Alex says:

“The military is over in the Middle East for Federal reasons, of course, but it’s State laws that put pot smokers in jail. Who do you blame for that: Obama, or Arnie?”

Actually, that’s pretty ignorant of you to say.

First off, possession of controlled substances is BOTH a Federal and a State crime. So, yes, the feds can bust you for smokin’ a J – they likely won’t, because they have “bigger fish to fry”, but the simple fact is that marijuana possession is a *federal* crime.

Second off, California *specifically* has incredibly lax laws on marijuana smoking and possession, to the point where in I believe in early to mid 2000s they tried to allow people to grow their own. What was the result? The DEA busted a medical marijuana grower who was not selling to *anyone*, was licensed by the state to grow the marijuana, and charged her in Federal court.

The (At this point *very* republican) Supreme Court of the United States (that’s a Federal agency, see) upheld the decision in I believe it was the fall of 2007, perhaps early 2008, and the conviction, because “interstate commerce” was affected by this woman’s choice to grow her own marijuana.

So no, these are primarily Federal problems, and I agree both Democrats and Republicans are responsible.

Ah_Yea says:

Oh, and please don’t tell me about how much Bush spent. Bush Lite spent this amount many times over.

And please don’t spread the lie that Lite had to spend this money because it was already approved.

Lite has a pen, he did not have to sign. He has something called a Veto. He could have sent it back for review and reworking.

But the world would come to an end unless we spent all these trillions of dollars!!

Apparently not. Not to mention, wasn’t it Romney who said that the Automotive companies should go bankrupt? And who was it who promised this would never happen?

Was Lite ignorant or lying?

Bush was stupid, Lite isn’t, or so I hope although he is making the same mistakes.

Either that or he lied through his teeth at every opportunity to become commander in chief.

And let’s not even start talking about Pelosi, Reed, Boxer, Rockefeller, etc.

No, the ends DON’T justify the means. A lie is a lie is a lie.

Isn’t that why we hate Bush?

Ah_Yea says:

Yes, it looks like #9 Rakiah couldn’t buy a clue with all the money in the world.

Who cares about gun murders? Of course if you take away all guns, gun murder goes down. But what about Total Murder?

If they couldn’t reach for a gun, did they reach for a hammer, knife, club, or just bare hands?

So, what about total murders?

Turns out, Louisiana falls way behind the District of Columbia, puerto rico (of all places), and Maryland. All who have very restrictive gun laws.

But it makes sense. If you cannot defend yourself, you’re a victim.

Wow! The state with the lowest murder rate has practically no gun laws at all! Vermont!

http://disastercenter.com/crime/US_States_Rate_Ranking.html

Breetai says:

I prefer giving those hack job websites the finger and drawing my own conclusions. The only conclusion I draw from REAL data is that Europe and Britain must be lying about their stats and disarming it’s citizens because it makes it easier to make them subservient.

http://fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm

Canucklehead says:

A few notes about guns and crime in my city, Toronto. I was born here, and have lived here my whole 50+ years and I don’t know anyone who has every owned a gun. We also has a very low murder rate compared with most US cities.

I think gun ownership is about 1% and the murder rate is about 2 per 100,000.

Here are some links

http://www3.thestar.com/static/googlemaps/starmaps.html?xml=080919_gunowners.xml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Toronto

Ah_Yea says:

Why wonder? In the time it took you to write the question, you could have had the answer.

Vermont has a 42% gun ownership rate.
California has a 21.1% gun ownership rate.
DC has a 3.8% gun ownership rate.

The murder rate in Vermont is 1.3 people per 100,000
The murder rate in California is 6.7 per 100,000
The murder rate in DC is 35.4 per 100,000. 27 times worse than Vermont, while having less than 1/10th the guns.

Does that put the lie to the gun control argument? Yes, of course it does.

http://swivel.com/data_sets/spreadsheet/1003599

PB says:

One more point: I’m not American, but even I can tell the difference between Federal, State, and Local issues and laws. The cartoonist seems to me to be addressing all of these, not just Federal laws. The military is over in the Middle East for Federal reasons, of course, but it’s State laws that put pot smokers in jail. Who do you blame for that: Obama, or Arnie?

Mr. Fusion says:

#25m Ah Yea,

Who cares about gun murders?

I would imagine those getting killed care. The friends and relatives of the victim usually care.

Of course if you take away all guns, gun murder goes down. But what about Total Murder?

Great idea. I think I would rather try to outrun a golf club or a knife than a gun from several feet away.

In the 1950s gangs were coming into the fore in most cities. Their usual weapons included knives, clubs, and similar hand weapons along with single shot, home made “zip guns”. Gang fights were quite common but deaths were relatively rare. For a peek into gang life, see west Side Story

Now move ahead about three or four decades when hand guns have flooded the market and heavier assault type weapons are common. The murder rate has soared to many times its previous marks.
http://tinyurl.com/ohdl7z

Patrick says:

# 12 Mr. Fusion said, “Rakiah is correct. ”

Fusion, owned once again.

Rakiah says:

Duh….Whoda Thunk!!!????
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/2007-releases/press01112007.html

“[Matthew Miller], Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Injury Prevention at Harvard School of Public Health, and his colleagues [David Hemenway] and [Deborah Azrael], used survey data from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2001 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the world’s largest telephone survey with over 200,000 respondents nationwide. Respondents in all 50 states were asked whether any firearms were kept in or around their home. The survey found that approximately one in three American households reported firearm ownership.
[...]

Analyses that controlled for several measures of resource deprivation, urbanization, aggravated assault, robbery, unemployment, and alcohol consumption found that states with higher rates of household firearm ownership had significantly higher homicide victimization rates for children, and for women and men. In these analyses, states within the highest quartile of firearm prevalence had firearm homicide rates 114% higher than states within the lowest quartile of firearm prevalence. Overall homicide rates were 60% higher. The association between firearm prevalence and homicide was driven by gun-related homicide rates; non-gun-related homicide rates were not significantly associated with rates of firearm ownership. “