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Photographer's JournalCanadian judge fines man $1.30 for growing 30 marijuana plants, calls laws obsolete and ridiculous
Sometimes we need something not tragic lest we all go insane. 
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http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2015/11/30/1455457/-Canadian-judge-fines-man-1-30-for-growing-30-marijuana-plants-calls-laws-obsolete-and-ridiculous?%3Fdetail=email
Canadian judge Pierre Chevalier has issued a very symbolic ruling in a marijuana possession case. Mario Larouche, 46, was facing possession charges for having 30 marijuana plants at home. In line with the recently elected Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his party’s promises to legalize marijuana, the Quebec judge said this:
We are in a society where people are accused of possession and use of marijuana while more than half the population has already consumed. These are laws that are obsolete and ridiculous. When one is in the presence of laws which would have more than half of the population has a criminal record in Canada… And probably most Crown Attorneys and defense, and perhaps judges, but I will not comment on it.
Then Judge Chevalier fined Mr. Larouche $1.30 Canadian. Lest you think this man is getting off easy for being a pothead:
46 year old Mario Larouche had tried numerous times to get a prescription for medical marijuana, unsuccessfully. So few doctors are willing to prescribe marijuana for pain relief, despite the mountains of evidence proving its effectiveness without the disastrous side effects of prescription painkillers. This forced Mr. Larouche to break the law in order to treat his pain.
Chevalier protested Canada’s system, “Monsieur is in a broken system where it does not give people access to a natural medicine that goes back centuries, millennia.”
Homeless Couple Found Living In Walmart Attic With Hot Plate, Meth Lab, And 42" LED TV
ON EDIT: THIS IS FAKE. I GOT TAKEN.
http://now8news.com/homeless-couple-found-living-in-walmart-attic/#sthash.67VhFzlv.GFB2tONB.dpuf
Heartbreaking post in LBN
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141279957
7 years old and shot dead by a CC licensed gun owner.
Kleenex alert.
This is easily the most powerful commercial of the year, if not ever.
The spot is an advert for German supermarket chain Edeka (English subs), which, like most great commercials, has very little to do with the actual product or service being advertised. It’s racked up almost 20 million views in three days with unanimous review – “I can’t believe I’m sitting here bawling over a supermarket commercial.”
We, too.
Without giving away too much of the plot, the narrative revolves around an Opa whose family is always too busy to see him during the holidays. It features a significant twist of unparalleled badass-ery and elderly man who cried wolf, followed by the message ‘time to come home’.
It will make you call your parents/grandparents/relatives/distant cousins/cants and dogs immediately – after you’re done shedding a few tears.
Seriously, watch it and try not to cry:
How a civilized nation handled a mass shooting...
http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2012/12/16/gun_control_after_connecticut_shooting_could_australia_s_laws_provide_a.htmlAs America grapples with the fallout of yet another mass shooting—Wednesday’s massacre of at least 14 at a holiday party in San Bernardino, California—the long and bitter debate over gun control in America has once again been reopened. After Sandy Hook, Will Oremus highlighted the lessons of Australia’s strict gun laws and the resulting success in preventing subsequent mass shootings there. The post is reprinted below.
On April 28, 1996, a gunman opened fire on tourists in a seaside resort in Port Arthur, Tasmania. By the time he was finished, he had killed 35 people and wounded 23 more. It was the worst mass murder in Australia’s history.
Twelve days later, Australia’s government did something remarkable. Led by newly elected conservative Prime Minister John Howard, it announced a bipartisan deal with state and local governments to enact sweeping gun-control measures. A decade and a half hence, the results of these policy changes are clear: They worked really, really well.
At the heart of the push was a massive buyback of more than 600,000 semi-automatic shotguns and rifles, or about one-fifth of all firearms in circulation in Australia. The country’s new gun laws prohibited private sales, required that all weapons be individually registered to their owners, and required that gun buyers present a “genuine reason” for needing each weapon at the time of the purchase. (Self-defense did not count.) In the wake of the tragedy, polls showed public support for these measures at upwards of 90 percent.
....
What happened next has been the subject of several academic studies. Violent crime and gun-related deaths did not come to an end in Australia, of course. But as the Washington Post’s Wonkblog pointed out in August, homicides by firearm plunged 59 percent between 1995 and 2006, with no corresponding increase in non-firearm-related homicides. The drop in suicides by gun was even steeper: 65 percent. Studies found a close correlation between the sharp declines and the gun buybacks. Robberies involving a firearm also dropped significantly. Meanwhile, home invasions did not increase, contrary to fears that firearm ownership is needed to deter such crimes. But here’s the most stunning statistic. In the decade before the Port Arthur massacre, there had been 11 mass shootings in the country. There hasn’t been a single one in Australia since.
There have been some contrarian studies about the decrease in gun violence in Australia, including a 2006 paper that argued the decline in gun-related homicides after Port Arthur was simply a continuation of trends already under way. But that paper’s methodology has been discredited, which is not surprising when you consider that its authors were affiliated with pro-gun groups. Other reports from gun advocates have similarly cherry-picked anecdotal evidence or presented outright fabrications in attempting to make the case that Australia’s more-restrictive laws didn’t work. Those are effectively refuted by findings from peer-reviewed papers, which note that the rate of decrease in gun-related deaths more than doubled following the gun buyback, and that states with the highest buyback rates showed the steepest declines. A 2011 Harvard summary of the research concluded that, at the time the laws were passed in 1996, “it would have been difficult to imagine more compelling future evidence of a beneficial effect.”
...
More at above link.
