More Violence in Dorchester

[clinotus]

We got word this morning that the young man in this story who worked with us past away from his wounds. It sad that the animals that do things like this roam the earth.[sad2]

Sorry to hear that.

It is impossible for the cops to clean up the problems in Roxbury.The same thing has been going on for years.Every time violence hits high gear there is a cry for more cops in the area.When that happens and the cops start questioning young black kids on the corners and the community starts yelling harrasment.Then the old time favorite of charging the cops with racial profiling rears its ugly head.The cops then pull out to satisfy black leaders and the same thing starts all over again.

Right on the money, its a horrid cycle of events.

 

[drgrant]

First of all, unlike many pro-gun people, I'm willing to say that there is a serious problem with gun violence in Boston.

I won't disagree that there's serious problems with violence in general in Boston.

What makes gun violence is worse that knife or bat violence is the higher potential to kill innocent people.

I agree that collateral damage CAN be higher- but the way the media and 99.9% of people who use the term "gun violence" play it out, they make it sound as though, through some form of magic that an intentional death at the end of a gun is somehow or another automatically worse than any other case of violence. It's their way of scapegoating an object for their social problems; as if the gun was somehow partially responsible or enabled someone to kill someone else where they would not have done so before. The whole term is just a big, made up weasel term by anti gunners. For example, if a lady runds over her husband with her car, do they call it "car violence?" No... why? Because cars aren't completely politically incorrect yet.

Unlike anti-gun people, I do not think the solution is to restrict lawful gun owners, however, I do think I think that keeping the guns out of the BGs hands would be helpful. I understand that 99.9% of the people on this board disagree with everything in the above paragraph.

I think we disagree with it because laws designed with the intent of doing so end up not accomplishing that, or on a good day, end up being marginally effective at the cost of a massive infringement of everyone else's rights. Why should we be punished/saddled with the burden of stupid bullshit like background checks, permits, licenses, and all that other happy horsecrap, when the people committing these crimes don't even have to play by the same laws, they just do whatever they want regardless. All it really is, is "security theatre" by another name. These laws are designed to make people feel good and nothing more- they don't really address the problem well at all.

Part of the thing that a lot of people have understanding is, subjecting the lawful gun owners to say, even something like a NICS check, is a restriction and a blatant infringement of rights. Why should anyone have to ask the government for "permission", especially for something so fundamental?

The criminals targeted by these laws you support remain unimpressed and unfazed by their existence, or they do things to mitigate the laws- like "community firearms" etc. A gangbanger no longer needs to get caught carrying a gun, they just stash them under a rock or something in the places they hang out thus reducing their exposure to punishment. Creating more FIP like laws will just encourage more of this behavior of weapon caching, etc, so even on a good day you're trading one problem for another.

A bit of background to this all- the people who started gun control were likely thinking similar to what you are- eg, "lets make it so the criminals cannot get guns" and then when their idea ended up in abject failure, the next panel of antis said "well, lets try MORE gun control" as if somehow, to them, logically, doing more of the same thing that already failed was going to yield a different result.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions". Gun control likely started out as a good intention by someone, and it obviously turned into crap eventually. Problem is nobody ever bothered to think about the part where it doesn't actually work. The funny thing is now when you dig into modern antis, if you interrogated them in a closed room you would find out that even they think it doesn't work- which exposes their true objective- not "enhancing public safety" but getting rid of guns/civilian disarmament. The public safety thing is a ruse to justify their existence.

With apologies, I believe that if the 19 year-old gangbanger caught with a pistol during a traffic stop (this a**h***s always have expired tags etc so they have a lot of contact with the police), were to face a 20 year min-mandatory (instead of the current soft 1 year) that many of these gangs would instead choose to use knives, bats etc - killing other BGs at the same rate, but dramatically reducing collateral damage (which is a HUGE problem in Boston).

Nice sentiment but things like FIP etc have been on the books forever and most career criminals dodge getting prosecuted under these blanket gun laws. They work occasionally but are not enforced often enough to even begin to be effective. Most of the guys convicted under FIP have a big rap sheet under their belt by the time they get convicted, By the time this happens the criminal has incurred countless victims, and the system has failed to protect any of them. It's not like the feds go to every 2nd offender and hit them for 10+ years of jail time. Further, these guys aren't "scared" by potential punishments. They're willing to fire live ammo at each other in the middle of a street- so are they really gonna be afraid of "punishment?"

I can think of far more effective things to do, like ramping up the sentencing on violent offenders- most of the guys going in and out of the court system are the same bunch of a**h***s- clocking them with like a 10 year mandatory minimum on their 2nd violent offense, for instance, will at least get them off the street for a longer period of time. The less BGs in circulation the better off we are.

-Mike

 

[Cato]

...but the way the media and 99.9% of people who use the term "gun violence" play it out, they make it sound as though, through some form of magic that an intentional death at the end of a gun is somehow or another automatically worse than any other case of violence.

Additionally most shootings do not end up with death.

January 1st through July 20th in 2008 there has been 147 shootings in Boston. Out of these 147 shootings there were only 27 deaths. That's only 18% of shootings being fatal.

City of Boston Stats

 

[mikem317]

First of all, unlike many pro-gun people, I'm willing to say that there is a serious problem with gun violence in Boston. What makes gun violence is worse that knife or bat violence is the higher potential to kill innocent people. Unlike anti-gun people, I do not think the solution is to restrict lawful gun owners, however, I do think I think that keeping the guns out of the BGs hands would be helpful. I understand that 99.9% of the people on this board disagree with everything in the above paragraph.

Guns don't cause violence. Guns are inanimate objects. They require a shooter and (usually) ammunition in order to become violent.

However, unlawful violence is plaguing Boston. I agree with your goal, but there's no real way to legislate violence out of Boston. The Boston robber barons... er, I mean, legislators, restrict law-abiding, peaceable people from obtaining and using firearms for self-preservation. But this won't fix the problem, because LTC and FID holders aren't the individuals responsible for this rash of violence.

The solution is to encourage lawful gun ownership in Massachusetts. Once this happens, violence will quickly ebb. John Lott wrote a whole book on this.

With apologies, I believe that if the 19 year-old gangbanger caught with a pistol during a traffic stop (this a**h***s always have expired tags etc so they have a lot of contact with the police), were to face a 20 year min-mandatory (instead of the current soft 1 year) that many of these gangs would instead choose to use knives, bats etc - killing other BGs at the same rate, but dramatically reducing collateral damage (which is a HUGE problem in Boston).

Substitution effect. That's what economists call it.

 

[joehaus]

I don't get it. Obama is in office(soon), things are supposed to be different.