Two Shootings in Vancouver in 24 hours

[11B4V]

Some friends who frequent the area say the owner was a jerk.

OMG BLAMING THE VICTIM

no shit. 

[Jacob]

Some friends who frequent the area say the owner was a jerk.

OMG BLAMING THE VICTIM

Yeah, totally. The comments were stuff like "he was always rude to me" and "his dog bit [name redacted] and he didn't even apologize! Fuck that guy!"

I feel like my friends are lacking a bit in perspective on this, to be honest.

[Eddie Teach]

In our case the solution to reducing gangland shootings is pretty striaght forward.  Remove the market they are fighting over by legalizing drugs.

This eminently reasonable.  In the US we made alcohol illegal by constitutional amendment.  When the amendment was rescinded organized crime disappeared within five years.

There were still plenty of illegal things to sell for high profit margins.

[crazy canuck]

In our case the solution to reducing gangland shootings is pretty striaght forward.  Remove the market they are fighting over by legalizing drugs.

This eminently reasonable.  In the US we made alcohol illegal by constitutional amendment.  When the amendment was rescinded organized crime disappeared within five years.

There were still plenty of illegal things to sell for high profit margins.

Sure but once prostitution, drugs, booze and gambling are legalized its hard to imagine what that might be.  Although there was that theft of maple syrup a while back...

[dps]

In our case the solution to reducing gangland shootings is pretty striaght forward.  Remove the market they are fighting over by legalizing drugs.

This eminently reasonable.  In the US we made alcohol illegal by constitutional amendment.  When the amendment was rescinded organized crime disappeared within five years.

There were still plenty of illegal things to sell for high profit margins.

Sure but once prostitution, drugs, booze and gambling are legalized its hard to imagine what that might be.  Although there was that theft of maple syrup a while back...

Not "things" to be sold, exactly, but that still leaves loansharking, smuggling, contract killings, and fencing stolen goods.  There'd still be plenty of organized crime. 

And that's without getting into the black markets that exist for things that are legal but heavily taxed.

[Razgovory]

Organized crime is not simply a wholesaler of illicit goods.  Making a good or service legal isn't going to make them go away.  If all drugs were made legal in Canada the gangsters aren't going to just shrug their shoulders and take a jobs working as grocery clerks.  They'll move on to other schemes.  For instance Americans mobsters ran a very successful operation selling gasoline and pocketing the taxes on it.  Gasoline isn't illegal, but they were still dealing in it and they were not shy about killing people over it.

[Admiral Yi]

Organized crime is moving more and more into prescription drugs and medical fraud in the US.

[viper37]

sure

and where do we stop?  no such things as illegal drugs anymore, people are free to use whatever they want?

[viper37]

Organized crime is not simply a wholesaler of illicit goods.  Making a good or service legal isn't going to make them go away.  If all drugs were made legal in Canada the gangsters aren't going to just shrug their shoulders and take a jobs working as grocery clerks.  They'll move on to other schemes.  For instance Americans mobsters ran a very successful operation selling gasoline and pocketing the taxes on it.  Gasoline isn't illegal, but they were still dealing in it and they were not shy about killing people over it.

Organized crime has been very active in alcohol & tobacco smuggling, two things legal, two things heavily taxed for reasons of 'morality'.

Street gangs are also very active in underage prostitution.  Should we legalize that too?

[Razgovory]

sure

and where do we stop?  no such things as illegal drugs anymore, people are free to use whatever they want?

You do what the Russians do.  You make the gangsters the government.