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It's kinda fascinating to watch mining for precious metals go from digging tunnels, to extracting from other people's cars. I wonder if this will make a dent i
by NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
It's kinda fascinating to watch mining for precious metals go from digging tunnels, to extracting from other people's cars.
I wonder if this will make a dent in how often it happens. My niece's was stolen in broad daylight.
- treeman79 4y agoOnly thing that will help is serious prison sentences and the right to defend property with deadly force. Many areas of the country there is no consequences.
- ThunderSizzle 4y agoThere's a penalty for being stolen from though in those areas that do emissions testing, since you can't pass without a working converter, and the state won't replace it for you.
- jupp0r 4y agoThe way these are stolen (cut out), vehicles won't be operable without replacement (or putting in a straight pipe where that's legal).
- NaturalPhallacy 4y agoI mean you can buy - and I wish I was kidding - armor for your car to prevent the theft: https://search.brave.com/search?q=catalytic+converter+guard https://search.brave.com/search?q=catalytic+converter+guard
- steve_adams_86 4y agoHow do we get from catalytic converters to the right to murder so quickly?
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y agoA lot of people seem to use "killing" and "murder" interchangably, though they are different in more than legal ways. A building collapsing can kill a person, as can a landslide, and an uncontrollably skidding car. A lion attacking a human and eating his organs is no murderer, and neither is that human for defending themselves by killing that lion before he can finish his attack. One human killing another does not necessarily have to be murdering them. Initiation of violence, and intent, determine the difference between killing and murder. Even self-killing and self-murder have their own words (suicide is one). Also crows; They gather in murders all the time. Please consider applying the correct word to the context you wish to discuss.
- Nullabillity 4y agoGGP is talking about intentionally killing people. That's murder. Please consider applying the correct word to the context you wish to discuss.
- spullara 4y agoFor it to be murder it has to be unlawful.
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y agoRunning a stoplight and making an illegal left turn into a kid running across the street, is unlwaful. Still counts as killing (legal term: manslaughter), not murder.
- spullara 4y agoTrue, but that isn't relevant. I am saying it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it to be murder. By definition, it must be unlawful, but it also must be premeditated.
- nobody9999 4y ago
- aaomidi 4y agoYou know how if you punish a dog, it doesn't really learn and get better? Humans are like that too. Theft is heavily correlated with the economy. Arguably it's a canary in the mine - you can very usually tell what's going to happen in the macroeconomics of an area by just following crime statistics. "Deterrence" has generally been found to be a pretty well-rooted myth. Majority of theft also happens by people who _don't actually know what the consequences are_. So just increasing them doesn't actually help. If you can show strong evidence that prison is one of the best ways of reducing crime, then sure you've convinced me (and probably plenty others).
- sokoloff 4y agoIf you give a dog timely and consistent corrections, it really does learn. That's literally half the battle in house-training a dog. (Yes, you try to control and arrange success and praise when the dog does the right thing, but you also correct when it does the wrong thing.)
- cratermoon 4y agoDogs are smarter than people.
- MichaelZuo 4y agoPretty odd location to write a joke.
- PM_me_your_math 4y agoHow's the canine space program going? Any reusable rocket bodies yet?
- sokoloff 4y agoDogs did beat humans to space. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_space_dogs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_space_dogs
- 4y ago
- nkrisc 4y agoProperty is not worth a life. Not even the life of the person damaging it. Property can be replaced, a life can not. Besides, there’s way too much margin for error in vigilante justice. That’s why we have trials, imperfect as even they may be. They’re certainly better than empowering everyone to be judge, jury, and executioner because they thought you might be committing a property crime.
- HarryHirsch 4y agoProperty is not worth a life. Not even the life of the person damaging it. Have you seen the film "Bicycle Thieves"? If someone's property is his livelihood one can have sympathies for those defending it with extreme measures.
- NaturalPhallacy 4y ago>Property is not worth a life. Generally speaking, no, of course not. But, if someone's breaking into your home in the middle of the night, you don't know what their intentions are to just steal some stuff or to rape and murder your family. There's a reason so many states have castle doctrine and such, and it's because there really are bad people out there.
- pyuser583 4y agoIt depends on the property. I have medication I need to live. If I don’t take it regularly daily, a clock starts ticking. When the time is up, I die. When I travel I treat my bags like my life. I recent had nasty run in with an airline that wanted me to check my bags. I refused to get on the plane. When I took the next flight, my checked baggage didn’t make the connection. I might have survived if I got to the ER fast enough. But those bags are my life. In developing countries, petrol means access to medicine, food, etc. “Property is more important than life” is a luxury belief for the wealthy and healthy.
- user_7832 4y agoYeah, it definitely depends on the context. If someone stole my bag from my car they'd get a few ml of insulin which is practically worthless to them, but is absolutely necessary for me. If you don't mind my asking, what medication do you take?
