SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The Washington Post reports that an internet escort in Charleston, W.Va., may have saved her own life and the lives of many other women, when she shot and killed an alleged attacker who showed up at the woman's home on July 18 after answering an escort ad she had placed on Backpage.com. Neal Falls showed up with multiple pairs of handcuffs and a Subaru full of weapons and tools, including a shovel, knives, a bulletproof vest, a machete, bleach, trash bags, sledgehammers and axes. In Falls's pocket, police said, was a list of names of potential future victims, all of whom are sex workers who advertised on Backpage. Investigators are trying to determine whether Falls is responsible for a string of slayings targeting sex workers in Ohio and Nevada. "We are entering his DNA profile into CODIS, which is a national crime DNA database, to see if it matches any previous submissions from anywhere in the United States," says Steve Cooper, the Charleston Police Department's chief of detectives. "If his DNA has been located in any other crimes and his profile was entered into CODIS, there will be a match."
From the moment Falls showed up at the home of his latest alleged victim, he turned violent. "I knew he was there to kill me," says the victim who asked not to be identified. Falls pulled a gun on her and began strangling her. "When he strangled me he just wouldn't let me get any air. I grabbed my rake and when he laid the gun down to get the rake out of my hands, I shot him. I just grabbed the gun and shot behind me." Local authorities are treating the shooting as an act of self-defense. According to Cooper, "when we find multiple sets of handcuffs, a machete, an axe, a bulletproof vest and container of bleach, the first thing that comes to an investigator's mind is, 'This is a serial killer kit.'"
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @04:09AM
You need something to defend yourself with. This is why diminutive people need firearms. This freak showed up with a variety of weapons, including the firearm he was killed with. The victim knew from the first moment what his intentions were? She should have had a weapon.
Oh, wait. In our screwed up society, a "sex worker" probably has an arrest record. No guns for her, right? Her life isn't valuable enough to defend.
I guess we'll just wait to see how many other defenseless women this guy has killed.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:20AM
The problem here isn't the gun laws, its the laws against prostitution and drug use, which are harmless, especially in comparison to tools specifically created for murder.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:40AM
I'm sure a man marrying a female child is one of the worst crimes ever right?
The older testament allows men to marry girl children.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @05:04AM
In all fairness - when this "fact" is brought up, people should be reminded that life expectancy back then wasn't what it is today. When a person reached sexual maturity, they were not only expected to, but they mostly WANTED to procreate. Although the Jews never experienced the dark ages of Europe, where life expectancy was often 25 to 30, it was still a rare person who lived to 60 or 80 or 100. A person who didn't start his/her family while still in his teens might not GET a chance to have a family.
A 13 year old is not a "child". Reaching puberty has always been one of the rites of passage into adulthood.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Monday July 27 2015, @06:01AM
What I've "heard" but can't recall the reference, is that the poor life expectancy back in the day was heavily skewed by infant mortality, and that once past toddlerhood or some other young age, most people could expect to live to 50 or 60.
OK, so searching leads me here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2625386/ [nih.gov] and there's some nuance. Big difference between men and women, and of course, historical figures don't include the serfs:
Anyway, as for the troll who keeps posting this crap -- any ancient woman would have been crazy to get in a relationship because child-birth was so deadly. All that shit in the bible (a worse guide for morality is hardly imaginable) was from a time when for the most part, women didn't get to make those choices.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @06:15AM
You get points. I should have mentioned in my own post that childbearing was in and of itself a major contributor to the death rate of women.
And, any research into mortality that neglects death by violent means can safely be ignored. That one specific research paper was apparently aimed at some niche research area, probably involving deaths by disease. Also, "Once infant mortality is stripped out,". There was a time when having only one or two children offered no assurance that any of your childre would suvive to puberty.
I can agree and disagree with parts of that article - but en toto, it's a good find. Thumbs up!
(Score: 4, Interesting) by TheLink on Monday July 27 2015, @08:53AM
All that shit in the bible (a worse guide for morality is hardly imaginable) was from a time when for the most part, women didn't get to make those choices.
There's another factor too. Thousands of years ago there wasn't stuff like the "Green Revolution" and effective safe birth control, one farmer or one shepherd couldn't really feed as many people as today. Famines were fairly common.
You can afford a lot more mercy when one farmer can feed 100+ other people than when one farmer could barely feed himself and his family (and his children would have to start working the farm pretty early - whatever modern child labour laws say).
Back then who would feed and raise the mostly inevitable children of prostitutes? Would the resulting adults be better or worse than average in upbringing, education etc? I wouldn't be surprised if many of the children starved or were murdered.
Who feeds the bastards? The children born out of wedlock? Would a farmer want to toil hard and have his children share food with a bastard even in a famine?
Who feeds a thief who can't pay for his crime? Who feeds those you want to give "life sentences" to instead of barbaric death penalties? Are you going to force the whole village to build a prison and feed murderers for 20 years?
Those laws are harsh. But the conditions were quite harsh too, so I can understand why some of the laws are the way they are (not so sure about some of the others). They are actually a lesser evil compared to the practical alternatives available
back then.
See: http://animalsmart.org/animals-and-the-environment/comparing-agriculture-of-the-past-with-today [animalsmart.org]
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/everyday-tech/how-many-farmer-feed.htm [howstuffworks.com]
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday July 27 2015, @06:04PM
In all fairness - when this "fact" is brought up, people should be reminded that life expectancy back then wasn't what it is today. When a person reached sexual maturity, they were not only expected to, but they mostly WANTED to procreate.
Life expectancy, once maturity was reached, was pretty close to ours, consider the bible's mention of three score and ten as the normal range for a man's life. The average life expectancy was brought down by high child mortality, and girls married young and started having children at a younger age in order that there would be more children, thus more that reached maturity.
(Score: 4, Disagree) by Francis on Monday July 27 2015, @05:32AM
The problem here is that there are psychopaths and sociopaths in society and it's not always easy to identify them. Guns have the additional problem of being prone to accidents if you're not careful with them and are easily abused for things like suicide.
Prostitution itself is banned in large part due to human trafficking. Around here the police have largely stopped arresting prostitutes in lieu of going after the pimps, johns and traffickers. Catching johns is rather easy, a targeted operation can catch a dozen of them a day, one right after another. And they'll even have the defendant's own words about what they were planning to pay for when it goes to trial.
I realize that some folks seem to think that there should be no rules, but we live in a democratic society and ultimately, some behaviors are just not consistent with human rights.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:43AM
Really? You think pro-prostitution-legality is an anti-human-rights position? You really think that certain transactions and services between 2 consenting adults should be illegal? The human trafficking occurs because the routes are established by drug smuggling. End prohibition and human trafficking won't have many routes left to use. Also, legalizing prostitution would reduce the number of workers forced into it (the prostitution black market) for the same reason drug legalization would end the drug black market - legalizing and regulating it would provide a superior market choice (and help ensure that all workers are there by choice), which would drive the black market sellers out of business; there'd be nobody buying the black market workers, so sex-worker trafficking would be all but eliminated in areas where its legal. It being illegal and unregulated is exactly what drives the sex-worker-trafficking business and why its profitable.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Francis on Monday July 27 2015, @04:18PM
It is. There is no right to sell sex for money and there is a right not to be forced into prostitution. The whole happy hooker thing is a myth that people use to try and rationalize why it's OK to use people like that. But, look at the people who go into prostitution. It's hardly a who's who of successful people. I'm sure there are a few out there that wanted to do that as a job, but I can't buy the notion that it's the status quo or even common.
It's people that have no money, are on drugs, have self-esteem problems or are outright forced to.
