To add insult to injury, the head of the Sergeants Benevolent Association, Ed Mullins, claims that Majors was buying marijuana in the park and that is what put her in this dangerous scenario. He explains how he believes that recent limits on enforcement of marijuana laws in New York City contributed to this deadly situation.

What I am understanding is that [Majors] was in the park to buy marijuana….We don’t enforce marijuana laws anymore. We’re basically hands-off on the enforcement of marijuana. I understand the mayor made statements that this is surprising on how this can happen in New York City….I really have to question what world he’s living in to think that this is surprising, when we are watching the city slowly erode, with shootings, stabbings, an increase in homicides and, most importantly, a hands-off policing policy.

Majors’ family is taking offense to Mullins’ comments because, “…they intentionally or unintentionally direct blame onto Tess, a young woman, for her own murder.”

Nick Gillespie at Reason sees Mullins’ words as yet another reference to the old “reefer madness” hysteria, “…in which devil weed is the source of all forms of evil and criminality, even when it remains illegal.”

I can’t define what Mullins meant in his comments. I don’t read hearts and minds and, honestly, I don’t want to. But I did listen to the entirety of his radio interview. It doesn’t strike me as blatant victim-blaming. In actuality, he is taking way more swipes at NYC Mayor Bill De Blasio.

Furthermore, his comments are not textbook “refer madness” stuff because he never once says that these young teens went on a murderous rampage because they took a few too many hits of the devil’s lettuce. In context, Mullins blames the violence on the city (including Majors’ murder) – on somewhat of a lawless society that allows offenders to spin down a more violent hole.

There are many things that Mullins said in the interview that are questionable. Maybe he does hold to disproved parts of “reefer madness” and blames victims for being victims of violent crime, but I didn’t get that from this one radio appearance. He could be giving listeners a probable reason that an eighteen-year-old would be alone in a questionably safe park at night. But don’t take my word for it, listen to it here.

The problem is that NYC law enforcement might have given up on enforcing laws against marijuana consumption and trade, but it is still not legal to be bought and sold. (There is some liberalization on patients using it for medicinal purposes, but its effects are minimal).

In the same way alcohol prohibition enriched criminals, the marijuana black-market just proliferates and seedy characters take advantage of the fast cash they can make while providing consumers with a product that they demand.

The post NYC College Student Stabbing: Reefer Madness Murder? appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

A German couple was stabbed at music festival Saturday by an intoxicated man shouting “Allahu akbar.”

The couple was enjoying a picnic in the town of Oberhausen when the suspect attacked them. The 57-year-old male victim managed to overpower the suspect, despite receiving serious injuries. The female victim, aged 66, is fighting for her life.

Police did not speculate on a possible motive behind the attack, but said the 26-year-old suspect was under the influence of narcotics. Police said the attacker is homeless and has no known affiliations with extremism. A judge ordered the man be put in a forensic psychiatric facility until further notice.

The attack follows a spree in Germany over the past month.

An Afghan refugee stabbed five people on a train July 19. Islamic State later claimed responsibility for the attack.

A suicide bomber injured 15 people outside a bar July 24 in Ansbach. The man pledged allegiance to Islamic State in a video prior to the attack. (RELATED: Bomber In Germany Was Syrian Refugee Who Had Been Ordered For Deportation Twice)

A German-Iranian teenager killed nine people and wounded another 15 July 23 at shopping center in Munich. The teenager was heard shouting “Fucking Turks” during the shooting.

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The post Another ‘Allahu Akbar’ Stabbing Attack Rocks Germany appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

An American woman in her 60s was stabbed to death and five others were injured when a reported Norwegian-Somalian teenager went on a rampage in central London Wednesday night.

The American woman was stabbed in the back in a crowded London tourist hotspot. A Spanish family helped her as she laid on the ground in a “pool of blood,” but she died before medical personnel responded to the scene.

Another American was among the victims injured in the attack, along with Australian, Israeli and British citizens.

A 19-year-old Norwegian citizen of Somali origin was arrested on suspicion of being the murderer. Police are working under the assumption that the man was mentally ill and describe it as a “spontaneous attack.”