Your opinion on gun control doesn't matter
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/12/02/1456140/-Your-opinion-on-gun-control-doesn-t-matter?detail=emailCan we stop looking at gun rights as an ideological issue? This is no longer ideological. I don't care how you feel in theory: I care what is happening in practice. In practice, there have been 351 mass shootings in only 336 days. More people will die by guns than in car accidents this year. In practice, this is a public health crisis.
.....
To you, the deaths of these people are less important than your right to own a gun. You must know that people die daily from random violence at their workplace, at the store, in their car. You think that's unfortunate. Sad. Tragic, even. But not as tragic as stricter gun control would be. The deaths are an unnecessary accoutrement, scuffing your personal dogma. But they don't change anything.
"That's the price we pay for freedom," you shrug, although you've never actually had to pay the price. Even though there is no freedom in being scared to walk out of your house, scared to eat in the cafeteria, or go to the doctor—scared of any place with people.
As it stands, I am (surprisingly) less partisan about gun control than others. In many ways, I see (and even sometimes agree with) what anti-gun regulators are saying. I am (generally) clear on why this issue is complicated.
But here's my thing.
....
I'm watching a livestream of the local news, where a bewildered reporter tries to swallow his tears. It's raining outside, and clear across the country in California there are a dozen dead bodies, each end brought by bullets. Parents are calling frantic, hoping that their child is alive. At this moment right now, survivors are just embarking on a long journey of pain, guilt, trauma, regret, flashbacks. The loss is tangible. The pain is forever.
But you still have your guns! So It's all worth it to you. You have to remind yourself. Go ahead, say it out loud—"Those deaths are worth it to me." Days like today, you have to remind yourself that this is the cause you are (literally, chances are) willing to die for. Is it worth it?
<snip>
It's worth hitting the link and reading the whole thing.
“Fox & Friends”: Prayer is more effective than gun control, and if you disagree with that “you’re
“Fox & Friends”: Prayer is more effective than gun control, and if you disagree with that “you’re lining up with terrorists”
On Thursday, “Fox & Friends” took its cue from its network’s delightful coverage of the San Bernardino shooting last night and focused on what really matters — namely, that this might have been a terrorist attack and that prayer works, this possible terrorist attack notwithstanding.
The touchstone for all their conversations was the cover of today’s edition of the New York Daily News:
Co-host Steve Doocy had a copy of the paper and held it up, repeatedly, saying “if God won’t fix this, we need more [gun] laws.” GOP presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina agreed, saying “it’s stunning to me — this is an example of how afraid the left-wing is of our values.”
Fiorina later argued that “it turns out that [South Carolina shooter] Dylan Roof should never have been sold a gun; it turns out that South Carolina has strict gun laws; and it turns out that all of the violence in Chicago is sitting in a city with the strictest gun control laws,” so what the national conversation should really be about “is calling crimes like this what it appears to be,” namely, terrorism. And, of course, prayer — which is what Fiorina claimed was the first thing she urged people to offer when she heard about the shooting.
Doocy and Hasselbeck agreed, with Doocy holding up the Daily News cover again and saying, “on the cover of the Daily News they have politicized this already. ‘Hey, Republicans,’ they’re saying, ‘God isn’t fixing this. As the latest batch of innocent Americans are left dying in pools of blood, cowards.’ Who [do] they picture right here? Rand Paul, Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, Lindsey Graham, all Republicans, [or] ‘cowards who could truly end gun scourge but continue to hide behind meaningless platitudes.'”
More with video at http://www.salon.com/2015/12/03/fox_friends_prayer_is_more_effective_than_gun_control_and_if_you_disagree_with_that_youre_lining_up_with_terrorists/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow
Fischer (AFA): Planned Parenthood Shooter May Have Been 'Tanked Up On Pot'
On his radio program today, the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer floated his own theory as to why Robert Lewis Dear killed three people and injured nine more during a shooting at a Planned Parenthood facility in Colorado last week: Maybe he was "just tanked up on pot."
Insisting that there is no reliable evidence as to what motivated Dear to carry out the attack, Fischer suggested that perhaps the legality of marijuana in the state played a role because "we do know that since he moved to Colorado, [Dear] was a pot-smoking nutcase."
Fischer said that "we have seen one story after another" of people "getting doped up or tanked up or high on pot and going off a doing brutal things," especially after ingesting marijuana edibles. So obviously "there is no question that the kind of pot that is available in Colorado today can drive you into psychotic episodes," he stated.
"I'm going to be interested to see what he had in his system," Fischer said, "and if maybe this was a guy that was just tanked up on pot."
<snip>
- See more at: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/fischer-planned-parenthood-shooter-may-have-been-tanked-pot#sthash.xi4cFO1y.dpuf
LOL! Right, dude. Blame it on anything but reality.
Maybe an avenue against gun violence that's already set up.
Mission Statement
The mission of the Brady organization is to create a safer America for all of us that will lead to a dramatic reduction in gun deaths and injuries.
Brady's Unique Approach
Of the 32,000 people who die from gun violence in this country each year, how many could be saved?
Brady has announced the bold goal to cut the number of U.S. gun deaths in half by 2025, based on an innovative and exciting strategy that centers on the idea of keeping guns out of the wrong hands through three impact-driven, broadly engaging campaigns: (1) a policy focus to "Finish the Job" so that life-saving Brady background checks are applied to all gun sales; (2) to "Stop 'Bad Apple' Gun Dealers" – the 5 percent of gun dealers that supply 90 percent of all crime guns; and (3) to lead a new national conversation and change social norms around the real dangers of guns in the home, to prevent the homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings that happen every day as a result.
http://www.bradycampaign.org/about-brady
How people view those who own bunches of guns and talk about them all the time:
We think you need help and want to stay the fuck away from you.
This also leads you to congregate only with like minded and end up thinking you are the majority.
We think you are just fucking paranoid, fearful borderline psychopaths.
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