Prostitution is a human rights problem and it's always been a human rights problem. I suppose there may be changes in the future that completely eliminate the people that are enthusiastic about selling sex from the industry, but I'm skeptical that it's even possible.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:31PM
And if both drugs and prostitution were legalized, they'd be able to get the healthcare services they need to quit drugs improve their self-esteem, and/or find a job. Instead, the current approach, having it illegal, is to lock them up. You really think the best way to go about it is to just lock up everyone with problems because they don't have your exact same moral code? How about we get these people the fucking help they need instead of throwing them into a box for months or years because two adults engage in a service transaction you don't like?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:00PM
Your happy hooker myth statement is based on a practice that is illegal. A fair assessment about prostitution and the effects of it on the workers would require an analysis of legal prostitutes. Such analysis would also need to be compared against the physical and psychological assessments of other professions. I.e In almost any profession, you will have percentages of people who are happy, sad, feel exploited, etc, so you have to make sure that when studying *legal* prostitution, if the percentages are different just because of the sexual nature of the job.
And, even if such analysis exists, I am unsure how you can deal with the factor of societies' irrational views about sex, which can influence the mindset of those involved in sexual-based practices and professions.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @10:25PM
So hop on a plane, come to New Zealand, and interview ours. Prostitution is legal, here.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by edIII on Monday July 27 2015, @06:48PM
You seem to have some cognitive dissonance going on here.
This is why the Bill of Rights was a big fat mistake. You seem to believe that it's required to obtain a legal entitlement granted by society for me to sell sex. While I'm most assuredly not a great example of somebody that could sell sex (I'd be lucky to make a nickel), there are plenty of people that could seemingly retire early in life from it. None of those people are required to obtain, from you and I, any kind of legal entitlement. Hence, why the Bill of Rights as written is a huge mistake.
As an American, and you will have to kill me to stop me, I reserve any, and all rights, not expressly prohibited by government, and government possess no rights, unless they are expressly defined by me and the rest of the people of America . Understandably, this puts me at odds with many aspects of my government. As a result I perform civil disobedience quite often, and would happily perform jury nullification in many situations. This is the way our freedom really works. I don't have to justify my need to sell sex, its correctness, its morality, etc. YOU on the other hand, need to convince the rest of us to create a prohibition to the behavior. That's going to need 19 metric butt-tons of science too, since you're talking about civil rights being abridged. Good luck, because the bar for ethics and integrity in removing basic human rights is in fact quite high.
In other words, you cannot grant me a right I already possessed, and you had no rights to take away. Just curious, but just what other "rights" do you think I need to obtain from you, and for what purposes?
Additionally, there is no specific right to not be forced into prostitution. Quite frankly, that sounds like an appeal to emotion. Similarly, I have a right not be to be force fucked with a cattle prod. However, that's just an interesting and rather dramatic interpretation of the basic human rights that are defined for us beyond the U.S Constitution even.
I understand your objection to prostitution as it occurs now, and I even share most of it. However, you are extremely off base with your assertion that sex workers need to petition you for rights to conduct their activities. Those rights were intrinsic in nature. You should be careful that you don't end up destroying other's rights in your zeal to protect them.
Just as prohibition of alcohol was completely incorrect, the prohibition against selling sex is likewise completely incorrect. Women have rights to make bad decisions, and men have rights to be debased pigs. Just as alcohol prohibition created environments highly conducive to crime and victimized people, any kind of prohibition against popular activities will fail .
Whether you like or not, regulation is the answer to this problem, not activities in the shadows. Ohh, as far as the damage from prostitution.... human beings find endless ways to abuse and use each other for their own selfish purposes. The relationships between a hooker and a john is a two-way street of two people abusing each other, and by no means the only example of a toxic relationship.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @08:58PM
all of that anarchist crap only to state that regulation is the answer? fuck off lolbertarian ancap
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:06AM
Well, considering that its what the 9th and 10th amendments say...
(Score: 3, Informative) by HiThere on Monday July 27 2015, @08:15PM
It's not a myth. There do exist "Happy Hookers". This isn't to claim that it's common, but I've known a couple. *I* think they were making bad decisions, but they didn't agree. That said, they *were* in their early 20's. I suspect a few years later they regretted their actions...but I considered that their choice.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday July 28 2015, @05:28AM
by selling their bodies. A particularly well known one in Naples put both her children through university that way.
I know three different strippers who are very devoted mothers to their children. Two have four, the other just one, still an infant.
I met a graduate student when she offered me a Private Dance at a gentlemen's club.
The very first female I ever met who knew about conway's game of life was also a stripper. I did pay for her private show.
For quite a long time I puzzled iver all the young portland women who know about conway's life. Turns out PSU comouter science and electrical engineering are into it.
I purchased the wares of a completely legal swiss lady of the evening who owns a manor on a countryside estate. Unfortunately for me, when I responded to her ad because she "speaks English", I took that to mean that we could have a nice chat as well.
Prostitution is legal in England but I dont care to have English spoken to me anymore.
It is legal in Canada.
It is legal in the rural parts of Nevada.
It is legal in Mexico. I know this because five of my mother's friends hoped to spend the daybshopping in Tijuana butnthey police arrested them all, then forced them to purchase prostitution licenses.
It was legal in japan until it was occupied by the US after world war II. It is still widely practiced there but I understand it is hard for Americans to obtain.
America was founded by religious zealots. We dont make sense to people from other countries.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by Francis on Tuesday July 28 2015, @06:12PM
I'm not surprised that there are some, I'm sure there are also hitmen that do it to put their children through school. I know that during the days of the Jewish Mafia that a lot of that was focused on getting their kids better opportunity. Which is a large part of why it largely doesn't exist in the US any more. No clue as to whether or not it exists in other parts of the world.
Anyways, people like to trot out these examples as if they're the norm, and I have a really hard time buying that. People like that would be very hard to prosecute and would probably not even be worth the effort.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @06:00AM
Human trafficking exists BECAUSE prostitution is banned. If prostitution were 100% legal and open, then the pimp(s) would have one hell of a hard time trapping girls into these "relationships".
Entrapping the johns for soliciting doesn't impress me much. There's just something about the term "entrapment" that makes me nervous. It's a democracy, you say? A democracy in which multiple demographics don't get any say? Interesting . . .
(Score: 5, Informative) by hankwang on Monday July 27 2015, @07:09AM
"Human trafficking exists BECAUSE prostitution is banned. If prostitution were 100% legal and open, then the pimp(s) would have one hell of a hard time trapping girls into these "relationships"."
Here in the Netherlands, prostitution is actually legal. Trafficking is still a big problem. Insecure young women, sometimes even minors, get trapped into those "relationships" nevertheless. They are typically blackmailed to keep working under the threat of being outed towards their friends and parents. Happens both to locals and girls from abroad (Eastern Europe). What these pimps do is illegal (prison sentences) but it happens nevertheless. In my town, a large red-light district was shut down a year ago because of all the trafficking going on.
Making prostitution illegal would not solve these things, but you can't claim that legal prostitution would solve them either.
Avantslash: SoylentNews for mobile [avantslash.org]
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @07:12AM
Interesting . . . I wouldn't expect that. Yeah, I expect opportunists to look for such opportunities, but I would never have thought of it.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @07:21AM
> Interesting . . . I wouldn't expect that.
Frankly your demonstrated understanding of human psychology is very poor in general. I used to be like you when I was a teenager and then I started to wonder why the fuck I was so frequently wrong about people. It was a real blow to the ego to realize people who did things I didn't understand were not actually stupid, that in fact I was the stupid one for assuming their motivations fit into the simplistic boxes of my worldview.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @09:05AM
"It was a real blow to the ego to realize people who did things I didn't understand were not actually stupid"
I don't smoke, drink, or dfo drugs. I don't understand and have never understood why anyone would do anything both so costly and self destructive. Please explain.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @09:46AM
They do it because it feels good. Pretty simple no?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @03:05PM
I can't tell if you are Poe's Lawing or not.
