The deadly butt-leg war (violent bootleg cigarette dealers)

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http://www.nydailynews.com/news/story/144380p-127730c.html

The deadly butt-leg war

3 slain as cig street trade booms

By MICHELE McPHEE
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF

A bootleg cigarette war in Brooklyn has claimed the lives of at least three people since the summer, the Daily News has learned.

With city and state taxes boosting the price of cigarettes, hundreds of streetwise hustlers are selling cheap tax-free smokes - an illegal but lucrative trade that is becoming nearly as cutthroat as dealing drugs.

One teenage victim, Cody Knox, was buried yesterday, two weeks after he was chased by two fellow bootleggers and fatally stabbed because he was undercutting cigarette prices by a buck, stealing his rivals' business.

...

On Nov. 17, Henry's body was found on an East New York rooftop where he had gone to deliver a carton of cigarettes to a tenant at 185 Wortman Ave. He had been shot once in the head.

"This guy was making about $1,000 to $1,500 a week selling these untaxed cigarettes," said the law enforcement source. "We believe someone in the neighborhood knew how much money he was making and decided to rob him."

Investigators also are looking at a third cigarette-related slaying, in Bedford-Stuyvesant on Aug. 16. Angel Aponte, 17, was suspected of robbing a cigarette dealer days before he was found shot dead at 544 Throop Ave.

Originally published on December 10, 2003

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Question: Are there any nay-sayers who believe these deaths are not attributable to the illegal tobacco trade?

This is yet another example that prohibition cultivates crime and breeds violence.

On edit:

Trimmed a bit out of the middle.

cut down your post to 4 paragraphs.

Second of all, Libertarians are going to have a field day over this. They will now be saying that there shouldn't be any taxing of drugs.

Stand by.

The problem is that the tax is so high that crime pays. Many libertarians I know are willing to accept a tax on cannabis as a component of legalization, for example. Those that do suggest the tax not be set too great or the problem returns.

In my opinion, this is almost a perfect example of prohibition and its effects. Do distributers of beer and liquor kill each other today? No, but they did once upon a time.

And I'd have to agree. There is a limit to how high you can tax something before the product gets forced into the black market.

I don't smoke, but a $7 tax on cigarettes is ridiculous.

Since this was his initiative that he signed into law, publically proclaiming himself a former smoker. Bloomberg was even angry about Mick Jagger smoking in Madison Square Gardens to send the police to the concert.

He's going to have a hard time distancing himself from his baby.

I hope the anti-smoking busybodies are happy now.

:mad:

"Instead of receiving a summons to pay the city a fine, these people should be charged with felonies and be considered dangerous criminals."

"That will discourage people from distributing illegal smokes."

although these social engineering people try say they're liberals, they all for government cohersion...and try talk to them..they aren't liberals. And as far as blame...good! Liberalism is about tolerence and leaving people alone, not trying to improve things by forcing others to do what a obnoxious minority decrees is good. In 'Up From Conservativism' Mike Lind describes a huge demographic who have, be design, been left unrepresented by 'liberal left' or 'conservative right' and forced, again, by design, out of politics through apathy or to swallow whatever the nazis or commies (they deserve the appellation) are forcing on us....
And guess who started the cig craze in first place? The Government/tobacco industry in WW2 gave the goddam things to everybody in the forces FREE for years...now they get away saying it's wrong!

Neither left nor right is innocent of social engineering. There are liberals and conservatives in favor of public smoking bans and the like.

"Liberalism is about tolerence and leaving people alone, not trying to improve things by forcing others to do what a obnoxious minority decrees is good. In 'Up From Conservativism' Mike Lind describes a huge demographic who have, be design, been left unrepresented by 'liberal left' or 'conservative right' and forced, again, by design, out of politics through apathy or to swallow whatever the nazis or commies (they deserve the appellation) are forcing on us...."-pretzel4gore


Well said!!:toast:

"Liberalism is about tolerence and leaving people alone, not trying to improve things by forcing others to do what a obnoxious minority decrees is good."
--Like those freedom marchers in Mississippi calling for civil rights legislation?
--Like a bunch of nosy parkers trying to meddle with factories that make so many things everybody uses just because a little toxic waste goes into the water or air?
--Like a few soreheads trying to mess with the entire economy by poking their nose into how Wall Street does business?
--Like a small bunch of extremists trrying to force everybody to pay for food stamps with their tax money just because a handful of lazy worthless folks go hungry?
You're trying to tell us that's not liberal?

I never said those things, you did.

