Ok, fair enough. How far back in the chain would you be willing to go with murder charges? The guy that sold her the weapons? The guy that sold that guy the weapons? The gun manufacturer?
That's how I would put it. The person who handed the firearms over to the already-convicted felon committed the crime.
Yes, she did. But it's not murder. My question relates to charging someone with murder, and how far back in the chain you want to go.
One of those women involved in that incident in Albany lives near us, and her Facebook page is an interesting read. Its amazing how people will continue to rationalize their support for someone even after their bullshit has been exposed.
She didn't pull the trigger. She simply directly assisted the killer and supplied the weapon that killed. That's at least manslaughter. I wouldn't call her a murderer. But I would be happy if she gets at least 25 years.
This is an interesting opinion piece on CNN and I believe it raises interesting questions regarding the US Economy.
Well, if she bought it legally from a seller, and she had no record, then that guy would have been doing his job. If it was illegal, keep cutting the heads off the hydra. These are people who SHOULD be filling your country's cells instead of drug users and people who didn't pay some of their tuition. Illegal arms trading is what it is to me. If a person can't be safe and lawful with-- of ALL things-- guns, that makes them a potential dangerous criminal who should be punished accordingly. In the end YOU'RE the lawyer, dude. You'll only get opinions from me on this.
Unless she specifically told him "I'm giving these to my boyfriend who's a convicted felon" the seller committed no crime.
Good Lord, what a stupid bitch: "She also said that after the split she left the guns with Ford, took them back with the help of Newton Police less than a month later and then returned them to Ford after he threatened her a short time later." He threatened her so she gave him guns? What. The. Fuck.
If she purchased these weapons legally, the person who sold them to her is in the clear. She knowingly supplied these weapons to a felon, which resulted in a murder. This isn't really that complicated.
Damn right. Hopefully, that will establish a precedent so Ford and Chrysler and Toyota will be charged every time there is a DUI fatality. And, fucking Budweiser, too. The Unions for these places that nurture a work culture to gleefully produce all these murder weapons? String 'em up. Krispy Kreme, Papa Johns, Burger King lead to obesity, which killed my Uncle. I'm coming for you next, you bastards.
So you would essentially do away with mens rea, basically, the idea being she provided a weapon illegally and is therefore on the hook for whatever illegal act is committed using that weapon? Exactly, like Conspiracy. However, there is a requirement in criminal law (generally speaking) that there be 'mens rea' - or guilty mind. Meaning, while giving the weapon to a felon is a crime (i.e. she had a 'guilty mind' in that she intended to give the weapon to the guy) does that intent rise to the level of the necessary intent for murder, or conspiracy to commit murder, without anything more than giving the weapon? And contrary to Danger Boy's assertion, it is extremely complicated.
Could there be a negligent homicide charge? The laws preventing felons from owning firearms are in place to prevent this exact thing from happening. Could it be reasonably inferred that she knew the reason he wanted the gun was to do something highly illegal with it? Besides merely possessing it.
I do see where you are coming from, and you are correct now that I think about it. I guess it boils down to intent. I'm sure she didn't intend or expect that her criminal act would set in motion a string of horrors. Still, charging her with all those crimes he committed thanks to her negligent/illegal actions would set a powerful precedent for anyone else contemplating putting guns in the hands of someone who should not have them. We've got to start somewhere to keep guns out of their hands.
Regardless of the specifics of the legal charges, I feel strongly that there has to be some way to attach personal accountability to the fact that she knowingly provided a weapon to someone who was not allowed to have one. I think we are way too lax on weapon storage and sales transfer in that regard. If she knew he was a felon and wasn't allowed to have any weapons, and provided them anyway, then she should be held accountable for that act. If he then went on and did something with those, like kill a bunch of people, she should also be held partially accountable for that as well, as she went into that transaction with unclean hands. That could almost be considered a conspiracy of some sort, even if she didn't know what the exact details were. I'm no lawyer, and won't get into a semantic war around it, but I do believe she should be held accountable, although to a lesser degree, because she didn't know what the plans were (unlike the murder charge for the driver of a botched bank job, as they knew the plan going in). If people say "she didn't know if he was a felon or not", well, to me, THAT is the part of the process I think needs to be looked at and "fixed". Ignorance is no excuse, and if you own a gun, and want to sell it, the onus should be on you to ensure that you're passing it on to someone who is legally allowed to have one. That means that some sort of information system and process will have to be put into place, so that at least a reasonable effort can be made to do that check, and that will catch the vast majority of people who try to circumvent that check by going to gun shows, etc.
The CNN article was bullshit. Yelp made damn near $400 million last year. It's worth $3.5 billion. They aren't going to go broke paying people a living wage. They are paying the cheapest the market will allow, which isn't enough to exist. The minimum wage jobs will go away? I call bullshit. Or am I the only one whose customer service needs force me to skip as quickly through the automated menu as possible to speak to a human being? There might be a few more self check out lanes How fucking awful would it really be to pay people enough to live independently on? A few cancerous companies like McDonalds or WalMart don't exist anymore? I wouldn't shed a tear. Labor gets more expensive isn't the problem. Company's margins aren't the problem. A company worth the GDP of Jamaica can't pay its employees enough to afford an apartment AND food (and isn't embarrassed) is the issue. As a "millennial", fuck the thinking that somehow we should be grateful for jobs that keep us in poverty. It's fucking over the country in the long run because guess who's not able to buy houses, get married, etc? A living wage isn't asking too much from a company valued in the billions.
The point is that minimum wage is not supposed to be a living wage in the long term. The article argues that low/no skill workers like teenagers, part-timers, and unskilled college graduates will be priced out because the requirements for those jobs will increase. It's not just Walmart and McDonalds, not every company is a Fortune 100 that can easily absorb the impact. If a business can hire two people at minimum wage, then the rate doubles, then one person out of a job completely. I think an increase in the MW is a good thing, but nearly doubling it to an arbitrary amount is fruitless and should be closely analyzed and be based in each company's revenue.
On one hand, I'm sick of bootstraps-y articles like this one which essentially say "shut the fuck up because it could be worse." But on the other hand, I swear every time I read about some millennial bitching about how they don't make enough when they're living in New York, or DC, or Silicon Valley, or any other super high CoL area, I myself want to say, "if it's too expensive where you live then shut the fuck up and move to a place where it's cheaper to live!" I just went on Zillow the other day and saw a bunch of houses in my area selling for anywhere from $85k - $110k. I live in the middle of St. Paul, and the TC metro area is the 16th largest in the country, so it's not like I live in the middle of nowhere, either. But if someone just has to live in NYC, DC, SF, or whatever place is considered hip and trendy because god forbid they just can't see out of the box they've put themselves in, then I have zero sympathy. This article is from 2015, but I think it's pretty good.