Life is not binary. Substance abuse is not the same as recreational use.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:46PM
Lots of possible reasons:
1. They're not as destructive/self-destructive as the government claims. Prohibition, on the other hand, is far more destructive to individuals and society as a whole.
2. They're not as dangerous as the government claims
3. Because its illegal. Fuck the man, rebel against society!
4. They're fun
5. To see the world and your problems from different perspectives
6. Spirituality
7. Therapy/mental health; MDMA is ideal for this [maps.org]
8. Experimentation, including "The government and my parents lied to me about weed, so I bet they're lying about crack and heroin too. Lets see what those are like."
9. Social lubrication
10. Escapism
11. Physical dependence or addiction
And that's just off the top of my head. There's lots more reasons, and everyone has their own.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday July 27 2015, @01:18PM
Frankly your demonstrated understanding of human psychology is very poor in general. I used to be like you when I was a teenager and then I started to wonder why the fuck I was so frequently wrong about people. It was a real blow to the ego to realize people who did things I didn't understand were not actually stupid, that in fact I was the stupid one for assuming their motivations fit into the simplistic boxes of my worldview.
I don't see that you are in a position by your own admission to make such a judgment or that such a judgment is warranted in this case. When someone puts up a legal/social framework or system, we don't automatically expect to understand all the ways it can possibly be gamed. I don't consider the previous discussion to be poor understanding of human psychology. Now, Runaway may have written elsewhere of things that indicate some degree of ignorance of human nature, but I don't think that has happened here.
Further, to veer back towards the main topic, it's worth noting here that no one has actually demonstrated that making prostitution illegal helps with human trafficking. They have shown (and I might be a bit generous here) the lesser claim that making prostitution legal doesn't completely eliminate human trafficking or dysfunctional relationships which I doubt was Runaway's expectation despite what was written.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @02:53PM
I don't see that you are in a position by your own admission to make such a judgment or that such a judgment is warranted in this case. When someone puts up a legal/social framework or system, we don't automatically expect to understand all the ways it can possibly be gamed.
That you think it has anything to do with being "gamed" suggests you suffer from the poor analytical ability as runaway. Based on your posting history that is unsurprising you two are fellow travelers.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:20AM
That you think it has anything to do with being "gamed" suggests you suffer from the poor analytical ability as runaway.
No, "gamed" is merely an obvious term with respect to discussing intentional systems. When someone figures out how to exploit for benefit a contrived system in a way which was not intended, then it is "gamed". That is all. Given that one of the justifications for legalizing prostitution is to reduce human trafficking, then any behavior, cunning or not, which both runs counter to the intent and amply benefits the person exhibiting the behavior, is gaming of the system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @11:05AM
So it's legal, but how well is it regulated? Is it licensed? Are there inspections?
There's certainly nothing inherent in legalisation which prevents trafficking. What is needed is some easy way for clients to know they're getting the genuine article.
(Score: 2) by Francis on Monday July 27 2015, @03:59PM
That's always going to be a problem under a system like that. The Swedes came up with a system where it's legal to sell sex, but it's illegal to buy sex, traffic in sex workers or promote other's prostitution. It's a system that we've adopted lately. The prostitutes were never the problem, the rape, sexual abuse, exploitation and various other things associated with it were.
People like to suggest that legalization would solve the problem, but more likely it would just make it that much harder to prosecute when there's a problem.
In The Netherlands, the issue they have is primarily due to people compelling the sex workers to lie about the conditions. So you have brothels and it can be really hard for the authorities to determine and prove that the workers are all there voluntarily.
One can solve the tautological problem by legalization, but you're not likely to really solve most of the problems by just legalizing it.
(Score: 2) by hankwang on Monday July 27 2015, @05:04PM
"So it's legal, but how well is it regulated [in NL]? Is it licensed? Are there inspections?"
Sex workers are considerered entrepreneurs, who don't need a license. However, you will need a license to run a brothel. I think inspections are done, but that means that there should be proper employee records. Possibly, prostitutes are asked to declare that they are doing this out of free will. The problem is that abused prostitutes are unlikely to tell an inspector that they are being forced; it is difficult to prosecute pimps.
Avantslash: SoylentNews for mobile [avantslash.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:33PM
The goal isn't to eliminate human trafficking completely, because that's impossible, but to significantly reduce it and its profitability, which is exactly what it would accomplish. No solution is perfect, period, but their lack of perfection is not a reason why they should not be implemented.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday July 27 2015, @06:14PM
Here in the Netherlands, prostitution is actually legal. Trafficking is still a big problem. Insecure young women, sometimes even minors, get trapped into those "relationships" nevertheless. They are typically blackmailed to keep working under the threat of being outed towards their friends and parents.
Would this still happen if prostitution was legal and accepted everywhere? It seems to me that one could only be trapped into a position such as this as long as there is only a limited, "shameful" industry to take advantage of it. Maybe we should bring back the temple prostitutes, and ally prostitution with all the churches.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @07:03PM
The threat of outing is because of societal pressures and not an aspect of legality. If society had more rational views about sex, such pressures should not exist. For example, I do not think any less, or more, of a person that chooses to involve themselves in consenting sex-related practices.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @02:14PM
No, human trafficking exists because there is money in it. If prostitution were 100% legal and and open, then the pimp(s) would start beating on the "free operators" and drive them out of their turf. Or into their stables, more likely. You can't wave a magical "freedom wand" and expect all will be better. I'd have thought we'd have learned that from Iraq.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:54PM
You mean like how the drug cartels are blowing up marijuana dispensaries and killing the legal sellers in Colorado and Washington? Wait, they're not? You mean legalization has almost completely driven out the marijuana black market in those states where marijuana is legalized? Who'da thunked it?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday July 27 2015, @06:08AM
Prostitution is banned because of moralism. And as the poster above me already said, trafficking is a symptom of the black market. Is anyone trafficking secretarial services? As in abducting young girls and forcing them into a lifetime of servitude answering the phone and transferring calls? Who would want to own a receptionist?
Seriously, our laws create half our problems.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by hemocyanin on Monday July 27 2015, @06:10AM
lame, that "who would want to own a receptionist" was part of an aborted thought along the lines of: receptionists are annoyingly immature, drama magnets, and typically unreliable for any extended duration. Who would want to own that problem when you get them for minimum wage and fire them whenever they wear out?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 27 2015, @01:44PM
receptionists are annoyingly immature, drama magnets, and typically unreliable for any extended duration
Except when they're not, of course.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday July 27 2015, @11:10PM
I've tried all age groups, males and females -- the good ones use the job for what it is, a stepping stone to get further in life and thus don't last long -- maybe a year. The ones who can't get further in life, inherently suck. When you hire a receptionist, you're looking for someone who is smart, pleasant, and has no aspirations in life. Those types of people are really rare.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @06:21AM
> Is anyone trafficking secretarial services?
Probably not, but labor trafficking is a big problem. Here's one high-level article about it, [cnn.com] there are tons more out there. [google.com] Its just that sex traffickers get lots of press because it's sex. We like to pretend that slavery doesn't exist anymore.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday July 27 2015, @06:44AM
Labor traficking is another black-market like issue. I'm not for open borders, so don't misunderstand, but the reason this is possible is because there are people who want to come to the US but can't legally. This artificial restriction causes them to seek other methods of entry, which puts them in contact with criminals, which puts them at risk of being indentured or enslaved. If the US' borders were totally open, it wouldn't really be a problem because all they'd need is bus fare. Of course, if that was the case, our employment economy would likely be horrific and the environment totally hosed.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 27 2015, @11:58AM
Seriously, our laws create half our problems.
