Virginia is for Drug Dealers

The drug war devastation in Mexico is being directly linked to gun dealers in the United States. Those fun gun dealers are located in gun-friendly states like Virginia.

While drug addiction may be costing Mexicans their lives and Americans their families, we need to keep in mind that more than just drugs dealers are making money. Gun dealers are, too.

The Administration's proposal to search vehicles going into Mexico as well as coming from Mexico is a good one. Depriving the Mexican cartels of guns will take away much of its power and certainly reduce the harm to innocent bystanders. The drug wars themselves will not stop, just the form they take right now.

Aside from all that, if Americans stopped using drugs, there would be no drug war at all. Another idea is to decriminalize drug addiction and treat it instead. It's a good thought, especially since arresting people and putting them in prison hasn't worked since we started doing that in the 1950s. Treating addiction would do at least something towards addressing American demand for drugs. Not much, but at least something.

My idea is that everyone who is arrested for buying illegal drugs more than once has everything they own confiscated. Yes, that would unfairly burden the more affluent. But wouldn't that be a nice change for once?

Granny With a Gun

CNN Video has a clip about great-grandmother Lena Smith holding a burglar at gun point until the police arrive. And it's a heart-warming, elder-empowerment story.

Now let's imagine the equally plausible possibility that she had a little bit of dementia and shot the mailman.

Seniors with guns is an increasing social issue, and one that is going to be repeatedly tragic in the coming years.

He Should Have Never Had the Guns

The New York Times reports today that the Virginia Tech gunman, whom I will not name, should not have had the ability to buy a gun at all under Federal regulations. But someone in Virginia decided to reword the Virginia regulations to be different than the Federal one, illegal by the way, and put that version on their forms. So the Virginia Tech gunman got his guns and ammo.

Let's read into this. Some gun rights wacko decided that he wanted to increase gun ownership possibilities and reworded the Federal regulation. Now over thirty people are dead.

Don't worry. We'll find out who did this. And then not even the NRA will be able to save them.

Take the Al Jazeera Poll - Should the Virginia Tech Gunman's Video Be Broadcast

By broadcasting the video that the deranged student recorded, the news media is only encouraging copycats. The gunman himself referred to the Columbine killers, no doubt because of their video messages.

Brooke Gladstone of NPR's On The Media said today that airing the videos was the only thing news outlets could do. I disagree. The graphic and offensive images are not providing any new information and only serve to encourage others to follow suit.

Al Jazeera has an online poll. Take it and see what their readers think.