Anchorage broke another record. A really bad one.

Courtesy of the ADN: 

The death of a man whose body was found in Butte is now being investigated as a homicide in Anchorage, Alaska State Troopers said Monday. That would bring the city to a record number of homicides in a calendar year. 

The body of Anchorage man Weston Gladney, 36, was found in the Jim Creek recreation area of Butte, in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, on Dec. 2. 

"Investigation by troopers has determined that the homicide occurred in Anchorage," Alaska State Troopers spokesman Tim DeSpain said. "At this time there is no additional information available for release in regards to this ongoing investigation."

Gladney's killing was the 35th homicide in Anchorage in 2017, police said – a new record. In 2016, there were a total of 34 homicides in the city, which also set a record.

Of course these statistics may seem minor when compared to big cities, but keep in mind that Anchorage has less than 300,000 people living there.

And yet Forbes Magazine once ranked us the tenth most dangerous city.

It should come as some comfort that most of those murdered knew their killers, or were involved in criminal activity.

In other words every day citizens of the city should feel relatively safe. (Or as safe as you can feel when every other asshole is probably carrying a gun.)

People are literally dying to get out of Alaska.

(Statistics provided by the American foundation for Suicide Prevention.) 

We have been a leader in this unfortunate category for as long as I can remember.

I personally have never had any suicidal thoughts and remain untouched by SAD, or any other  depression causing maladies.

In fact I am typically a little too chipper, which often irritates those around me.

I DID once briefly work on a suicide hotline, but I was unable to empathize with their situation and kept wanting to say "Get over it slugger, tomorrow will be better day," which was not one of the sanctioned responses we were supposed to provide.

Simply put, I just don't get it. 

Of course suicide is not the only unfortunate circumstance where Alaska leads the nation, we also have three times the number of rapes per capita than the national average, and we are in the top ten states with the highest homicide rate per capita.

When people say they want to move to Alaska I always say "Are you positive?"

This place is gorgeous and awe inspiring to be sure, but it is also often harsh and unforgiving. So if you are not a fairly tough person, with a positive outlook, you are undoubtedly about to become a statistic.

And not one of the good ones. 

Death by gunshot is the third leading cause of childhood death in the US.

Courtesy of Ars Technica:  

Nearly 1,300 children aged 0 to 17 are killed by gunshots each year in the US, and nearly 5,800 more suffer from non-lethal gunshot wounds, researchers estimate in a study published Monday in Pediatrics.

 In all, about 19 children die or are wounded each day from firearms, either by homicide, suicide, or unintentional shootings. Firearm-related deaths are now the third leading cause of death among US children and the second leading cause of injury-related deaths, behind car crashes. The grim national statistics are even more startling when considered from an international perspective: the US now accounts for 91 percent of all child firearm-related deaths (aged 0 to 14) among high-income countries. 

In addition to the broad figures compiled by researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the study also provides one of the most comprehensive looks yet at the factors surrounding those deaths and injuries. 

For the study, researchers tapped into national databases on firearm deaths and nonfatal injuries, including data on gunshots from handguns, rifles, and shotguns. Information was scraped from death certificates, hospital reports, medical examiner reports, and law enforcement reports. The researchers also collected demographic data, such as sex, race/ethnicity, and age.

The latest annual death estimate breaks down to: 53 percent from homicide, 38 percent from suicide, six percent unintentional, and the remaining three percent were either from unknown intentions or legal intervention. Boys made up 82 percent of those fatally shot, and older children (aged 13 to 17) were 12 times more likely to die from firearms than younger children (0 to 12). 

African American children were the demographic most likely to be killed by firearms, while white and Native American children are the most likely to take their own lives with a gun of some type.

It should also be noted that while firearm homicides and accidental deaths have gone down, that gun suicides have gone up.

It is also worth mentioning that 91% of the children killed by guns in high income countries, have died in the United States of America.

If there were any terrorist organization in the world that was murdering even thirteen of our children every year, we would mobilize our entire military to wipe them out.

But this is 1,300 of our babies, killed by instruments of death that adults bring into their homes to protect them.

When do we pass some laws and spend some money to help keep them safe?

Alaska ranks first in number of gun deaths. Well of course we do.

