Man dies from E St. Louis Strip Club Shooting

My condolensces. This, plus the man who died at the doorstep of Dollie's, makes me really scared of the clubs at ESL. I'll be vacationing there in the spring, and I plan to see my ATF's at HSC, WG's, MK's and Hustler. Do you have any details or articles I can read more of?

I hope they find the people that did this.

Someyoung - I sent you a message with a few more details.

Violence is getting worse here in NOLa too. The local newspaper (one of the country's best for a market this size) is doing all sorts of wrap-up pieces, about the statistics, neighborhoods, prevailing conditions. It's all (I generalize) about black-on-black drug-related and revenge-related killings: "You got my territory / girl / dander up." But recently there's been crossfire into the tourism zones, and into the armed-robbery motivation. If THAT starts to happen in a big way, then it's a bad scene. I can avoid getting popped by a rival drug dealer simply by never trying to rival his drug dealing (duh!), but what can I do about being unsafe because I carry cash in order to eat food?

Concealed Carry. FBI stats in Carry states.

26% LOWER total violent crime rate.
20% LOWER homicide rate.
39% LOWER robbery rate. For your question above.
22% LOWER aggravated assault rate.

"Lower in all caps for those anti-gun nuts that can't read and comprehend!

In defense of the anti-gun nuts those stats may not be the whole ball of wax. Did suicides skyrocket? (The gun is so convenient and lethal.) Did accidental deaths or injuries by guns increase? (Little Mary just loved playing cowboys and Indians with her mommy's sawed-off shotgun.) Have health care costs escalated due gun liberalization laws? Are the violent crimes *more* violent? (Thug now carries and uses a gun where in the anti-gun environment of yore he might just shove you to the ground.)

BTW, to those anti-gun nuts who believe saving or protecting a single child means saying yes to gun bans, then banning private swimming pools should be much more desirable.

I was thinking that perhaps this could be an era where government again rides to the rescue to placate both pro-gun individuals as well as anti-gun nuts. Just as the typewriter is fairly obsolete having pretty much been whisked away by new technology perhaps now is the time for guns to be whisked away by technology. Immediately the less lethal HV Protector (stun gun) comes to mind. Government with its limitless supply of dollars could offer all manner of programs to buy AND replace old fashioned powder type guns with HV Protectors. Makes anti-gun nuts happy and creates jobs! ;) Of course, HV Protectors don't have to be the holy grail. Futuristic C-Based Protectors (ala mace, etc.) may be exceedingly desirable if free government dollars are put to work investing, manufacturing, ADVERTISING, and distributing said devices. President Obama has the right idea of bringing hostile factions together to sing kumbaya and God Save the Queen.

jablake,

What you talk about (suicides, accidental deaths or injuries by guns, health care costs, crimes *more* violent) has exactly NOTHING to do with what BG asked!

Hi Clubber,

Well I wasn't responding to what BG asked. :)

The genie's out of the box. Can you anti-arm ("disarm" isn't the right word) all the criminals effectively enough that the decent citizens would be better off without pro-arming themselves?

I, personally, would re-write the US Constitution so that the right to keep and bear arms was never established in the first place. Kind of like slavery, one of our original sins, if you never HAD it, then you probably wouldn't have had the problems stemming FROM it. But that's a pipe dream. You can't go back in time.

So, now that we've GOT it, and plenty of bad people have taken advantage of some forms of OTHER governmental/licensing/oversight laxity to the point that there are lots of well-armed criminals in the streets, what do we DO about that fact?

I don't know, if arming myself is the right solution. I don't object, to the idea that other (law-abiding and non-violent; which is, by the way, about 99% of all Americans) people should arm themselves if they want to. I see the statistics above (about how jurisdictions with concealed-carry rights have lower crime rates) but am not 100% convinced. It may be a correlation rather than a causation: much of the concealed-carry areas in this country are middle-class and upper-middle-class white driving suburbs, where crime might (might not?) have been lower in the first place. Or it may be a direct causation: dumb-ass drug dealer gets some fear-of-honkie in his blood, stops shootin' up the neighborhood. At least, that's the theory.

I therefore straddle this issue. I've met a lot of smart people on both sides of this fence. I agree with the recent decision regarding the gun-control law in DC for that security guard -- I can't see how the court would have gone any other way. But I would also support (though not particularly fervently) a movement to repeal the keep-and-bear-arms amendment, but only as long as it's accompanied by an active, effective campaign for anti-arming the streets and reducing access permanently for all those idiots out there who have guns right now. Can that be done?

One thing I would note, is that local law enforcement often states, that there's a single one or two "problem" gun dealers in a given neighborhood. After Katrina, illegal guns (and associated violence) skyrocketed here until one single suburban criminal gun shop was shut down, and things are trickling back to normal again.