I didn't give ANY opinion of the things you stated.


I was talking more about this:

"a huge demographic who have, be design, been left unrepresented by 'liberal left' or 'conservative right' and forced, again, by design, out of politics"


I belong to said huge demographic.


As for the rest, ask him what he meant if its unclear to you.

Are you telling us you didn't quote the part I took out and say "Well said!! " and add a little cartoon?

I don't blame you...it's kind of a dopey comment.

Perhaps next time you ought to just excerpt the part you DO agree with.

"as for the rest, ask him what he meant if its unclear to you."
It's not unclear...it's a pantload but it wasn't difficult to understand.

By the way..."a huge demographic who have, be design, been left unrepresented by 'liberal left' or 'conservative right' and forced, again, by design, out of politics"

Tell us, who is designing....and are you sure it's not ignorance and apathy keeping them away? (Old punchline: "I don't know and I don't care.")

"Are you telling us you didn't quote the part I took out and say "Well said!! " and add a little cartoon?"


Nope, I'm not telling anyone that. Its early, MrBenchley, and I really didn't feel like picking a fight with you about it. Since you brought it up though, when he said "Liberalism is about tolerence and leaving people alone, not trying to improve things by forcing others to do what a obnoxious minority decrees is good", I had an image come to mind of the gun grabber movement being the "obnoxious minority". In cases such as the gun grabbers I tend to think that his statement fits perfectly. Is that specific enough for you?



"Tell us, who is designing....and are you sure it's not ignorance and apathy keeping them away?"

Elitists are designing. And yes, its definitely the ignorance on the part of the elite, being out of touch with the average joe, that has alot to do with keeping them away. Alienating the vote of hunters who would otherwise be Democratic voters, for instance.

And who are these elitists when they're at home....people who listen to classical music? People who chew with their mouths closed?

This is the EXACT same crap-ass argument we used to hear during the civil rights days from those trying desperately to prop up Jim Crow...and now surprise, surprise, we're hearing it from many of the same racist turds about guns.

"I had an image come to mind of the gun grabber movement being the "obnoxious minority""
Funny, all the really scummy people are peddling that bogus "gun rights" crap.

"And who are these elitists when they're at home...?"-MrBenchley

Who are you when you are at home?


"Funny, all the really scummy people are peddling that bogus "gun rights" crap."-MrBenchley

Yeah, luckily Amy Fisher, and Barbara Lipscomb are on YOUR side.


Dear me, I believe I struck a nerve. They ought to invent a magazine for guns that just keeps feeding amunition endlessly...call it the benchly mag.:evilgrin:

what you meant by "elitists" beev...

Wonder why.

I could name names bench, but you already know who they are, don't you.

If not, read below and figure it out for yourself.


From my post #14:
"And yes, its definitely the ignorance on the part of the elite, being out of touch with the average joe, that has alot to do with keeping them away. Alienating the vote of hunters who would otherwise be Democratic voters, for instance."

didn't fool me much at all...I've heard that crap for years....

"Liberalism is about tolerence and leaving people alone, not trying to improve things by forcing others to do what a obnoxious minority decrees is good."

Even if one accepts this limited and debatable definition of "liberalism" (which does kinda coincide with mine, that being why I am not a liberal), how does a ban on smoking in public places run afoul of it?

I'm a member of an obnoxious minority. I'm a smoker. Well, I'd be in an obnoxious minority if I were a smoker who insisted on smoking in public places. I'm not. And for one single reason: I do not have the right to compel others to work in unsafe workplaces.

Any bar or restaurant customer who objected to my smoking would be perfectly free to go find a non-smoking bar or restaurant. S/he would have no need that could only be met by sharing air with me. One would confidently expect that the invisible hand of the marketplace would open large numbers of such establishments, to meet all the demand for them that there seems to be.

But I owe a great deal more consideration to people who work in the hospitality industry, for instance. No other worker in our society -- and certainly not me -- is compelled to choose between working in unsafe conditions and not working. Second-hand smoke *does* cause serious health problems among people who work in it for hours a day. Bartenders and servers are entitled to the same protection from unsafe working conditions as coal miners are.

So I support bans on smoking in public places, and refrain from joining the obnoxious minority trying to force others to breathe their smoke.

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that pretty much every advance in civilization, from child labor laws to women suffrage, from the 40 hour work week to safe workplaces, all came about due to liberals "trying to improve things by forcing others to do what a obnoxious minority decrees is good."

Of course, those "others" are the ones deciding what is "obnoxious." As Poppa Bush once said in a rare bit of candor, "Take the average guy who owns an oil well...."