Courtesy of KTUU: 

Alaska ranked number one in firearm death rates in 2015, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Alaska has one of the highest firearm death rates per capita, according to the CDC. And a study by the Violence Policy Center, an organization that studies gun violence, calculates that Alaska's household gun ownership was at 56.4 percent, in 2015. This positive correlation is often observed when it comes to gun statistics. 

The VPC says that in addition to the contributing factor of high gun ownership, the study attributes Alaska’s poor ranking to what it calls "weak" gun violence prevention laws. The VPC also analyzed the newly released data from the CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. 

The factors that contribute to receiving a "weak" rating include “adding little or nothing to federal law” and “permissive laws governing the open or concealed carrying of firearms in public.” This holds true for Alaska, a conceal carry state. 

It can become difficult to pinpoint exactly why the gun deaths in Alaska were so high, in 2015. However, the CDC says that out of Alaska's 177 firearm deaths, 123 of them were suicides and 42 of them were a result of homicides.

More guns = more gun deaths.  Seems pretty simple to me.

But hey, at least we have our Second Amendment right, and that's all that really counts.

Right?

Justice Department Inspector General to investigate how FBI handled Clinton e-mail case.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

The Justice Department Inspector General says he will review how the FBI and Justice Department handled certain aspects of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. 

The probe by Michael E. Horowitz will include a review of FBI Director James Comey's news conference in July and his two letters to lawmakers in late October and early November. 

"In response to requests from numerous Chairmen and Ranking Members of Congressional oversight committees, various organizations, and members of the public, the Office of the Inspector General will initiate a review of allegations regarding certain actions by the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in advance of the 2016 election," the Justice Department said in a statement.

Just 11 days before the 2016 general election, Comey notified Congress that the FBI was reviewing a new batch of emails that appeared to be pertinent to their investigation. The emails, discovered during a probe, were found on a laptop that former New York congressman Anthony Weiner allegedly used to send lewd text messages and pictures to an underage girl.

Well this is good news, which hopefully will see Comey punished for his sabotage.

Just yesterday Vox offered up an article that offers proof Comey's letter altered the outcome of his election: 

Many people — most notably Trump and other Republicans — have scoffed at the claim that the letter changed the outcome of the election, suggesting that it’s a convenient excuse for a weak candidate who made some questionable strategic decisions. 

But the Comey effect was real, it was big, and it probably cost Clinton the election. 

Vox then offers up four pieces of evidence to support their contention.

The first is state polls:

To be sure, the gap with Clinton was narrowing before Comey dropped his bombshell, but the pace also picked up significantly after that. For example, averaging across 14 battleground states, the race moved 1.1 points in Trump’s direction in the week following the third and final debate — but Trump gained an additional 2.4 points after October 28.

National polls:

Sort of self explanatory.

Voter choices AFTER the Comey letter:

And media coverage of the two candidates:

Coverage of Clinton’s emails eclipsed her policy proposals and ended up being the only story about Clinton that stuck with voters. While 79 percent of registered voters had heard “a lot” about Clinton’s emails, only 23 percent heard “a lot” about Trump’s housing discrimination, 27 percent heard “a lot” about the Donald J. Trump Foundation’s illegal political contribution to the Florida attorney general, and, surprisingly, only 59 percent had heard a “a lot” about the Hollywood Access tape. 

I think that this is more than enough evidence in a court of law to prove malfeasance on the part of the FBI director.

I just wonder what the appropriate punishment is for a law enforcement employee helping the Russian government destroy one candidate's chances of winning in order to help their opponent?

Possibly the most depressing group I follow on Twitter.

Visit https://t.co/GKwiFAZQKg for up-to-date statistics and information pic.twitter.com/VNhThmgDni

— Gun Violence Archive (@GunDeaths) October 23, 2016

I know some of these numbers seem high, but if you visit their website they back them up with those pesky facts and statistics.

North Carolina toddler puts gun in his mouth, pulls the trigger.

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

A North Carolina toddler found a handgun in his parents’ bedroom Saturday afternoon, put it in his mouth — and the gun went off, authorities say. 

The Asheboro boy is “extremely lucky,” a sheriff’s captain tells the Winston-Salem Journal, because the bullet missed his vital organs.

This is what constitutes " extremely lucky" in a toddler with gun story these days, "bullet missed his vital organs." Because so often vital organs are hit, either on the toddler himself or some other child or adult in the vicinity.

According to Newser the two year old's father was home at the time (It was his gun.) as were his mother and three of his older siblings.