Its some weird primate behavior thing. In theory you can have legal prostitution but it always seems to devolve into a mess of human trafficking and abuse. Likewise, in theory, there's no physical, economic, or biological reason that very humane and civilized slavery couldn't exist. However in practice it usually seems to be implemented as a total cluster F and the propaganda engines say its a 100% fail.
The best thing I can come up with for an answer is privacy. If you keep the sex workers in a private room where nobody sees nothin then they're going to end up victims. Doing it out on the street or a beach might not fit culturally or even primate instincts, but at least it would work better. Likewise slavery, and for that matter, sweatshop industrial conditions, work best 100 miles out in the country on the plantation where nobody sees nothin or behind locked factory doors.
I can provide some evidence of semi-humane legal slavery, look at the prison industrial complex, people being owned (theoretically by the state, practically by the warden and guards) doing grunt labor outsourced from corporations yet its at least semi-humane or at least no less humane than the prison experience without slave labor aka just sitting in cells. And the key seems to be prison labor is at least semi-public and there's a continuous turnover of people arriving and leaving prison and X percent where X is huge of some subcultures end up in prison so its so public its practically a way of life in those subcultures. Documented, monitored, etc. Its no picnic being a slave in America in 2015 but its "not that bad" or not much worse than just being a plain ole prisoner.
People seem willing to pay lots of $$$ for sex, so at least theoretically extreme government regulation seems possible, which would at least reduce the level of trafficking. One interesting idea is making it illegal (or illegal-er) to hire illegals, you want to hire an escort the punishment is 100x or 1000x higher for a non-citizen or non-local. You can come to a financial agreement with the girl next door, but its hard to forcibly traffic the literal girl next door. Maybe not impossible, but certainly not easy, or as easy as trafficking someone kidnapped in a foreign country.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Monday July 27 2015, @01:22PM
In theory you can have legal prostitution but it always seems to devolve into a mess of human trafficking and abuse.
Except of course, when it doesn't. Someone mentioned the Netherlands. Despite having some modest amount of human trafficking and abuse, they are an obvious counterexample already present in the discussion.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:26PM
What? You cite an example proving the guy's point and claim it disproves it? Come on man. Delusional arguments like that do not help your case.
How about an actual counter-example?
That is kind of bullshit reasoning I was talking about with respect to you and runaway being fellow travelers when it comes to not understanding human psychology. When faced something that calls your beliefs into question you just convince yourself that it actually supports them. That's straight up cognitive dissonance. You need some serious introspection.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:21AM
You cite an example proving the guy's point
Note that it doesn't actually prove the guy's point.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:57AM
>> You cite an example proving the guy's point
>
> Note that it doesn't actually prove the guy's point.
Yes it does. The NL legalized prostitution in 2000 and yet sex trafficking still continues.
Or are you doing that minutiae thing again where since it doesn't exactly match the hyperbole it actually disproves the intent? Because that's a game for people who retreat into literalism when the real world is too complicated for them.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by khallow on Tuesday July 28 2015, @01:25AM
The NL legalized prostitution in 2000 and yet sex trafficking still continues.
The solution is imperfect so it doesn't count?
Or are you doing that minutiae thing again where since it doesn't exactly match the hyperbole it actually disproves the intent? Because that's a game for people who retreat into literalism when the real world is too complicated for them.
Hyperbole such as:
In theory you can have legal prostitution but it always seems to devolve into a mess of human trafficking and abuse.
The minutiae argument wins yet again. I recognize that there were, even by our standards some particularly hyperbolic statements made on the perfection of legalizing prostitution. That wasn't what I responded to nor defended.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:50AM
> The solution is imperfect so it doesn't count?
Where is there proof that it was a solution at all?
> Hyperbole such as:
Yes. That is the exact phrase I was referring to.
> The minutiae argument wins yet again.
It is so weird that you can say that and actually mean it. Its like you are a computer or something. If there is a syntax error that negates the entire meaning of the argument.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @03:37AM
Its called "harm reduction". It'll happen no matter what, and there's nothing we can do to stop it, so we should try to make it as safe as possible for the workers. See this [harmreduction.org] page and just replace "drug use" with "prostitution".
And your argument that it hasn't completely eliminated sex-worker trafficking is the nirvana fallacy [logicallyfallacious.com]. The goal is not to eliminate it completely but significantly reduce its occurrence and harms.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:02PM
Where is there proof that it was a solution at all?
I treat it as a solution hence circularly it is. Now, I think what you're really asking is if it is a solution that works. I don't know. We never got that far until now.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:58PM
Prostitution is legal in Las Vegas, Nevada, too, so there's another counter-example to the FUD. Prostitution will happen no matter what, it can't be stopped (even fucking monkeys [outsidethebeltway.com] engage in prostitution), so the only sensible choice is to try to make it as safe for the workers as we can.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:10AM
> Prostitution is legal in Las Vegas, Nevada, too,
No it isn't. It's only legal in a couple of rural counties so far out in the boonies that the population is practically nil and then its only in highly regulated brothels that are pretty expensive. You can't draw much of any conclusion from such a tiny sample size with such high barriers to entry.
All the places where it is legal in the general populace, like, say Canada, still have sex trafficking problems too. Trafficking happens for a number of reasons, most of them are under the umbrella of the victims not having a choice - they lack social support systems (e.g. the runaway teen) or don't speak the language, don't know their rights, don't know where their next meal is going to come from and the traffickers install themselves in the place of the normal support systems and then exploit the hell out of their position.
I'm not arguing against legalizing prostitution, what I am arguing against is trivialization of the social complexity of sex trafficking by guys like khallow who simply can't even comprehend that the complexity even exists. If you do a half-assed job of legalizing it, you only fix one tiny piece of leverage that the traffickers use and can end up enabling them by taking some of the legal pressure off.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:37AM
No it isn't. It's only legal in a couple of rural counties so far out in the boonies that the population is practically nil and then its only in highly regulated brothels that are pretty expensive. You can't draw much of any conclusion from such a tiny sample size with such high barriers to entry.
Wikipedia says [wikipedia.org] 12 of 17 Nevada counties allow for it. And there's supposedly "66 times" as much illegal prostitution as legal, however that's measured.
I'm not arguing against legalizing prostitution, what I am arguing against is trivialization of the social complexity of sex trafficking by guys like khallow who simply can't even comprehend that the complexity even exists.
You forgot to wiggle your fingers mysteriously when you said "social complexity". For someone supposedly into the nuance of this thing, you sure have a simple-minded way to describe it.
If you do a half-assed job of legalizing it, you only fix one tiny piece of leverage that the traffickers use and can end up enabling them by taking some of the legal pressure off.
And there we go. Another socially complex problem solved by Slashdot's groupmind: don't half-ass it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:51AM
> Wikipedia says 12 of 17 Nevada counties allow for it.
You seem to be trying to refute my point with minutiae rather than meaning. That doesn't change he fact that they are "rural counties so far out in the boonies that the population is practically nil." Nevada only has a couple of population centers and none of them have legalized sex work.
> And there's supposedly "66 times" as much illegal prostitution as legal, however that's measured.
So? You are disproving your own position with that. Despite the fact that it is legal in parts of nevada there still is well over a magnitude more illegal prostitution. By your simple-minded theories that shouldn't happen, they'd all go next door where it is legal. Except they don't because legality is only one small factor.
> You forgot to wiggle your fingers mysteriously when you said "social complexity".
Did you miss the part where I just finished listing factors of that complexity? You are just proving my point that you are mentally incapable of recognizing these things, even when they are spelled out for you in black and white.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 28 2015, @01:46AM
You seem to be trying to refute my point with minutiae rather than meaning. That doesn't change he fact that they are "rural counties so far out in the boonies that the population is practically nil." Nevada only has a couple of population centers and none of them have legalized sex work.
/minutiae relevant to the topic. Two thirds of the counties of the state allow prostitution. That's significantly more than your " a couple".
