But Seriously...

Dude, I could complain all day about how I disagree with the war on drugs, but for fuck's sake, stop acting like all these guys are innocent or didn't know they were breaking the law. Again though, you seem to think the answer to everything is to blame it on race, and that's just isn't the case. And I'm not saying it's everything, but societies that are totally dominated by racism and white supremacy don't twice elect black presidents.

That's what's really frustrating to me about all this. You want more accountability towards the police. Ok. I don't disagree and I don't think race is totally unrelated, but just blaming every problem on racism isn't going to cause the murder rate to plummet. It's not going to pull people out of poverty, it's not going to fix the education system, and it's not going make sure black kids have fathers. The fact is if people have a mentality where they want to blame everything on factors outside of their control it's a recipe for failure.

And that's exactly what a lot of liberals are doing these days. Their answer to fucking everything is to blame somebody who has 'more privilege'. I'm sorry, but to me it's just such an overly simplistic and misguided world view. Not that everything about the narrative is wrong, but sheesh.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...estern-men-have-halved-in-last-40-years-study

This is fascinating and terrifying.

 

Male population's general fatness and laziness increase has to be the primary cause. And, I would think the downward trend of all of society being male-dominated impacts virility in some way, too. I wonder if you studied a segment of the western world that has remained all male (like the NFL) if those numbers match. Likely, though, the delayed age men are needing their sperm to be successful means it's just being noticed more, as the article points out. Also,

 

It is an interesting observation, apparently there's a stronger correlation with weight and sperm count. Apparently having a gut crushes the little sperms or something. Also I have to wonder the age of the men examined in the contrasting studies, and other confounding factors. It makes for great media, but as for good science who knows.

 

You would think something as basic as age and weight would be accounted for in these studies, but it does make me wonder if the media looks for shitty studies just to be able to report ridiculous findings.

 

If the media looks for shitty studies? Thats all they do. The news isn't in the business of scientific integrity, they're in the business of sensationalism. The primary and only example I need to give is that autism and vaccine study. Any person who read it could see it wasn't credible, but the news took it, and ran with it.

 

Just western men? So Asia, Africa, central and South America, the islands, they're good? Human race will be fine.

 

Apparently the citizens of Baltimore like their violent crime.

This year there have been between 500-600 shootings in Baltimore. To put that in perspective, if Baltimore were the size of Chicago it would equate to 2500-3000 shootings. Chicago has 2100. Baltimore has 200 murders this year, if it were the size of Chicago this number would be 1000-1200. Chicago has 373.

So the city decided it's time to do something about it. One year mandatory sentence for carrying an illegal firearm. "Oh Hell no!" the citizens responded. So the city watered the bill down and made the 1 year mandatory for the second offense of carrying an illegal weapon, you know habitually.

"That's racist!" cried the citizens "It unfairly targets African Americans."

"Unfairly targets." Let's look at the last 100 murders and see who's killing whom in Baltimore. Does one demographic jump off the page at you? Yet targeting the group who is committing murder at a record setting pace is unacceptable. Much better to have all those illegal guns carried by people with no value for human life than to actually do something about it.

Until (IF) they pull their collective heads out of their asses, expect more stories like this .

 

Florida does it right. They practically GIVE guns away, very little restrictions on ownership. But ANY crime involving a gun, from murder to simple brandishing, it's an automatic felony with jail time. The right to bear arms, and the duty to do so responsibly. Or else.

 

Baltimore is an interesting case....the murder rate spiked because they stopped the stop and frisk policy. The argument I heard from a prosecutor was, during stop and frisk you left your gun at home, because you didn't want to get caught with it. Now, you can carry it openly and engage in violence on the spot, which is occurring more frequently. Also, the opioid epidemic here is the wise old learned epidemic the rest of the country is just now starting to suffer from....even the addicts are armed, as my venture into the wrong Royal Farms taught me.

I think this particular policy was unpopular beyond just the knee-jerk reaction. The jails are already stupidly over-crowded, the police are simply leaving the city en masse, so stricter enforcement with fewer cops and almost no community representation was a bad recipe.

Trust me when I say, in my 3rd year of living here there is no simple way to curtail the violence. These communities have very legitimate complaints about their rights being curtailed by police (see the video of the B-more cop planting drugs with his body cam on, while his partners watched) and the police are just as inundated with issues (see abandoning the city for jobs in other parts of the state/counties). The counties are also increasingly engaging in hostile NIMBY-ism to reverse the spread of "undesirables".

Christ, I might go deaf from the dog-whistling. Baltimore is fucked, and is leaking it's population to just about anywhere but here to the tune of 1-2% of it's population annually.

 

Great example of people looking for a reason to yell "racist!"

Laws target those who break the law. In the baltimore case, they were clearly targeting criminals. If the criminals were largely hispanic in that area, then everyone would be yelling to deport them or some shit instead of "that's racist."

People can't leave well enough along.

 

This isn't entirely accurate. They also have the Stand your ground law, which enables you to blow someone away because you're a scared little pussy.

I'm sorry, I meant genuinely afraid for your life.

 

Texas has a version of the Castle Doctrine. Best exemplified by this absolutely horrible 9-1-1 audio.



People ask me about concealed carrying a lot, because it's a hot topic around here and I'm the dude who is happy to discuss it anywhere at any time. I remind them that no matter what every bullet that comes outta that chamber brings two things with it: a very expensive attorney, and jail time. Having a firearm is a privilege, not a right, and words are a lot more effective than bullets.

Unfortunately the laws have not yet caught up to the reality of gun ownership in the US. The cat is outta the bag, and it's going to be damn difficult to regulate it back in. Sad.