Yet not one of them bothered to protect this child.

By the way if you have seen this meme pop up on your Facebook of Twitter account lately, Snopes would like you to know that it is true.

And unfortunately most of those lives taken, have been the toddler's.

A reminder of why gun violence statistics are so damn hard to come by.

Courtesy of The New York Times:

For nearly two decades, Congress has banned needed research on gun violence by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Last week, Congress, doing the bidding of the gun industry, quietly killed a provision in the omnibus spending bill that would have reversed that ban. 

In so doing, it left intact an anti-science smoke screen that has helped the industry and its lobbyists deny and dispute the facts of the gun violence that takes more than 30,000 lives a year. Imagine if the tobacco industry had been similarly favored by Congress with a ban on federal research about cigarette deaths. 

Imagine, too, if the auto industry had such a shield during the years when the government successfully fought unsafe cars in the cause of public health. 

Perversely, the gun industry claims that research by private and academic interests — which it can’t block — is untrustworthy. Expect that argument to be invoked in reaction to alarming research about the Missouri General Assembly’s repeal eight years ago of background checks for gun buyers that required people to appear in person at the local sheriff’s office. 

A study by the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research found that in the first six years after the repeal, gun homicides rose within the state by 16 percent, while the national rate declined 11 percent. By contrast, it also found that Connecticut, which has maintained its 1995 background check law, registered a 40 percent drop in gun homicides across a decade.

This is what we are going to have to keep in mind, and fight against if we ever want to REALLY pass any meaningful legislation against gun violence in this country. 

And if Hillary continues putting the need to do something about all of these gun deaths front and center in her campaign I imagine the amount of misinformation put out by the NRA will increase a hundred fold.

Here my question. If the NRA is right and the statistics often used by media outlets are often exaggerated then why would they NOT want the CDC to set the record straight?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

How much do Alaskans like Barack Obama? Enough to make him our top Google search that's how much.

Source

What did I tell ya?

The man needs to move up here where he is loved and respected.

Of course the fact that he needs to avoid Wasilla goes without saying.

The reason so many white men are dying might be directly tied to the 2nd Amendment that they believe in so fervently.

I found this to be a very interesting, and very informative video.

It is also just another example to prove that easy access to guns means death is always just moments away.

Physicians demand end to 20 year ban on research into gun violence.

Courtesy of Think Progress:  

This ban, supported by the National Rifle Association (NRA), has effectively silenced researchers at both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) for conducting any comprehensive studies on what causes violence — and what can be done to prevent it — since 1996. As expected, it’s left public health experts and policymakers with little to lean on as they attempt to craft new legislation to help quell the fatal trend. 
 doctor

At Wednesday’s press conference, led by Doctors for America, doctors presented a petition signed by more than 2,000 physicians in all 50 states requesting an end to the restriction. 

“It’s disappointing to me that we’ve made little progress in the past 20 years in finding solutions to gun violence,” said Dr. Nina Agrawal, who’s been a pediatrician in the South Bronx for years. “In my career, I’ve seen children lives saved from measles, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, motor vehicle accidents…because of federal scientific data and research. It’s frustrating that the CDC is not permitted to do the same type of research for gun violence.” 

Instead, GOP leaders have tried to make gun violence an issue that requires mental health research, despite the fact that less than 3 percent of U.S. crimes involve someone with a mental illness. And the most recent argument against CDC-funded research is that “a gun is not a disease” — even though the CDC has been researching motor vehicles, natural disasters, poor ventilation systems, and many other topics that wouldn’t be labeled a disease for years. The politicians behind these arguments have yet to suggest simply allocating money to another government agency. 

“Politicians have put a gag order on public health research for gun violence only to score political points,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who also spoke at the event. “On public health matters, it’s critical we listen to doctors — not politicians.”

Please let this last spate of gun violence be enough to finally get Americans off their asses and willing to vocally, and politically, support changes in how we deal with guns in this country.

I don't know about everybody else but I am goddamn tired of writing headlines about people being shot to death.

Nate Silver tells everybody to "keep calm" because Donald Trump is never going to be the Republican nominee for President.

Courtesy of the Business Insider: 

Nate Silver, the founder and editor-in-chief of the data-journalism website FiveThirtyEight, told an audience at an event in New York on Wednesday he didn't think Trump would be the nominee because he was not conservative enough. 

