own an M2, they should be able to do so. In the history of the United States only one legally owned machine gun was used to commit a murder, and the murderer was a police officer. As a matter of fact you can legally own an automatic weapon, just not one made after 1986. There are civilian owned mini guns floating around. 
 

The second amendment exists as a backup in case the government is too oppressive, which for many Americans it is. If you want to argue that the second amendment doesn’t matter because weaponry is much more advanced, then the fourth doesn’t matter either because the founders never envisioned someone having electronic devices that could store an incredible amount of information.

Want to know something else? There are modern artillery pieces that are owned by civilians. 

exactly. and i love all the people that say "you couldnt over throw the government with AR15s" cause CHAZ did it with a lot less.  

7 minutes ago, mr_hunt said:

so, give them $10k to overdose?  that's a bold platform! 

 

22 minutes ago, bobeph said:

And then another criminal market comes along.  It’s an endless cycle.

It seems to me that most of you people just like to give a hard time to those who offer their opinion.  How about instead of being dewshy, what are your suggestions?

black market guns. then in 30 years the hippies would be yelling to "end the war on guns"

28 minutes ago, bobeph said:

So making everything in the world non-criminal would fix the problem?  Like even say... Murder?

at its most basic level, the US government was created to protect and preserve the rights of individuals - life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. all other rights are derivative of those basic principles.

even NAP-driven libertarian dogmatists aren't looking to roll back murder.

12 minutes ago, mr_hunt said:

so, give them $10k to overdose?  that's a bold platform! 

That’s my point.  Those who don’t want help will just continue to abuse drugs and could really care about being homeless.  They’d rather be high than have food and shelter.

so what could we, or the government actually do do help these people?  What would you suggest?  I suggest helping those who want help, and those who don’t?  Well, that’s their choice.  Unfortunately they’ll end up dead someday 

2 minutes ago, BFit said:

exactly. and i love all the people that say "you couldnt over throw the government with AR15s" cause CHAZ did it with a lot less.  

to be fair, part of the reason the gov't hasn't stepped in is because there is little desire or motivation for the gov't to reclaim CHAZ.

 

1 minute ago, BFit said:

black market guns. then in 30 years the hippies would be yelling to "end the war on guns"

I know that is something of an in jest statement, but it's absolutely a legitimate concern of going too far with gun control. the gun control arguments I'm making variously here are more academic than something I necessarily - personally - believe. I don't actually know where I quite stand specifically as it relates to gun control, I just reject the argument that any sort of gun control represents a slippery slope and that the right to bear Arms is 100% absolute. that's just not where the American people are, and yet we have one party held hostage by that ideology - any sort of slip on gun rights and you're off the reservation and marked for cancellation. so there is no good faith discussion around gun control because one side of the political spectrum has shut its doors.