Did you miss the part where I just finished listing factors of that complexity? You are just proving my point that you are mentally incapable of recognizing these things, even when they are spelled out for you in black and white.
Let's look at that paragraph in question:
All the places where it is legal in the general populace, like, say Canada, still have sex trafficking problems too. Trafficking happens for a number of reasons, most of them are under the umbrella of the victims not having a choice - they lack social support systems (e.g. the runaway teen) or don't speak the language, don't know their rights, don't know where their next meal is going to come from and the traffickers install themselves in the place of the normal support systems and then exploit the hell out of their position.
Notice the complete absence of anything quantifiable. It's vague talk about things that do happen, but which can be moderated in severity and occurrence by legalizing prostitution (particularly, creating social support systems, protection from exploitation (by creating viable escape routes), and better pay (solves the next meal problem). The real question isn't whether Runaway's hyperbole is correct or not, but whether legal prostitution helps reduce human trafficking. Also, note that most human trafficking is actually not particularly exploitative and entered into voluntarily. You just hear about the kidnap for sex rings, not about the illegal migrants who were supporting a family at home on gainful employment.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:46PM
Yeah, they're called "H1B"s.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday July 28 2015, @11:07PM
Prostitution itself is banned in large part due to human trafficking.
Ban something entirely because it could be abused. Land of the free, home of the brave.
And I would say banning it only increases the harm.
I realize that some folks seem to think that there should be no rules, but we live in a democratic society and ultimately
That does not follow. Opposing the banning of prostitution does not make one an anarchist.
some behaviors are just not consistent with human rights.
Like government thugs infringing upon people's fundamental right to control their own bodies?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Monday July 27 2015, @07:29AM
"tools specifically created for murder".....tell me AC, how EXACTLY is a 120 pound woman supposed to defend herself against a guy that benches 220 and is a good 100 pounds heavier and bigger than she? Is she supposed to beg nicely after he's done raping her and maybe, juuust maybe, he might not do what this freak obviously always intended and kill her?
You can NOT count on the cops to protect you, not only can it be hours before they even show up but the courts ruled they have no obligation to even show up at all. You can NOT count on non lethal weapons like pepper spray and tasers, one trip to Youtube will show you a methhead tweaked out can blow through that shit like it wasn't even there. AAMOF a cop customer of mine told me how it once took nearly a dozen of them with clubs to drop a weightlifting ex-con pumped up on that shit, that even with LEO quality non lethal (stronger than what civilians get by a large amount) he just blew through both a tasing and being sprayed like it was nothing and according to my cop friend he basically stomped the shit out of a half a dozen big burly cops before they were able to dogpile enough of them to bring the guy down as even with a broken arm, collarbone, and 3 busted ribs he was so pumped full of that shit he didn't even feel it.
So I'm sorry but the Colt was called "the great equalizer" for a damned good reason, because it allowed the weak to protect themselves from those that would prey upon them. And all those gun ban laws ignore the rotting elephant in the room which is this...with a border so broken that you can bring everything from heroin to sex slaves in by the ton the simple fact is all gun laws do is keep the lawful from defending themselves because criminals? Yeah you see they do not follow laws hence why they are called criminals and not cub scouts! All one has to do is look at the amount of gun crimes in places that try to completely ban guns like Chicago versus cities that encourage gun ownership to see guns DO deter criminals, not to mention the last stats I looked at said the majority of violent crimes involving guns involved stolen guns, hence showing criminals are NOT deterred by gun laws in the least bit.
Finally allow me to address the straw man most in favor of gun bans bring up, the UK. To say a UK style ban would work in the USA is as insane as saying that China and the USA must be exactly alike since they are both superpowers as it ignores 1.- the UK is a small island, much easier to control what comes in than the USA with its two massive borders and 2.- the UK unlike the USA is surrounded by first world countries with (generally) strict gun laws. Contrast this with South America which has been a dumping ground of USA and Soviet weaponry for a half a century, so much so that there are places south of the border where an AK will cost less than a new pair of 501 jeans. Finally it ignores that just south of the border there is a massive civil war between the drug cartels and the (frankly equally nasty) Mexican authorities so the odds of securing that border with help from our neighbors good enough to keep out....well pretty much anything is pretty much zip.
So I'm sorry but until the day comes that we don't have violent criminals who see zero value in human life I'd much rather see our citizens be able to own guns to protect themselves. As for her being a hooker? I've argued for over 2 decades that drugs and prostitution should be legal and this certainly doesn't change my opinion, in fact if she and her fellow sex workers would have been able to legally carry firearms this scumbag might not have been able to become a serial killer in the first place.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:13PM
A situation where murder would be helpful is not a example of how guns are safe. Your entire post is but a red herring, completely unrelated to anything the GP said. Guns are tools specifically created for murder, that murder can help one defend oneself does not counter that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 29 2015, @01:22AM
"As for her being a hooker? I've argued for over 2 decades that drugs and prostitution should be legal"
Agree on the drugs.
The problem with the prostitution is that it has been tried in places like Germany and Holland and it actually INCREASES the amount of human trafficking that occurs, especially of children. The countries where it is legal are moving towards making prostitution illegal, or at the least much less legal, again.
The US would be wise to look at such experiments and see what works and what doesn't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @10:33PM
Actually, gun laws are a problem. I don't see anywhere in the second amendment that says the government can stop people with an arrest record from getting guns.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:22AM
So John Houser shouldn't have been denied weapons because he could've been victimized by a home invader too, right? And the same goes for the South Carolina church shooter.
Everybody deserves and needs to carry around multiple sacks of automatic weapons! USA! USA!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @04:33AM
I believe that the authorities have already admitted that they screwed the pooch with Houser. He wasn't permitted to have a weapon.
HOWEVER - I think that Houser should have had access to weapons - but I also think that the theater goers should have had access to their own weapons. House stands up, pulls out a weapon, and takes a shot - and five people return fire.
We don't shoot dogs down in the street - unless and until they start attacking poeple. Then, we kill them wherever we find them. Crazy shooters should be treated just like rabid dogs. They're free to do anything they care to do, UNTIL they start using a weapon.
Yes, USA! USA! I hear the condescension in your voice. Can you hear it just as plainly in mine? Freedom isn't free - and if you're not willing to defend your freedom, then you are undeserving of that freedom.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:40AM
> House stands up, pulls out a weapon, and takes a shot - and five people return fire.
Because in a theater everybody is paying attention to what is going on behind them.
> Crazy shooters should be treated just like rabid dogs. They're free to do anything they care to do, UNTIL they start using a weapon.
The thing about 90+% of mass shootings is that the shooter is suicidal. Getting killed in the process is part of the plan even if they've haven't articulated it. Killing them after they've killed a bunch of people is no deterrent.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @04:49AM
House was not suicidal. He planned for a getaway. He only returned to the theater when he heard the cops outside.
And - so what if the shooter is suicidal? If five people shoot back at the shooter, he gets his wish BEFORE he murders ten, or fifty other people. I say, "Justice served."
Paying attention to what is going on behind them? People WERE paying enough attention to flee the scene. If SOME of those people had been armed, they might have put paid to House before he killed a second, then a third person, then . . . .
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:59AM
> House was not suicidal.
I soooo knew you would say that. Remember the 90% number and the part about not being articulated? Just because he had a half-baked plan doesn't mean that was his goal. The half-baked part is a pretty clear give away there.
> If five people shoot back at the shooter, he gets his wish BEFORE he murders ten, or fifty other people.
The number of cases of mass killings exceeding 10 victims can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Your solution is essentially no different from current results.
> I say, "Justice served."
Fuck justice say all the dead people.
> Paying attention to what is going on behind them? People WERE paying enough attention to flee the scene.