"I don't think that Donald Trump is very likely to win the nomination in part because he's not really a Republican," Silver told journalist Mo Rocca at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan. 

"He's very far to the right on immigration, but he also wants socialized medicine," Silver said. "He wants to tax the rich, right? There's an alternate reality in which he decided to run as a Democrat instead — he wouldn't have to change his policy positions all that much."

Silver goes on to say this:  

"People haven't given [the candidates] more than two seconds' worth of attention ... Calm down — it's not a tennis match where you're going back and forth all the time," Silver said. "Keep calm."

Silver also claims that even if Trump were getting close to attracting enough votes to win the nomination that the GOP has ways to shut that whole thing down.  

"The nomination party isn't purely democratic — it's also party's process to bestow," he said. "The fact that the Republican Party establishment hates Donald Trump isn't a very good thing — the party has to give you the nomination."

You know I think almost all of us realize that these are inarguable facts, perhaps even some of those currently supporting Trump, but it is still almost impossible to pull our eyes away from the Trump train wreck even though we all kinda know it is nothing more than a distraction.

Besides for a liberal, watching how Trump draws out the racists from the shadows is both enlightening and helpful in deciding how to describe the Republican party moving forward.

The average gun owner is white, 55 years of age, and apparently from Alaska. Wait, what?

Courtesy of HuffPo:  

After a shooting in Charleston, South Carolina claimed nine lives, President Barack Obama called for the nation to come to terms with the fact that no other advanced country in the world suffers mass shootings as frequently as the U.S. It won’t be until we acknowledge this basic truth, he said, that we’ll realize we have the power to put an end to gun violence. 

But that won’t happen until we learn more about the culture that drives gun ownership in the first place, according to Dr. Bindu Kalesan, a gun violence researcher at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health. In a first step toward understanding who the typical American gun owner is, as well as the role guns play in their lives, she conducted a nationally representative online survey of 4,000 U.S. adults in 2013. The findings, published Monday in the journal Injury Prevention, reveal a wide range of gun ownership rates across the country as well as the profile of an average gun owner in America. 

He’s white, married or divorced, high income, and over 55 years old. Unsurprisingly, he’s also more than twice as likely to be a member of “social gun culture” than those who don't own firearms. In all, almost one in three Americans owns at least one gun, but gun ownership rates vary widely across states. At 61.7 percent, Alaska has the highest rate of gun ownership, while Delaware has the lowest, at 5.2 percent.

HuffPo goes on to define “social gun culture” as a phenomenon in which friends or family would think less of you if you didn’t own a gun, and if your social life with friends and family involved guns.

Which to me sounds pretty accurate. And I certainly know people like that up here.

I have to admit that I am a little wigged out by a study about gun ownership that describes me so accurately.

Yes, I am white, 55 years old, and living in the state with the highest gun ownership in the country.

However I would not characterize myself as having a high income, and more importantly I DO NOT OWN ANY GUNS!

The article goes on to offer this chart which demonstrates that more gun ownership equals more gun deaths.

Which is a fact I know, which is why I DON'T OWN ANY GUNS!

Look I don't have any idea what it is about holding onto a piece of metal that we are conditioned to equate with male dominance and power that men find so appealing.

But I guess that might be due to the fact that the source of my own self confidence is more internal and not something that I can buy at the local Wal-Mart while I am out shopping for a new toilet plunger.

New report on police shootings offers troubling evidence.

Courtesy of St. Louis Post-Dispatch:  

A national debate is raging about police use of deadly force, especially against minorities. To understand why and how often these shootings occur, The Washington Post is compiling a database of every fatal shooting by police this year, as well as of every officer killed by gunfire in the line of duty. The Post looked exclusively at shootings, not killings by other means, such as stun guns and deaths in police custody. 

Using interviews, police reports, local news accounts and other sources, The Post tracked more than a dozen details about each killing through Friday, including the victim’s race, whether the person was armed and the circumstances that led to the fatal encounter. The result is an unprecedented examination of these shootings, many of which began as minor incidents and suddenly escalated into violence. 

Among The Post’s findings: 

• About half the victims were white, half minority. But the demographics shifted sharply among the unarmed victims, two-thirds of whom were black or Hispanic. Overall, blacks were killed at three times the rate of whites or other minorities when adjusting by the population of the census tracts where the shootings occurred. 

