Society

Here's a tragic story out of Pennsylvania (h/t Amato):

A 7-year-old boy died on Saturday when he was shot by his father in an apparent accident outside a Mercer County gun shop, state police said.

Joseph V. Loughrey, 44, was getting into his truck holding a .9mm Taurus handgun when it discharged. The bullet struck his son, Craig Allen Loughrey, 7, in the chest, state police said. The boy died at the scene.

Sadly these stories have become all too common. Even sadder is how a little responsibility and common sense could have prevented it:

State police said Loughrey told them he had emptied the magazine of the gun, but had no idea a bullet was still in the chamber.

“This happens all too often where people think the gun was empty,” said state police Lt. Eric Hermick.

"I didn't know there was a bullet in there" is about as poor of a defense as "I didn't think I was too drunk to drive". It's an irresponsible defense that should be met with punishment.

Now some may say that the loss of this man's son is punishment enough, but is it? If a father gets behind the wheel after a few beers with his child in the car and crashes, killing that child, that father is still charged, so why isn't the father in this case?

I should mention that no decisions have been made on rather or not Loughrey will be charged, but generally they end up not facing a judge in these cases.

Now I have said time and time again I do believe in our second amendment rights. I also believe we should enjoy those rights with some restrictions and common sense. We don't need high capacity magazines or assault weapons to protect our homes, nor do we need dozens of guns. What we do need is new regulation.

America has 5% of the world's population, 25% of the world's prison population and owns 50% of the world's guns.Thinking of those numbers makes the following two stories seem almost the norm:

Photo of Boy With Gun Leads To Charges For Dad

STOCKTON, Calif. - The father of a 6-year-old Northern California boy seen posing with a gun while in a car seat is now facing child endangerment charges, in addition to weapons and drug counts.

"We have parents handing a child a .45 caliber gun, there's no excuse for that whatsoever," San Joaquin County Deputy District Attorney Michael Mulvihill told CBS Sacramento. Mulvihill added that it not the first such picture he has seen, and likely won't be the last. "This child is on a track right now to think engaging in criminal activity is ok. The likelihood of him offending now in the future is much higher given the environment he is in," said Mulvihill.

Then right here in Ohio:

Police: Ohio man brought gun, knives to 'Dark Knight' showing

WESTLAKE, Ohio - Authorities say a Cleveland-area man has been arrested for carrying a gun, ammunition and several knives into a showing of the "The Dark Knight Rises."

Police in North Ridgeville said a movie theater manager was suspicious of Scott Smith and his satchel when he entered for the 10 p.m. Saturday showing of the Batman movie.

The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reports that manager and an off-duty police officer working security searched Smith's bag and found a Glock 9mm, two magazines and two knives. A third knife was found when Smith was searched, police said.

Without the precogs:

Crime fighters have long used brains and brawn, but now a new kind of technology known as “predictive policing” promises to make them more efficient.

A growing number of law enforcement agencies, in the US and elsewhere, have been adopting software tools with predictive analytics, based on algorithms that aim to predict crimes before they happen.

The concept sounds like something out of science fiction and the thriller “Minority Report” based on a Philip K. Dick story.

Without some of the sci-fi gimmickry, police departments from Santa Cruz, California, to Memphis, Tennessee, and law enforcement agencies from Poland to Britain have adopted these new techniques.

The premise is simple: criminals follow patterns, and with software — the same kind that retailers like Wal-Mart and Amazon use to determine consumer purchasing trends — police can determine where the next crime will occur and sometimes prevent it.

The new system has seen dramatic decreases in crime where this has been implemented, which is a good thing. The key to those decreases has been an increase in patrols and presence. The only thing that scares me is that we decide to go overboard on it and start arresting people for "precrime".

Face it, software and algorithms can fail and will in this case. If we keep it at increased patrol and investigation, fine. If we move towards a Tom Cruise style arrest then we are in serious trouble.

This is something I have known for years:

A study in the August edition of The Journal of School Health finds that the generations old theory of a “gateway drug” effect is in fact accurate, but shifts the blame for escalating substance abuse away from marijuana and onto the most pervasive and socially accepted drug in American life: alcohol.

Using a nationally representative sample from the University of Michigan’s annual Monitoring the Future survey, the study blasts holes in drug war orthodoxy wide enough to drive a truck through, definitively proving that marijuana use is not the primary indicator of whether a person will move on to more dangerous substances.

“By delaying the onset of alcohol initiation, rates of both licit substance abuse like tobacco and illicit substance use like marijuana and other drugs will be positively affected, and they’ll hopefully go down,” study co-author Adam E. Barry, an assistant professor at the University of Florida’s Department of Health Education & Behavior, told Raw Story in an exclusive interview.

