WTF is up with violence in Mexico?

[dtugg]

Oh pluheese. I can buy a gun and sell it to anyone else. What law says I can't do that?

No you can't. Not if you intend to purchase the gun to sell it to somebody else. That is refereed to as a straw purchase and is a violation of the Gun Control Act of 1968.

 

[Cainkane1]

Even if weapons from the USA could be stopped the cartels could still get weapons from Russia and China and Brazile.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

No you can't. Not if you intend to purchase the gun to sell it to somebody else. That is refereed to as a straw purchase and is a violation of the Gun Control Act of 1968.

You continue to claim regulations upon which a case is essentially unprovable as if in reality those words on paper could stop anyone from buying a gun and passing it on. Prosecution the way you are suggesting is totally impossible.

An html citation of the rule

FIREARMS AND FEDERAL LAW: THE GUN CONTROL ACT OF 1968, an analysis in a legal journal

Gun Control Act of 1968 from Wiki

 

[dtugg]

You continue to claim regulations upon which a case is essentially unprovable as if in reality those words on paper could stop anyone from buying a gun and passing it on. Prosecution the way you are suggesting is totally impossible.

You mean people can break the law and make straw purchases anyway? Wow. I had no idea.

By the way, people are arrested for making straw purchases all the time.

 

[quixotecoyote]

You mean people can break the law and make straw purchases anyway? Wow. I had no idea.

By the way, people are arrested for making straw purchases all the time.

I wonder how often. When I was collecting car loans for Chrysler, we'd run into straw purchases maybe 1 in every 3 accounts. You suppose straw purchases for guns are better controlled?

 

[dtugg]

I wonder how often. When I was collecting car loans for Chrysler, we'd run into straw purchases maybe 1 in every 3 accounts. You suppose straw purchases for guns are better controlled?

I am sure that most people who make straw purchases do not get caught. But I would imagine that the rate of straw purchases is nowhere near 1 in 3. As far as I am aware you can't go to federal prison for ten years for make a straw purchase on a car.

 

[quixotecoyote]

I am sure that most people who make straw purchases do not get caught. But I would imagine that the rate of straw purchases is nowhere near 1 in 3. As far as I am aware you can't go to federal prison for ten years for make a straw purchase on a car.

That's 1 in 3 of accounts that made into severe delinquency (collections, eh).

And I learned something from having to check that, straw car purchases aren't illegal. I thought they were. Huh. Makes any comparison to guns pointless.

 

[Halfcentaur]

The fact that scientists made the effort to investigate this question in the first place indicates that at least the social climate is moving away from denial.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=186589

You actually think that the social climate is shifting to people thinking cannabis is more dangerous than we once suspected?
It's disgusting to see so many people's lives ruined due to the lazy and shallow thought process you demonstrate,...and you imply cannabis users are lazy.
Schrodinger's Cat's replies warrant a standing ovation, it's a breath of fresh air to see such clarity of mind.

 

[Uncayimmy]

Don't bother. You are woefully unqualified. You post studies you don't even read, then don't bother to look to see if those studies have had follow up studies.

I absolutely do not deny that heavy marijuana use is a hazard both for physical or mental health, as is drinking and eating. I am both a Harvard grad student (at the Harvard extension grad school, which is different from regular Harvard...don't want to give the impression that I am intelligent enough to get into Harvard's regular graduate program, but we are privy to the same material they are) and Harvard health care employee who has read many, many Harvard studies on weed. ANY study I have EVER seen about adverse affects of pot applies to heavy users, which again, is true for a whole host of other substances as well.

Along those lines here is another story of unintended consequences of drug laws. A good friend of mine has over the years had a strong relationship with alcohol and a weaker one with drugs (mostly pot). He occasionally (once every six to 18 months) has brief (few days) binges on harder drugs. After he and his wife had a son, his drug usage was greatly curtailed, but he still occasionally binged.