• The vast majority of victims — more than 80 percent — were armed with potentially lethal objects, primarily guns, but also knives, machetes, revving vehicles and, in one case, a nail gun. 

• Forty-nine people had no weapon, while the guns wielded by 13 others turned out to be toys. In all, 16 percent were either carrying a toy or were unarmed. 

• The dead ranged in age from 16 to 83. Eight were younger than 18, including Jessie Hernandez, 17, who was shot three times by Denver police officers as she and a carload of friends allegedly tried to run them down. 

The Post analysis also sheds light on the situations that most commonly gave rise to fatal shootings. About half of the time, police were responding to people seeking help with domestic disturbances and other complex social situations: A homeless person behaving erratically. A boyfriend threatening violence. A son trying to kill himself. 

Ninety-two victims — nearly a quarter of those killed — were identified by police or family members as mentally ill.

In an article literally bulging with troubling information, I find that last statistic to be especially troubling.

Mentally ill people deserve help from our public servants, not bullets.

The article also revealed that in the last five months 385 people had been killed by police in this country.  That is more than two a day.

No matter now pro-law and order you might be, you have to admit that these statistics are sickening. And that something serious needs to be done in response.

Guess which country is the most heavily armed in the world. Too easy?

Courtesy of TPM:

Since the Newtown shootings more than two years ago we've devoted a great deal of coverage to chronicling the prevalence of guns and firearms violence in the United States. It won't come as a surprise to many of you that there are far more guns in civilian hands in the US than the UK or Germany, for instance. But even if you're broadly familiar with the contours of the gun story, it's still stunning to see just how heavily armed the US is compared to every other country on the planet. Indeed, the only country that even comes close to the US per capita average is Yemen. While the US has only 5% of the world's population, it has between 35% and 50% of the world's civilian firearms.

It should be noted that the lowest estimate for Yemen is  32% while the highest is 90%.

For America the lowest estimate is 83% and the highest is 97%. In other words it is far more likely that the American numbers are accurate.

I have to admit that even I am stunned to learn that I might be among the only 3% of Americans who do not own a firearm.

What in the hell are all of you people so afraid of?

The myth of gun ownership and home defense.

Courtesy of Politico:  

In 1992, Gary Kleck and Marc Getz, criminologists at Florida State University, conducted a random digit-dial survey to establish the annual number of defensive gun uses in the United States. They surveyed 5,000 individuals, asking them if they had used a firearm in self-defense in the past year and, if so, for what reason and to what effect. Sixty-six incidences of defensive gun use were reported from the sample. The researchers then extrapolated their findings to the entire U.S. population, resulting in an estimate of between 1 million and 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year. 

The claim has since become gospel for gun advocates and is frequently touted by the National Rifle Association, pro-gun scholars such as John Lott and conservative politicians. The argument typically goes something like this: Guns are used defensively “over 2 million times every year—five times more frequently than the 430,000 times guns were used to commit crimes.” Or, as Gun Owners of America states, “firearms are used more than 80 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives.” Former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum has frequently opined on the benefits of defensive gun use, explaining: “In fact, there are millions of lives that are saved in America every year, or millions of instances like that where gun owners have prevented crimes and stopped things from happening because of having guns at the scene.” 

It may sound reassuring, but is utterly false. In fact, gun owners are far more likely to end up like Theodore Wafer or Eusebio Christian, accidentally shooting an innocent person or seeing their weapons harm a family member, than be heroes warding off criminals.

The article points out a number of ways in which the criminologist misrepresented and extrapolated their data in order to reach such ridiculous numbers.

And then goes on to point out the following:

For example, guns were allegedly used in self-defense in 845,000 burglaries, according to Kleck and Getz. However, from reliable victimization surveys, we know that there were fewer than 1.3 million burglaries where someone was in the home at the time of the crime, and only 33 percent of these had occupants who weren’t sleeping. From surveys on firearm ownership, we also know that 42 percent of U.S. households owned firearms at the time of the survey. Even if burglars only rob houses of gun owners, and those gun owners use their weapons in self-defense every single time they are awake, the 845,000 statistic cited in Kleck and Gertz’s paper is simply mathematically impossible. 

Of course here at IM we have reported on the almost stunning number of times that guns purchased for protection instead killed or badly wounded the owner or a member of their families. 

Some of them are almost humorous, while others are tragically sad.