"that pretty much every advance in civilization, from child labor laws to women suffrage, from the 40 hour work week to safe workplaces, all came about due to liberals "trying to improve things by forcing others to do what a obnoxious minority decrees is good."-MrBenchley



Bear in mind that just because the above is true, it does NOT make a case for it being right in ALL instances.

The fact that X is true does not mean that Y is true. Gosh.

Had someone said it did?

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that "obnoxious minority" line still has cobwebs on it from when the Jim Crow crowd were trying to prop up segregation...and surprise, surprise, it's being used now to justify the "gun rights" rubbish that so many racists are peddling these days.

Is this somehow supposed to demonstrate that a prohibition on firearms ownership (which strikes me as a straw person to start with) would have the same results as a prohibitively high tax on cigarettes?

If so, perhaps you can explain the analogy.

Are firearms an addictive substance that their users need to replenish their supply of once or twice a day? Does the market for firearms involve billions of transactions a year? Would half the adult population be constantly looking to fill a need for firearms?

And if the firearms that were used in the violence that resulted from turf wars and so on were themselves supply-regulated, where would all that violence be coming from?

Yeah, there's the illegal import problem. And hey, Cdn tobacco companies are widely believed to have been complicit in the untaxed-cigarette smuggling here a few years back ... so maybe, given the firearms manufacturers' present track record, they'd be losing a few thousand weapons a year off the back of their trucks ...

But seriously. What exactly would be the source of the demand that has to exist in order for prohibition to result in a large black market? Unless millions of "law-abiding" people had some strong motive, or irresistable urge, to go looking for firearms, what exactly would the black marketeers be fighting over? How many firearms would YOU plan to purchase a year if you were prohibited from owning them?

Of course, unless we are aware of some plan to prohibit people from owning firearms, it's a pretty moot question, isn't it?


"This is yet another example that prohibition cultivates crime and breeds violence."

I haven't noticed the prohibition on owning, oh, purple loosestrife plants generating any crime or breeding any violence in my neck of the woods.

Similarly, up here, pretty much no one but criminals feels any desire or "need" (let alone an irresistable urge) to own a handgun, for instance. So -- amazingly, eh? -- there just is not a thriving black market in (virtually) prohibited handguns creating havoc on our streets. Conversely, there has indeed been a violent black market in cigarettes when prohibitive taxes were imposed in the past; machine-gun fire from smugglers on the St. Lawrence River into waterfront communities in Ontario, for instance, was unfortunately not unknown.

Prohibitions on owning or doing things that large numbers of people have either very strong reasons or very strong urges to own or do on a regular basis certainly do often result in crime and violence. Prohibitions on owning or doing things that people have no need and no raging desire to do, don't.

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I did not intend to make such an analogy at all, and if that is what you thought I am sorry.

My point was that this is a mini-prohibition that may someday grow into a full-scale prohibition.

If you want to raise the firearm issue, I would say that in the general sense, banned products and services tend to find their way into black markets. Black markets do not have the regulation of the law so the most common method for settling disputes is with violence.

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the person is trying to say that drug prohibition is a major factor in our homocide rates being so high in the US.

"the person is trying to say that drug prohibition is a major factor in our homocide rates being so high in the US."

(Please, please: the subject is homIcide. I hesitate to think what homOcide might be.)

I don't disagree that drug prohibition has led to violence. I don't disagree that the cure has been worse than the disease.

I do find it interesting that in Canada, which has similar drug prohibitions (not counting very recent developments relating to cannabis), our homicide rates are substantially lower. Ditto for many other OECD-type countries.

Can anybody think of some differences between Canada and the US that could explain this fact?

Obviously, the rate of homicides in Canada that are *not* in any way related to drug prohibition or the black market in drugs is also lower.

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I'm not drawing any conclusions from these tables, I just want to show them for some factual data. These two tables do not perfectly correlate, either.


US (FBI) statistics

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_02/html/web/offreported/02-table01.html

Canadian

http://www.statcan.ca/english/Pgdb/legal02.htm

(Note US tables group voluntary manslaughter with murder though attempted murder is not)

The question I would like to see answered, and if anyone knows of a webpage that breaks down different types of drug-related crimes in both countries I'd appreciate it, what is the relationship between the type of drug offense and homicide.

I have read (and I am looking for a source) that in the US we have a much worse methamphetamine trade. Cannabis-related crimes are low in both nations. If I recall both Canada and the US grow substantial amounts of cannabis, but the US imports much from Mexico and some of their crime organizations with it. Also, much of the cocaine coming into Canada comes through the US, but much heroin comes through Canada to the US.