Police are still not ruling out terrorism as a possible motive, but said they haven’t found any links to support it. (RELATED: British Police To Investigate Fatal Knife Attack As Possible Terrorism [VIDEO])

“Whilst the investigation is not yet complete, all of the work we have done so far increasingly points to this tragic incident as having been triggered by mental health issues,” Scotland Yard’s head of counter-terrorism Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said Thursday, according to The Daily Telegraph. “At this time, we believe this was a spontaneous attack and that the victims were selected at random.”

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Vox published an article hours after Japan’s worst mass homicide in 80 years to remind readers stabbing sprees are rare in Japan, and “gun control is a big reason why.”

Nineteen people were stabbed to death and 26 others were injured at a facility for the disabled in Sagamihara, Japan, Monday. The man that broke into the building tied up caregivers before starting his rampage and afterwards called the police to tell them “I did it.” He went on, “It’s better that disabled people disappear.”

Vox noted mass killings “are extremely rare in Japan” which makes this stabbing “especially shocking.” He explained “there are many reasons” why Japan’s murder rate is so low, and that “not all of them are fully understood.”

Despite the array of factors contributing to a society’s homicide rates, Beauchamp asserted Japan’s gun control laws are “undeniably” one of the biggest reasons.

Beauchamp claimed although the Sagamihara tragedy was committed with a knife, “this kind of event would be more common” absent Japan’s stringent gun laws.

An important fact about Japanese gun control is that it extends to swords and knives. The law prohibits people from carrying knives with blades of six centimeters or longer. A Japanese citizen who wants to possess a blade of 15 centimeters or longer must obtain permission from a prefectural public safety commission.

In spite of these regulations, there were 4,677 illegal knife violations in 2007. In 2009, A 74-year-old American tourist in Japan was placed in a holding cell for nine days for carrying a pocket knife that exceeded violations by 1 centimeter.

Beauchamp admitted that “effective Japanese policing,” among other reasons, contributes to Japan’s exceptionally low murder rate. He briefly added almost 98 percent of homicide cases in Japan are solved.

According to law professor David Kopel, the confession rate in Japan is 95 percent. BBC wrote that Japan “has a conviction rate of over 99%, most of which are secured on the back of a confession.” The article adds that “Japanese society’s emphasis on shame and consideration towards their family plays a role” in high confession rates.

Beauchamp wrote that Japan disproves the idea that “if you ban guns, only the criminals will have guns,” because the Yakuza kill fewer people with guns than American gangs. He also noted that “a large percentage of firearm homicides are related to the Yakuza” and also that Japanese gun ownership is significantly smaller than American gun ownership.

Citing studies attempting to show that more guns equals more crime, Beauchamp leaves out cases such as Israel and Switzerland.

Both countries, when accounting for government-owned guns which citizens keep in their homes, have higher gun ownership rates than America. Interestingly, both Switzerland and Israel have lower murder rates than Japan.

Beauchamp explored possibilities that there are other factors influencing crime rates, but concluded that “gun control is, without much doubt, a reason these killings are so rare there. That bears repeating.”

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The post Japan Has Worst Mass Killing In 80 Years, Vox Credits Gun Control appeared first on The Libertarian Republic.

by Jacob Bojesson 

A 15-year-old refugee was charged with murder Monday after allegedly stabbing a 22-year-old employee of a refugee center in Sweden.

The incident took place at a small refugee home outside the city of Gothenburg where 10 unaccompanied teenagers between 14 and 17 years of age live. The motive behind the attack is unknown.

“It was messy with a lot of blood at the crime scene,” police spokesman Thomas Fuxborg said at a press conference. “The perpetrator had been neutralized by other residents [at the refugee center] before police arrived.”

Swedish police responded to 322 reports of violence at refugee homes in 2015 — more than twice as many as in 2014. A knife fight between asylum seekers in the city of Halmstad ended in multiple reported stabbings just last week. The unprecedented violence is putting a huge strain on resources at the moment according to National Chief of Police Dan Eliasson.

“We are forced to respond to the violence at refugee centers in much more than what people realize,” Eliasson told news agency TT . “In some areas of Sweden it is eating up significant resources of the police.”

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While some are speculating the act was in “retaliation” for his role in thwarting last month’s attack, Sacramento police have ruled out terrorism, attributing the stabbing to an altercation at a nightclub earlier in the evening.

Stone was one of three men who restrained a man carrying a Kalashnikov rifle and a box cutter aboard a French train earlier this summer. He required surgery to reattach part of his hand after it was slashed by the gunman.

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