- adrianmonk 4y agoHere in Texas, the law does give the right to defend property with deadly force[1]. And lots of people have guns. We are the #1 state on the list of gun ownership[2]. And catalytic converter theft is still very common. We are the #2 state on the list of catalytic converter thefts per 100k automobiles[3]. --- [1] https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/PE/htm/PE.9.htm [2] https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/gun-ownership-rates-by-state/52/ https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/gun-ownership-rates-by-stat... [3] https://www.beenverified.com/data-analysis/catalytic-converter-theft-state-rankings/ https://www.beenverified.com/data-analysis/catalytic-convert...
- svnpenn 4y agoTexas has more than double the licenses of even the second place state (Florida).
- comex 4y agoDo you mean driver’s licenses? That doesn’t seem relevant if the figure is thefts per 100k automobiles.
- userbinator 4y agoI wonder if that's related in any way to it also relatively common to straight-pipe in Texas.
- 4y ago
- agentwiggles 4y agoI'm not killing anyone for screwing with my car, and I hope most folks feel the same way. Yes, it sucks. Yes, I'd be more than pissed. But I'm not going to murder another human for a property crime.
- ksidudwbw 4y agoBut for a box of chicken nuggets on the other hand..
- PM_me_your_math 4y agoSelf defense and defense of property is not murder. So many street trash shit on regular families just trying to get by precisely because of sympathy for dirtbags who shouldn't be drawing the same breath as normal people.
- shakezula 4y agoI’m a gun-owning full pro-2A believer and I absolutely disagree with killing someone over stealing a catalytic converter. For fuck’s sake, prison or murder cannot be the only two options here.
- friend_and_foe 4y agoWhat's being discussed here is not a revenge killing, you catch someone doing it you're probably not going to gun them down, you're more likely to detain, call police and press charges, or chase them off. But if they come at you with their hacksaw... I think the proper solution to this is that car manufacturers should be required to better secure these things. Putting a thousand dollars or more in such an easy to access place, requiring people to have some of their money sitting there like that, might as well tie a bow around it and set it on the hood.
- shakezula 4y agoThe parent comment said > the right to defend property with deadly force. Which is not self-defense. You’re conflating the two and it’s a poor argument for taking a life over an exhaust pipe with some minerals in it. I’ve spent a lot of time under a car and I can tell you I don’t think the solution is bolting the catalytic converter down tighter.
- friend_and_foe 4y agoWhat's the solution then?
- PM_me_your_math 4y agoHeard a story of a man who was under a car, cutting out a converter when the owner snuck up on him and smashed the butt end of a rifle right into the thieves balls. The man ended up losing both his testicles. No charges were filed. I like it. Perhaps another price should be your balls cutt off with a sawzall.
- plantain 4y agoWhy is catalytic converter theft seemingly worse in the US/UK than in Europe/AU/NZ? I think the problem is underlying societal collapse rather than consequences.
- NaturalPhallacy 4y agoHypothesis: The "war on drugs" and rampant poverty with minimal to no social safety nets. America is brutal on its poor. I know cause I grew up on food stamps and expired meat in Chemical Valley during the height of Dupont's C8 dumping. People are soul crushingly desperate, but many don't even know it doesn't have to be this bad.
- PM_me_your_math 4y agoThis is a joke right? Have you seen how much the USA pays in social safety nets? Also, in the absence of the war on drugs, you'd still have criminal gangs, so no, that has nothing to do with it.
- Melting_Harps 4y ago> Why is catalytic converter theft seemingly worse in the US/UK than in Europe/AU/NZ? Many reasons, but chief among them are that EU is oddly really relaxed on emissions (hence diesel gate not being as big of an issue in it's own Country) and don't use the same equipment on their cars also because AU/NZ are big markets for used Japanese export vehicles that have exceeded its Shakin/Km limits in Japan and there isn't the local demand for these components as the laws don't reflect such strict standards. By contrast those cars are not legal in the US due to emissions, until they fall out of the testing period: see used the massive headache created with the post Motorex Nissan Skyline market by-laws. The UK is odd because MOT and carbon tax things play a part, but it's way easier to register a RHD car from Japan if you're outside of London, and even within it if you know where to go. But both the US and UK also have lots of poverty based crime (theft) underlying their society. Europe, but especially Germany, has many auto-manufactures writing their laws for them; and the higher ubiquity of diesel cars on the road in those markets as opposed to benzene (gasoline) means they cannot just make them all vanish without having immense backlash. So, they greese the right wheels, and things carry on: business as usual. I won't touch the other reasons, but if you really want the nitty-gritty of how relaxed EU standards are read: Faster, Higher, Farther. There is a reason it was some college kids in CA with a home-brew emission tester in a rented Tdi that butsted VW, and not the EU's climate Nazis/Green party in Baden-Wuttenburg. (I lived there and was subject to their stupid vanity based green washing laws as an environmental activist, so I can say that!)
- denkmoon 4y agoMy country has neither of those and the stealing of catalytic converters is very uncommon. Please go right ahead though, seeing the failures of the punitive system in the US provides an exemplar of why my country should not go down that path.