AFTER he shot up a bunch of people. If you read the reports you'll see that lots of people thought it was a sound effect from the movie. Your mental contortions only reveal the weakness of your position.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @05:19AM
My mental contortions? What of your own? You KNOW that there are dangerous poeple out there, but you are content to deny the average person any opportunity to protect himself from those dangerous people.
Do you always win this game? http://evenementnieuws.nl/wp-content/themes/evenementnieuws/old-newsitem-images/Twister.jpg [evenementnieuws.nl]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:38AM
> You KNOW that there are dangerous poeple out there, but you are content to deny the average person any opportunity to protect himself from those dangerous people.
Actually I haven't said one thing in favor of gun control, in fact, in at least one other sub-thread here I've taken apart a pro-gun control argument.
What I have done is show how weak all of your arguments are. I'm under no illusions that there are dangerous people out there. It's just that you've sincerely failed to show that your solution makes a meaningful difference in outcomes.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @07:42AM
You have not shown any such thing. He does not believe you, I don't believe you, and looking at the rest of the responses, no one else believes you. You have taken arguments that are qualitative and have treated them qualitatively without actually refuting them in either form partially or as a whole. Take a logic 101 class kid.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:49PM
Making your opponents' argument out to be something other than what it actually is is called a straw man [yourlogicalfallacyis.com].
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 27 2015, @12:10PM
Which anti-depressant or similar medication was he on? This is a pretty standard question for mass shootings, they're almost universally on one or the other. Its not unheard of to have a non-medicated mass shooter, but its more of a once in a decade thing than a once a month thing like medicated shooters.
Its not culturally possible to discuss this in mass media because lots of corporate money is made selling anti-depressants just think of the TV ads alone.
However, were it possible to discuss the topic, its an interesting moral / ethical debate that we've apparently decided that, say, for every million who get a year of treatment (aka medication) (of some varying level of success below 100%) we seem to tolerate about one dead body in a mass shooting.
Some day it'll probably all be looked back on like those currently shocking tobacco company exec statements from the old days. "Well sure it kills people and we stack the bodies like cordwood but we make lots of money so its all good."
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @12:35PM
Good point. Very good point, VLM. Drugs, drugs, drugs - drugs are evil, unless a corporation stands to make a profit off of those drugs. The cops will shoot you in a dope deal gone bad, but they're happy to see you "medicated" with good corporate drugs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @03:22PM
Which anti-depressant or similar medication was he on? This is a pretty standard question for mass shootings, they're almost universally on one or the other.
Dude, you are confusing cause and effect. It should be no surprise that nearly all mass shooters are on anti-depressants, because they are fucking depressed! If anti-depressants actually caused people to become mass shooters, then we'd have hundreds of mass shootings every day because over 10% of the population is taking them.
If you want to get worked up about corporate conspiracies you ought to be focused on the well-established fact that anti-depressants don't actually work. [scientificamerican.com] That except for the most severe cases, they don't improve outcomes any better than placebo (mostly because placebo works amazingly well).
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:55AM
House stands up, pulls out a weapon, and takes a shot - and five people return fire.
And everyone shoot at everyone and a lot of people die from stray bullets.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @07:45AM
It doesn't happen. Go ahead and try to find stats on it. There aren't any because your scenario has yet to exist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:51PM
It can and does happen. That walls don't stop bullets is exactly why the military doesn't use the "spray and pray" method of clearing houses anymore.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:11AM
OR, OR, here's a insane, delusional thought pulled from lala land - we prevent the entire situation from ever occurring by not letting homicidal nutjobs easily obtain tools that allow them to murder large numbers of people in mere seconds! TOTALLY FUCKING CRAZY IDEA, I KNOW!
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Monday July 27 2015, @05:48AM
ummm, I'm not sure that I disagree with you, but the "tools [to] murder people in mere seconds" also includes common objects like knives, hammers, rocks, glass, pencils, etc.
Yes, in an ideal world, "nutjobs" shouldn't have access to anything dangerous, but "non-nutjobs" shouldn't be denied tools for self preservation / defense.
BTW - did you know a news magazine can be easily used as a lethal weapon? I learned that decades ago, from a Special Forces instructor. He explained the lethal use of DOZENS of commonly available objects.
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @06:03AM
> BTW - did you know a news magazine can be easily used as a lethal weapon?
You have a different definition 'easily' than most people. I'm confident that the average person can kill much more easily with a gun than with a rolled up magazine. If that weren't the case, nobody would bother with guns, we'd all just walk around with magazines in concealed holsters.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @07:48AM
It is a one step method to turn any glossy magazine into a lethal weapon. The only thing stopping people from doing it more is ignorance. Would you like to bad literacy too? After all, words like "declaration of war" have killed orders of magnitude more people with less effort than any other weapon in recorded history.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:24PM
So then why aren't those used for mass murders? Could it be, I don't know, that guns are somehow different from other tools that could potentially be lethal if used in a certain way in that they're specifically created for murder and let you kill with a tiny movement of a single finger, significantly less effort than any other commonly available tool? That other tools can be used for murder is not a counterpoint to the fact that guns are specifically designed to murder many people in mere seconds. Comparing guns to knives, hammers, etc, is a false analogy because they are in no way analogous.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:59AM
Just as long as we don't do it by implementing a massive background check infrastructure that is easily co-opted for all kinds of other uses. But that seems to be the direction we are heading down.
My solution for reducing gun deaths is not popular with many -
(1) Improve mental health services - 2/3rds of gun deaths are suicides, while over 90% of failed suicides are still alive 10 years later, so most of those ~20K gun suicide each year are mistakes. And then there is the fact that practically all mass shootings are a form of suicide too. Help people (without stigmatizing/criminalizing them) before they feel hopeless enough to pull the trigger and you'll save more lives than anything else.
(2) End the war on drugs. My belief, for which I have no proof other than gut feel, is that 90% of gun homicides are drug related - either gang activity (which is fueled by drug money) or in conjunction with property crimes by addicts looking to fund their addiction.
My belief is that those two things in conjunction are far and away the most effective way to reduce gun deaths. But (1) is expensive and idealogical unpalatable to a large number of people and (2) faces opposition from the billion dollar drug-war industry (DEA, cop unions, prison guard unions, for-profit prison industry, etc) and is idealogically unpalatable to many of the same group as #1.
(Score: 2) by CoolHand on Monday July 27 2015, @03:17PM
You have my vote, AC...
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job-Douglas Adams
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:32AM
Agree. One reason for people refusing to seek help is that they can be essentially criminalized for it. Your right to bear arms can be permanently revoked. You can be imprisoned, drugged against your will, and essentially tortured. It wasn't all that long ago that you could also have pieces of your brain forcibly removed.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Monday July 27 2015, @04:37AM
So John Houser shouldn't have been denied weapons because he could've been victimized by a home invader too, right? And the same goes for the South Carolina church shooter.