The facts are that owning a gun does NOT statistically make you safer than a non-gun owner, however it does dramatically increase the possibility that you yourself, or a loved one, will be shot with that firearm.

I have said it before, but it bears repeating, the best deterrent against burglary is a good dog.

And might I add that dogs are MUCH less likely to go off accidentally and take off somebody's finger. I am not saying it doesn't ever happen, just that it is much less likely.

Oklahoma county introduces science based comprehensive sex education, teen birth rate drops 20 percent in one year. Funny how that works.

Courtesy of Tulsa World:  

Tulsa County’s teen birth rate fell 20 percent from 2012 to 2013, according to statistics released recently by the Oklahoma State Department of Health. 

That far outpaced the rate statewide, where the rate fell 9 percent, according to the department. 

Kim Schutz, executive director of the Tulsa Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, said programs such as evidence-based, comprehensive sex education at schools have helped teenagers in Tulsa County get the messages needed to prevent pregnancy, she said. 

“It comes down to teens making better decisions,” she said. 

The teen birth rate in Tulsa County was 37.5 per 1,000 teenage girls ages 15 to 19 in 2013, down from 46.8 per 1,000 the year before, Schutz said.

Not exactly shocking to learn that having comprehensive sex education has a bigger impact on preventing teen pregnancy than simply telling kids to say no.

Of course you cannot tell some people that.

 Good for Tulsa County in embracing an educational program that actually helps their community rather than one that is supported by religious fundamentalists who believe that virginity is more precious than gold and that sex is something women must endure in order to trap a husband and live in an upscale neighborhood.

In 14 states gun deaths outnumber deaths by motor vehicle. Well there goes another NRA talking point.

Courtesy of Oregon Live:

Oregon was one of 14 states where gun deaths outpaced motor vehicle deaths in 2011, according to a study by the Violence Policy Center. 

Data was compiled from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. 

This marks the third year the Violence Policy Center has issued an annual report comparing gun deaths to motor vehicle deaths by state. The center is a nonprofit organization working to stop gun death and injury. 

Oregon's number of gun deaths also exceeded its motor vehicle deaths in 2009 and 2010, according to the center. 

Gun deaths include suicide by firearm, homicides, and fatal unintentional shootings. Motor vehicle deaths include both vehicle occupants and pedestrians. 

The 13 other states where gun deaths exceeded motor vehicle deaths in 2011 were: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Utah, Vermont, Virginia and Washington state, as well as the District of Columbia.

As I am sure most of you know the NRA and  Ammosexuals have long argued that there are more deaths caused by motor vehicle accidents then are caused by guns. However as the article above states, that is not true in at least 14 states.

What's more, as I have pointed out repeatedly, the primary function of a vehicle is transportation, whereas the primary function of a gun is death.

But if the gun fetishists wanted gun owners treated more like car owners they may want to keep this in mind.

 Seems reasonable enough, don't you think?

Despite warnings to the contrary Denver's crime rates have plunged since the legalization of marijuana in Colorado.

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

Despite dire predictions by anti-marijuana activists, overall crime rates in the city of Denver are down more than five months after legal marijuana sales began in the Rocky Mountain state. According to the Denver Department of Public Safety, rates of violent crime are down, as well as burglaries, leading to an overall decrease in crime of 10.6 percent. 

The city measured the number of reported crimes from January 1st to April 30th of 2014 and compared them to the same period last year, prior to the legalization of medical and recreational marijuana use. 

The number of murders, sexual assaults, violent robberies and other assaults fell by 5.6 percent. The most dramatic decrease was in the number of homicides. In 2013, from January to the end of April, the city lost 17 people to murder. In the same period in 2014, only 8 died, a drop of more than 50 percent.

For some reason arson is up and so is petty larceny, but  the crime spree predicted by some on the Right has not materialized.

I am not a huge advocate of legalizing drugs as a rule, but any changes in current law that keep non-violent drug users out of jail seems like a good idea to me.

And thankfully Alaska is about to get the opportunity to vote on a similar bill themselves, which overall I think will prove to be very good for our state.

Statistics and Atheism.

Source

Quite often people accuse Atheists of being arrogant, but I think they simply confuse a refusal to bow to the superiority of their religious brethren that invites that label.

And remember we are not among those who claim a moral superiority, nor go door to door threatening eternal damnation for those who do not accept our point of view.

Just saying.