Look up ckp.com, an organization that creates bar-coded laser-readable threads which are so high-tech that they can individualize and record single items of inventory. Rather than having a bar-code for all GI Joes that tells the cash register what the price is (and the fact that A given GI Joe has been removes from the shelf) this new bar-code can tell the cash register that ONE PARTICULAR GI Joe is being carried around, from aisle 5 to aisle 6, then to the register, and, if you scan it again six years later, that it's now in Hackensack. This type of technology could be used for weapons and for ammunition, and I wouldn't oppose that. It would be a step in the right direction -- allowing decent citizens to protect themselves and therefore not maximize their endangerment, while also starting to connect bad guys to bad acts more accurately. Connecting scoff-law dealers, shooters, perpetrators, to the killings they partially enable.

And then there's the economy. If everyone has jobs -- jobs they LIKE, that don't drive them to distraction; that pay for enough mongering that they are happy not to have to fight -- then, well, the street-corner drug dealing peters out. An average middle-level dealer standing on the stoop and waiting for car traffic only makes as much money as an average McDonald's employee, and (according to the guy who wrote 'Freakanomics', IIRC) is likely to live with his mother or grandmother in the house he grew up in. Just give 'em a better option in life, you BET they'll prefer it.

1. Address drugs as an epidemiological rather than military problem.

2. Fix joblessness and the American "remove the competition's job option" type of obsession with ruining people's lives in the name of the economy. This includes better public education.

3. Maybe then the gun control debate wouldn't be necessary. If it is, then bar-code the bullets, arrest the scoff-law dealers, and ruin their lives.

jablake,

Well, since I was the ONLY one to even mentioned "anti-gun nuts" before your "anti-gun nuts" defense, and I was responding to BG, your "Well I wasn't responding to what BG asked. :)" is obviously BS!

Enough said on that!

BG,

If we hadn't had the 2nd in the first place, we likely wouldn't even be a country any longer, at least in no semblance to what we are now. The 2nd wasn't to protect our citizens against criminals, rather against government. As one in South Florida and friends with many Cubans, you can ask them all about "no guns"!

Now I've gone a broken my own nothing but SC talk rule, so not another word.

"I was the ONLY one to even mentioned 'anti-gun nuts.'"

Exactly. :) Or to spell it out again: Well, I wasn't responding to what BG asked. :)

If the 2nd Amendment is just about reducing crime, then it is best if the government just bans guns. People can then argue about something important like whether whether the maximum federal tax rate is 33% or 35%.

How did this thread turn into another mindless anti-gun control screed?? I think someone needs to take their Geritol more often...sheesh...why bring up a topic that has nothing to do with strip clubs & that's been discussed ad-nauseum on here before??

Guns are to stripclubs what peanut butter is to jelly. Anti-gun nuts prolly can't discern that either.

Unfortunately, I think Clubbers' thoughts along the lines of gun ownership is a substantive protection against government is statistically speaking very weak. It wouldn't surprise me if anti-gun nut type countries are less intrusive and controlling overall compared to countries where private ownership of guns is allowed. Of course, I could be wrong! :)

Bottom line: Even if anti-gun laws reduced crime (anti-gun nuts know that guns facilitate violent crime including murder ergo less guns equal less murders) and were also wholly unnecessary for protection against government especially a democratically elected government which anti-gun nuts know is just your neighbors and fellow citizens looking to do good-by you, guns should, imo, be free of government infringement and abundant (assuming a free country; in the US, gun banning seems more appropriate).

OTOH, I wonder if a pro-gun society's people are statistically more like to reject government control----control meaning "good" like providing medical care, housing, food, energy, etc. and "bad" like banning stripclubs or pay for play.

I read about all the supposed freedoms enjoy by Iraqi's under Saddam (yes, Saddam could be an evil tyrant and the people could have an abundance of freedom-----freedom meaning uninfringed rights to big guns and your home is *your* castle culture.)


American freedom was best enunciated by New York mayor Giuliani: "Freedom is the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do and how you do it."

IOWs, the not only does the government know best----more importantly obeying government is the highest freedom an individual can hope for. So if stripclubs or pay for play are criminalized by the government your freedom is recognizing the validity of the government's unlimited authority. Gun ownership is a minor issue as long as government has the authority to control.

American freedom was best enunciated by New York mayor Giuliani: "Freedom is the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do and how you do it."

Yes, this is why democracy is so wonderful. Just your neighbors like Mayor Giuliani and President Bush looking to do right by you. Who better than they or other democratically elected officials to decide whether I go to a stripclub, drink a beer, or possess a gun? No surprise that this type of flag waving freedom has so many advocates on both the left and right.