Which is a correct point. The "anyone could be a mass murderer" argument fundamentally fails because anyone actually trying to be a mass murderer is already breaking more serious laws. And people don't lose their rights now just because at some point in the future they do bad stuff.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:16AM
I'm curious, which laws would those be? Which laws are they breaking before they start murdering, or is murder the "more serious law" to which you're referring?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @07:50AM
Planning to commit murder is a crime and it is more serious than obtaining a gun illegally.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 27 2015, @01:32PM
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:32PM
There is no crime until you actually act on it. "Attempted murder" requires actually attempting. How do you prove that somebody was planning a murder before they actually commit it? Mass surveillance? Thoughtcrime? The point is, while technically there may be "breaking more serious laws" before mass-murdering (in that they commit the murder of one person before they can kill masses of people), there is no way to actually catch or stop somebody until they actually begin their mass-murder spree. Thus, khallow's point about the "anyone could be a mass murderer" argument failing is not true, because there's no way to catch a potential mass murderer before they start murdering. Nobody is a mass-murderer until they become a mass-murderer, but everyone could potentially be one.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday July 28 2015, @02:38AM
In theory you are correct, however real life doesn't work that way. You can be convicted of "intent" to commit any number of crimes. Possession with intent to sell, for example, carries a significantly harsher penalty than just possession. They simply assume that if you have over a certain amount you must be intending to sell.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @03:42AM
"Possession with intent to sell" is just bullshit nonsense form the ridiculousness of prohibition. Do you have a non-prohibition example of somebody being convicted of intending to do something but not actually doing it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @03:44AM
I should include further proof for this. "Intent to sell" does not have anything to do with showing intent to sell, if you have over a certain amount, you're automatically guilty of "intent to sell". There is no intent ever proven, just that if you have over a certain amount, you obviously must be intending to sell it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:08AM
You do know that people from the US don't call it the "USA" and certainly don't chant it any more than every German is a Nazi or every person from the UK is a genocidal imperialist, right?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:47AM
You've obviously never been to the USA. They certainly do call it the "USA" and chant it like genocidal imperialists.
(Score: 1) by redneckmother on Monday July 27 2015, @05:54AM
uhhh... "They", as in "Everyone"? I call "shenanigans".
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @06:08AM
Don't be obtuse.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @06:04AM
I call bullshit. The only place I've ever heard people chanting "USA USA" is on Youtube.
Of course, I've only been in the US for about 55 years or so. I spent the other 4 years overseas, so I can't really claim to know a whole lot about the USA.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @06:33AM
> The only place I've ever heard people chanting "USA USA" is on Youtube.
It is everywhere. Sporting events, political rallies, political protests, when bin laden was killed, 4th of july, etc.
The fact that you see it on youtube is proof of that, not counter-proof.
When I do a search for "usa chant" on youtube, I get 149,000 hits. Even if half them are dupes or something else, that's still a fuckton of jingoism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @07:53AM
Search Germans are Nazis. You will get more hits.
Search English war crimes. Same result.
Search 911 was an inside job.
See the pattern?
Now please stop making a fool of yourself. Obviously you lack higher education and know nothing of Americans but choose to be bigoted about your views anyway.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @03:38PM
> See the pattern?
The only pattern I see is that none of your examples are recordings of those actual things happening. Don't confuse people talking about something on camera with people actually doing it on camera.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:36PM
Yep. Repeatedly confirmed bigot. Don't even bother to listen to this idiot that can't even figure out markup language.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:55PM
Where did that happen? Is there a bunch of missing posts I can't see? Nice ad hominem btw, real classy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @09:47PM
A bigot is a person that refuses to change beliefs, prejudices, and hatred when evidence to the contrary is provided. Person A makes a claim. Person B refutes them. Person A ignores evidence and continues their claim. Person A is a bigot. No ad hominem, in fact the opposite. I am saying that he is so hatefully irrational, he does not even recognize (or worse, accept) when proven wrong.
This has happened several times in a row just on this thread. Note the lack of knowledge in markup language and "quoting" people with a ">". A clear signature as that is not a social norm on news sites. Using markup language is.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:15AM
And where are these claims, contrary evidence, refutations, and ignorings of claims? This is not an example of Poe's Law, I assure you. All I see is you attacking the other person because they disagree with you, in which case the term you're looking for is "SJW" not "bigot".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:41AM
> Person B refutes them. Person A ignores evidence
You seem confused by the definitions of "refute" and "evidence." Random points that fail to address the issue aren't refutations or evidence, they are red herrings.
Show me one video on youtube of a 9/11 conspiracy. Not a discussion, not reporting, not a re-enactment, a video of actual people committing conspiracy.
Here's ten videos of crowds of people actually doing the USA chant, not re-enactments, the actual events. There are literally thousands more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7IoQ-qI81s#t=0m30s [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xrl7a6p7P5U#t=0m7s [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpMxF20x5wk#t=0m8s [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1YQDjpuY_U#t=4m50s [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw-axGnkX1g#t=2m18s [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zw4Q96tCc5U [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35pfllMiLag [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0N58djs1HM#t=0m31s [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8eUuBUOnjE#t=20s [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_cu-Eyh-k0#t=40s [youtube.com]
So, who is the one refusing to change their beliefs in the face of actual evidence to the contrary here?
> Using markup language is.
Assburger FTL.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @11:26PM
I saw it after gay marriage was legalized. I saw it when Bin Laden was killed. Etc.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @07:56AM
Again calling it the USA. It is the US. I live here. I was born here. Don't even pretend to understand our culture more than us. Clearly I hit a sore spot with the comment on the UK. It was your nation that started the slave trade. It was your nation that caused genocide. It is your nation that has been calling for the US to be more militarily active in the world for an entire century.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:59PM
Wow, me too! But unlike you, I'm smart enough to know that the USA is a big enough place that people have different dialects in different states and don't all act exactly the same everywhere; 319 million people is a lot of people, and 3.8 million mi² is a really big area. Maybe you're so isolated you've never seen the psychotic "USA, USA!" chants, but the USA is a big fucking place. Try going outside of your mom's basement every now and then.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @09:52PM
Such anger. Much projection. All lies.
Again with quintessential non-american behavior, or should I say behaviour. Nobody that lives here needs to lookup wikipedia to know the population or size of the US. (hint, Americans don't use "million miles square" they use "across" as in 3000 miles across. and nobody here believes the official pop count. It was over 330 mil fifteen years ago.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:17AM
No real American would ever speak like that, right [yourlogicalfallacyis.com]?
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Tuesday July 28 2015, @11:17PM
So John Houser shouldn't have been denied weapons
Correct. The second amendment lists no exceptions, as far as I can tell.
That doesn't mean I think it's a good idea for everyone to own guns. I just think it should be allowed.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @04:37AM
Women should not have weapons.
Girls should be married off when they are children.
(Score: 3, Informative) by gnuman on Monday July 27 2015, @04:40AM
This is why diminutive people need firearms.
I think the circumstances here prove the opposite. It wasn't her gun. It was his gun that was used to kill him. If she had a gun, maybe he would not not allow her a chance to grab his gun?
There is an old saying - if you live by the gun, you die by the gun. There are statistics that show up over and over again that you are much more likely to get shot if you own a gun, than if you don't. Yes, even if you ignore suicides.
In our screwed up society, a "sex worker" probably has an arrest record. No guns for her, right? Her life isn't valuable enough to defend.
Well, in US you can't even vote in many places if you are a felon, never mind own guns. And if you can't vote, then you can't affect public policy, so well, you get shafted and marginalized.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_disenfranchisement#United_States [wikipedia.org]
In the national elections 2012, all the various state felony disenfranchisement laws added together blocked an estimated 5.85 million felons from voting, up from 1.2 million in 1976. This comprised 2.5% of the potential voters in general; and included 8% of the potential African American voters. The state with the highest amount of disenfranchised people was Florida, with 1.5 million disenfranchised, including more than a fifth of potential African American voters
So in Florida, you have 20% of black community that cannot vote. Talk about skewed elections!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @04:56AM
Interesting statistics. I hope you don't believe that those statistics "just happened". The whole "war on drugs", and the tactic of targeting the drugs favored by black people were designed with that specific goal in mind.
