Last edited by SouthNarc; 08-19-2015 at 10:37 AM.
Would criminalizing the ownership or consumption of alcohol lower the number of drunk driving deaths? Undoubtedly. Would it cause an increase in criminal activity? Undoubtedly. When it was all said and done would fewer people be dead? Would the costs to society be lower?
Point being, there's no fucking free lunch on this. Legal alcohol gets cited all the time in these WOD discussions but few actually seem to acknowledge that legal alcohol brings with it enormous social costs. Not a whole lot of SWAT raids over illegal alcohol in 2014, but about 10,000 people were killed by drunk drivers. That's a whole lot of dead people.
I'd legalize most stuff tomorrow, but I'm not naive enough to believe it would fix a bunch of problems. It would create different problems, some of them preferable to the problems seen with excesses in the drug war.
Last edited by TCinVA; 08-19-2015 at 11:00 AM.
3/15/2016
Cody,what exactly is a "temporary "apartment? When you say didn't check with the landlord, is this an apartment complex? How big is it?Is there a living manager who's on site? Because if not most apartment managers are only present from 9 to 5 Monday through Friday or Monday through Saturday. Regardless, what you describe is a classic mistake of fact case. In the real world it happens all the time. Officers have to work with limited or incorrect information and make the best decisions that can. Not sure if you're aware of a concept called judicial notice. Basically where the courts make and except common presumptions regarding certain situations. For example it is a common legal presumption for both the courts and law-enforcement officers that people involved in drug dealing or gang activity may be presumed to be armed and dangerous in general. That doesn't mean every drug dealer or gang member is armed or dangerous, but it does mean that a reasonable and prudent officer dealing with them will begin with the presumption that they are. A reasonable and prudent Officer responding to a residential burglary or even a residential squatter call would presume such a suspect was armed and dangerous. So what is with the drama about the officers OMG! Pointing the gun at his HEAD! ? Deadly force is deadly force. The officers are investigating a potential residential burglary. Residential burglaries are reasonably presumed to be armed and dangerous until proven otherwise. It makes no difference whether they point a gun at his head or his torso as long as they were legally justified in pointing a gun at him in general.
It absolutely does make a difference between whether they are in a firearm "ready position" as opposed to muzzling the occupant. This is the key point. Many here have noted that it is not necessary to point a gun AT someone when you don't know if they are armed or dangerous. It certainly made sense to have guns drawn and at the ready...I don't argue that. But what has happened in Fairfax County is too many times that has resulted in the death or murder of an innocent person. The point here is Public Safety is the mission, and the mission is turning into "Police Safety" first. Police go into the business understanding their lives may be at risk. That doesn't give them the right to intimidate citizens into "show me your hands" at the threat of lethal force. If I did that as a civilian, I would surely be charged with a crime.
Cody
That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state;