I spent years working in the bar business and can tell you first hand that this is the case. One common drug is cocaine. People get drunk, know they are getting close to the limit and want to keep going. A great drug for that is cocaine. It helps you sober up quick and lets you drink even more, not missing out on the party.

Another drug, while not illegal, is nicotine. I have seen countless patrons that started off not smoking at all, then they started smoking, but only when drinking. After a bit more time they are lighting up all day.

I'm not saying to get rid of alcohol, but can we at least stop blaming marijuana for this now? The quicker we are honest about what drugs actually do what, the quicker we can work towards solutions.

The extremists on the right are at it again, this time in Wisconsin:

GRAND CHUTE — Police say a small, homemade explosive device caused damage Sunday to Planned Parenthood’s Gillett Street clinic.

The Grand Chute Fire Department was called to the clinic at 3800 N. Gillett St. about 7:40 p.m. for a fire alarm.

Police say someone placed the device on an outside windowsill. It later exploded causing damage to the building and a small fire that burned out before the fire department arrived.

The extent of damage wasn’t immediately released.

Police think the device was placed about 7:30 p.m.

Of course the hate filled rhetoric from people like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or Michelle Malkin would never have anything to do with this.

When will Congress act and pass a law making it illegal for schools and employers to force people to turn over their credentials to things like Facebook, Twitter and even Email? Here's the latest:

In the Minnesota case, the 12-year-old girl, known only as RS, is said to have been punished by teachers at Minnewaska Area Middle School for things she wrote on Facebook while at home, and using her own computer.

The ACLU is arguing that her First and Fourth Amendment rights, which protect freedom of speech and freedom from illegal searches respectively, were violated.

She is said to have been punished with detention after using Facebook to criticise a school hall monitor, and again after a fellow student told teachers that she had discussed sex online.

The article goes on to explain that school officials as well as a deputy sheriff interrogated the girl until she relinquished the information. Why was law enforcement involved in something that had no legal implications, except for the pure harassment effect?

And this school isn't the only case:

In an recent investigation, the TV station MSNBC found that many university sports departments now require students to "friend" their coach, giving officials access to their "friends-only" posts.

The University of North Carolina handbook reads: "Each team must identify at least one coach or administrator who is responsible for having access to and regularly monitoring the content of team members' social networking sites and postings.

"The athletics department also reserves the right to have other staff members monitor athletes' posts."

This is why we need a law passed banning this practice. Hopefully someone will listen and get the ball rolling.

Paula Deen — the queen of high-calorie, Southern cooking — is about to come clean and confess that she can’t eat her own dishes anymore because she has diabetes.

The Georgia-born chef — a Food Network star who has written five best-selling cookbooks — has been trying to keep her condition a secret, even after the National Enquirer reported in April that she has Type 2 diabetes, which is often associated with fatty foods and obesity.

But unlike millions of Americans, who suffer from the disease and have to struggle to pay for the needed medicines and testing equipment, Deen is going to instead profit off of it:

Sources say Deen, 64, who never addressed the diabetes question, has worked out a multimillion-dollar deal to be the spokeswoman for a pharmaceutical company and endorse the drug she is taking.

Novartis, the drug company she is said to be working for, declined to respond to Flash’s questions, as did Deen’s agent and Deen herself.

Instead of promoting healthier food, Deen decides to promote the medication. Instead of deciding to become an advocate for proper eating and helping to lead America to a healthier future, she will continue to push her diabetes causing meals and then push the drugs to fight the disease.

There is something very wrong with this whole story and I don't like it one bit.

A bunch of new laws will be surfacing around the nation in 2012, but one really has me steamed:

California also became the first state in the nation to require a prescription for obtaining any drug containing dextromethorphan, an ingredient found in many popular over-the-counter cough suppressants, including Robitussin, NyQuil and Dimetapp.

The law was prompted by a spike in the use of cough syrup as a recreational drug. A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel considered making the medications prescription-only, but rejected the idea in September.

You can expect to see this law spread to other states as well and it's a fundamental problem with our society.

The United States already has the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world, yet we continue to find ways to keep our prison populations high instead of reducing them. This law, while designed to "keep people safe", will quickly devolve into such a measure. Not only that but we will also see future people who are unable to seek employment because their record has that ding for taking NyQuil without a prescription.

Another thing that bothers me is that people can't afford to go to the doctor or miss work to go. Instead they head to the local pharmacy and buy their cough medicine over the counter (hell I'm doing it right now!). Now they won't be able to do that. Instead that $10 bottle of NyQuil will cost hundreds when you factor in time lost from work, the cost of a doctors visit and the cost of the prescription. Instead people will just not take the medication and remain sick even longer. How in the hell does that help our nation?