And, I'll note that gun laws are designed to achieve the same kind of goal. Criminalize ownership and common practices and activities that gunowners enjoy. Get them on a trumped up gun charge, so as to deprive them of the vote. It has worked so well with blacks, that it has been turned around against gunowmers - mostly "redneck" gunowners. I'm certain that most people have noticed that the well-to-do still have guns, even in the most draconian jurisdictions. The mayor of New York has a battallion of armed officers ready to defend his life - but he won't permit the man in the street to have a weapon.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:25AM
Do you have any proof of that? There's multiple sources of drug laws being intentionally designed to be racist, from Nixon's mouth [suburra.com] and DEA agents told not to enforce drug laws [thefreethoughtproject.com] in white neighborhoods. Where is similar evidence that gun laws are intended to be solely as a method to destroy exclusively black lives?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @05:37AM
I invite you to do a search - gun laws are indeed racist, and the earliest gun laws in what would become the United States targeted black people specifically. http://www.georgiacarry.org/cms/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/racist-roots-of-ga-gun-laws.pdf [georgiacarry.org] Just enter the search term into your favorite search engine: "gun laws are racist" then browse the results.
However, I did not mean to imply that current gun laws are racist, rather I meant that GUN OWNERS are being targeted. Mass brain-washing propaganda from the liberal media, coupled with draconian laws, and draconian sentences for minor "offenses" are intended to disenfranchise gun owners. That goal is only racist insofar as some gun owners are black.
These "concealed weapon" laws, for instance. It is generally foolish to carry your valuables in plain sight, and that applies to weapons as well as jewelry and money. Can you imagine a law that makes you a criminal for concealing your other valuables? Tucking ten $100 bills into your wallet where a pickpocket can't readily see them would be against the law. Instead, you would have to carry those hundred dollar bills taped to your shirt front.
It is just as insane to prosecute a person for carrying a concealed weapon. Likewise, it is equally insane to prosecute another person for OPENLY carrying a weapon.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:52AM
You're right, I absolutely should search for all the evidence that proves your position right [yourlogicalfallacyis.com]! What kind of crazy got into my head, thinking that you should be the one supporting your own position? Silly me.
So when you said that they were designed with the same goal in mind - to disenfranchise minorities, specifically blacks - you meant something totally different? Oh, ok. Sorry, I got confused there, I thought you meant what you said instead of something totally different. It was so obvious that you meant something other than what you said, I don't know how I missed it. My bad.
(Score: 2) by gnuman on Monday July 27 2015, @04:43PM
Interesting statistics. I hope you don't believe that those statistics "just happened". The whole "war on drugs", and the tactic of targeting the drugs favored by black people
Well, I would not say that. I would say that "war on drugs" targets *poor* people. Poor people are the street-dealers - they are the ones that are most likely to get caught and prosecuted over drugs. Blacks are just more likely to be poor for various reasons.
turned around against gunowmers - mostly "redneck" gunowners. I'm certain that most people have noticed that the well-to-do still have guns ...
Ideally, no one should own guns. Not the people. Not the police. Guns cause more problems than they solve. Guns are tools people use to escalate confrontations that otherwise would not have escalated. They provide false sense of security. False sense of empowerment. Look at the UK, where police did not have guns. Now, they had reported 1 death over 2 year period from gun shot wound. Something like 50 people were killed by police (guns, beatings, etc.) since 1900.
http://www.ipcc.gov.uk/sites/default/files/Documents/research_stats/Deaths_Report2012-13.pdf [ipcc.gov.uk]
Meanwhile, in the US, it's close to 700 police shooting deaths this year and we are not even half-way through,
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/jun/01/the-counted-police-killings-us-database# [theguardian.com]
So what is going on here? Why is nation of guns so unsafe? Is there no drug dealers in UK? No hooligans?
Seriously, gun death rates are higher in some US neighborhoods than in insurgency Baghdad with car bombs and everything. "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" - the same applies to guns.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 27 2015, @09:16PM
You and I are going to have to disagree on that. I think that every responsible adult should own a weapon or two. Further, every responsible adult should carry his weapon with him when he goes to court - it helps to keep the cops and the judge honest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:05AM
> There are statistics that show up over and over again that you are much more likely to get shot if you own a gun, than if you don't.
Beware the bias of self-selection. Without an actual citation to evaluate my expectation is that the reason they bought the gun in the first place is because they had reason to fear getting shot. A study that controlled for neighborhood and occupational safety (i.e. not drug dealers or gang members and not living in high crime neighborhoods) would be persuasive.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Hairyfeet on Monday July 27 2015, @07:39AM
Uhhh you DO know those gun laws was SPECIFICALLY written to keep blacks down, yes? That making felons unable to vote or own weapons helped in this goal, yes? Might want to look up the documentary "fear of an armed negro" and see for yourself, in fact this is why gun laws exploded right after the civil rights movement as you couldn't use Jim Crow to "keep them in their place". For just one example why do you think they made such a big deal over "Saturday Night Specials" by giving them such a name and rep? Because they were favored by poor blacks for home defense because they were both cheap and reliable.
But please don't take my word for it, watch "fear of an armed negro" where they have the words and in some cases even interviews with the ones who pushed those laws and they were quite brazen and made no bones about it, they wanted to make sure negros couldn't defend themselves from state brutality.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:37PM
Once again, lets see some proof. This is literally a repeat of a few posts above [soylentnews.org], even with you saying "look it up yourself"!
(Score: 2) by twistedcubic on Tuesday July 28 2015, @03:15AM
Why don't you just look them up? Racism against black people was very overt and unabashed up until recently in this country. Apparently younger people have a really difficult time believing this. I'll make it even worse from you by giving you an anecdote: I'm black and from Alabama. My mother once told me about her father refusing to turn in his guns voluntarily when the government (local, I think) required all black people to give them up. I can't prove this to you, but doesn't it sound believable? Why in the world would anyone make this up, when racism was so prevalent? Please go to a library, sit down and read some primary sources. It will blow your mind, though it shouldn't, because you should know better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @03:51AM
Because I'm not the one making the extraordinary claim. The burden of proof lies with someone who is making a claim, and is not upon anyone else to disprove. This is the basics of the basics.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Tuesday July 28 2015, @06:48AM
Because ACs are apparently too dense to use teh Google? Since I don't want to be seen picking on dumbasses too ignorant to Google enjoy No Guns For Negroes [liveleak.com], which was called "fear of an armed negro" when it was on YouTube, who took it down, shock shock.
Sorry I can't find the complete documentary ATM, have a skull splitter. Perhaps you could find a link to elucidate the uninformed?
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 3, Informative) by darkfeline on Monday July 27 2015, @10:24AM
>There are statistics that show up over and over again that you are much more likely to get shot if you own a gun, than if you don't.
That's an utterly pointless statistic. People who own cars are more likely to die in a car accident than people who don't. People who live in areas with more cars are more likely to die in a car accident than people who don't. People who own houses with stairs are more likely to die from falling down the stairs than people who don't. People who live in an area with a lot of stairs are more likely to die from falling down the stairs than people who don't.
No shit, Sherlock.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by captain normal on Monday July 27 2015, @05:30AM
In this case the lady did not save herself with her own weapon. She managed to over come her assailant by alert action. Still For once I've got to agree with Runaway. The 2nd Amendment says the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. It does not say the right to bear arms shall not be infringed unless by court of law or legislative action. The founding Fathers of the U.S. were leary of a standing army as well as a national police force and had a huge loathing of monopolistic companies such as the East India Company. They believed that the best defense against tyranny was an armed citizenry. I have no fear of normal people carrying firearms. I do have great fear of only the police, gangs and terrorists carrying arms.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @05:39PM
But it does say, and I quote:
Ignoring literally half of the amendment is called "cherry picking". To get it to say what you want it to say, it has to be amended.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday July 27 2015, @07:08PM
That clause is the rationale; it doesn't contribute any directive to the sentence. Try this instead:
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, because a well-regulated militia is necessary to the security of a free state.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 28 2015, @12:22AM
Except your change in wording isn't what it says. The amendment is very clear that the purpose of owning firearms is for participation in the well-regulated militias, which were intended to be the only army of the country, what with a standing army of more than 2 years duration being explicitly unconstitutional.