Fast forward a few years, and now they are going through a divorce. They have shared custody by their own agreement. He has never been impaired while having custody of his child. Suddenly she decides that she wants him to do a hair test for drugs. She refuses to hand over their child until he does, and says if he does do the test and something shows up, he will not get unsupervised visits. Blah blah blah this will end up going to court

So my friend, totally stressed out by this, the divorce, and some failed business deals, buries himself in a bottle. I mean, buries himself. He was drinking vodka until he passed out, then woke up at 3am to finish off the bottle. He wanted to go visit his son sober, but he was going through withdrawal. His brother died from alcohol withdrawal, so my friend had to instead do a few shots (he had the wherewithal to do it at a bar within walking distance rather than buy a bottle). It scared the bejeezus out of him, so he saw a doc, who in turn advised him to take several days to slowly detox his body.

The irony here is that it would have been far safer for him to self-medicate with some marijuana (we'll ignore his choice of coping mechanisms). His body would have been far less stressed, and there is virtually no risk of a fatal overdose or detox problem. Only he couldn't because he's taking voluntary piss tests every few days to show he's staying clean from illegal drugs.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

You mean people can break the law and make straw purchases anyway? Wow. I had no idea.

By the way, people are arrested for making straw purchases all the time.

Thousands of guns purchased in border states are confiscated from drug dealers in Mexico.

Do you think prosecution of the purchasers of the guns is keeping up?

 

[Beerina]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070324132832.htm

Maybe you should actually read before you post.

If cannabis causes schizophrenia - and that remains in question

This has not been conclusively shown.

Model projections suggest that if the association is confined to heavy cannabis users only

I already stated that heavy, chronic cannabis use is not good for you, in the same way that heavy red meat consumption increases your risk of colon cancer by 20%, and excess drinking increases your risk of a wide host of diseases. Are you proposing we illegalize red meat and alcohol?

Also, in my post, I clearly stated that people predisposed to mental illness certainly could be affected by pot (as they also would be by alcohol)

Also, the same website you listed "sciencedaily" listed a follow up study to the one you posted:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091022101538.htm


Titled:

Minimal Relationship Between Cannabis And Schizophrenia Or Psychosis, Suggested By New Study

Quote:

But our evidence suggests that focusing on schizophrenia may have been misguided

Again, you should be ashamed of yourself. And you just embarrass yourself by posting a study which actually does not support your opinion, but rather goes against it, since the study you posted specifically states that their information only applies to heavy users, not regular pot smokers, and this study's website had a follow up study which further states that the association between schizophrenia & pot is minimal, and even that minimal figure is non conclusive.

It's very amusing though, to me, that in an attempt to prove you are not ignorant, you put up a link which just makes you look even more ignorant, since you obviously did not even read the link nor the follow up study associated with it. The fact that you list "evidence" you did not even read yourself shows how poor you are at forming your opinions. Obviously you are someone who is looking for facts to support your opinion, not someone whose opinion is upheld by facts. So you desperately googled to try and find something that supported your opinion, thought you found it, then posted it here without even bothering to READ IT, because if you had you would see that it clearly states this study only applies to heavy users and is non conclusive.

I suspect it's too early to judge long-term effects, especially given the difficulty in legally studying it.

Here's what'll probably happen: It'll get legalized in general over the next 10 years. 20 years will go by and some problems will begin to be suggested. Eventually these problems will be scientifically verified over and over. Then people on the left will call for its banning, joined by some remnants of the right.

I see nothing historically from either side that gives me confidence people will be left alone.

 

[fuelair]

It isn't poverty, IMO it is the unequal distribution of wealth, mixed with the huge potential for profits provided by the "War on Drugs" which we've been winning for the past 20 years... That unequal distribution of wealth makes it easy to buy violence and sell lives cheap.

It just happens to be drugs in this case, but I'm sure you could substitute Diamonds or gold or any other commodity...

Humans have been doing this to each other since the dawn of time, and in spite of all our accumulated knowledge and wonderful technology, we still haven't figured out how to tame the greed & violence...

[/pessimism]

We have, we're just not willing to do it.