I actually think that's a thoughtful way of looking at the situation: the kind of thinking that might actually lead to long-term solutions rather than just knee-jerk, bandaid ones.
I mean, there's a good point to be made there: drugs are still illegal, and if one of the key activities of gangs, and therefore the precursor to territory wars/gun violence is drug trade (and I'm assuming here that this is an actual fact and not just the media scapegoat du joeur), then consumers of drugs (who are also committing a crime), are part of the chain of criminal events that leads to gun violence.
Doesn't make the people who pull the trigger are any less guilty of committing that specific crime, but it is an important piece of the "how the hell did things get so bad in this city?" puzzle. This kind of violent crime seems to be, among other things, a symptom of a growing societal chasm between the haves and the have-nots, particularly in urban areas. And if the drug trade facilitates a stream of cash flowing from the haves, to the have nots, creating an economy in which the have-nots take the bulk of the risk of violent and/or legal reprecussion... then maybe we need to look a bit more closely at the way we deal with the "drug problem" in general.
If nothing else, it seems a bit more useful than just saying "society must take some responsibility" (without noting any way that we might do this, or reason why).
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-01-10 03:44 pm (UTC)I mean, there's a good point to be made there: drugs are still illegal, and if one of the key activities of gangs, and therefore the precursor to territory wars/gun violence is drug trade (and I'm assuming here that this is an actual fact and not just the media scapegoat du joeur), then consumers of drugs (who are also committing a crime), are part of the chain of criminal events that leads to gun violence.
Doesn't make the people who pull the trigger are any less guilty of committing that specific crime, but it is an important piece of the "how the hell did things get so bad in this city?" puzzle. This kind of violent crime seems to be, among other things, a symptom of a growing societal chasm between the haves and the have-nots, particularly in urban areas. And if the drug trade facilitates a stream of cash flowing from the haves, to the have nots, creating an economy in which the have-nots take the bulk of the risk of violent and/or legal reprecussion... then maybe we need to look a bit more closely at the way we deal with the "drug problem" in general.
If nothing else, it seems a bit more useful than just saying "society must take some responsibility" (without noting any way that we might do this, or reason why).