I speculate that a change in drug control policies could improve the situation with murder and property crime in both the US and Canada. The US would likely see better improvement though it has farther to go.

"Can anybody think of some differences between Canada and the US that could explain this fact?"

iverglas, haveing been to Canada a few times years ago, my memory of it is likely an inaccurate source for answers to my question.

Could it be that canada is less urban for starters? Now, I'm not saying its necessarily true, I'm asking. If it is true, could it be one of the factors? Economics is not one of my strong suits iether, but how about less disparity of income?(guessing)Possibly a whole slew of economic reasons?

:shrug:

I wouldn't presume to know many reasons to explain the difference in homicide rates, but I would like to learn more.

"Could it be that canada is less urban for starters?"

Nope, but I'm sure that's a pretty common misconception among USAmericans.

Canada is just about exactly as urbanized as the US, in terms of percentage breakdown. In fact, I'd venture to guess that a larger proportion of the Canadian population than of the US population lives in very large urban agglomerations -- i.e. if we knock out little towns and call them "non-urban", Canada is more urbanized. Out of a population of just over 30,000,000, about 4 out of 10 (over 11 million) live in four urban areas with over 1 million population alone: the Greater Toronto area, an unbroken agglomeration of several municipalities (over 4.5 million), Montreal (about 3.5 million), Vancouver (about 2 million) and Ottawa-Hull (over 1 million). About as many again live in cities of over 100,000:
http://www.canadainfolink.ca/cities.htm

Firearms ownership, of course, is more prevalent in rural Canada (1 in 3 households) than in urban Canada (1 in 10 households) (an estimated 17% of households overall).
http://www.safety-council.org/news/sc/2001/dyk-apr.html

Homicide rates don't vary widely by community size in Canada; suicide rates -- and especially firearms suicide rates -- do:
http://www.cfc-ccaf.gc.ca/en/research/other_docs/factsheets/rural/default.asp

The total suicide rate increased as community size decreased and the same was true for firearm suicides — the smaller the community, the higher the firearm suicide rate. The per capita firearm suicide rate in the three largest Canadian cities (Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver and their surrounding areas) was 1.8 compared to 8.0 for the smallest rural areas

... total homicide rates are highest in the smallest and largest communities. The rates for firearm homicides show no particular pattern with regard to community size. The rates are highest in the largest cities <Tor, Mtl, Van: 2.64/1000 and 1.15/1000 for total homicides and firearms homicides, respectively> and second highest in average size communities (i.e., populations of 10,000 to less than 50,000)<2.06 and 1.01 respectively -- and 2.32 and 0.85, respectively, in communities of under 1,000>

So hmm, firearms ownership rates *alone* could not be what causes homicide rates to be lower or higher (or we'd expect to see higher homicide rates in rural areas). But perhaps it IS a causal factor, offset by, say, the much higher prevalence of illegal drug trade activities in the cities, which obviously plays some role in urban homicide rates that it does not play in rural homicide rates. That is, I think that one could confidently say that in the cities, where firearms ownership rates are low, homicide rates would be considerably lower than in rural areas, where firearms ownership rates are higher, were it not for the violence associated with drug use and trafficking in the cities. Correlation; cause and effect?

Then there's the minority group population factor:

http://www.bctf.ca/research/list/archive/1999-2000/1999-10-05.html

With a total Canadian population given as 28,528,000 <slightly out of date>, the national minority population consists of 11.2% of the total. While Montreal resembles the national ratio, with a 12.2% minority population, the minority population of Toronto is 31.6% of the total Toronto Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) population, and Vancouver's minority groups represent 31.1% of the total Vancouver CMA population.

The racial/ethnic breakdown is of course different in Canada from the US (and Canada has a much higher proportion of its population born outside the country than does the US), but I mention this just to address the other common misconception of Canada as some sort of homogeneously white, anglo (outside Quebec), Christian sort of place.


"Economics is not one of my strong suits iether, but how about less disparity of income?"

That's the one that has indeed been found to correlate strongly with homicide rates: the less income disparity, the lower the homicide rate. The correlation is apparent both between countries and within the US itself. Canada, and all other OECD-type countries, have considerably more equal income distribution than does the US. (According to the figures in the CIA factbook, the US scores several points higher on the Gini index of inequality than even the next closest OECD-type country, the UK, and way higher than the Scandinavian countries and Japan).


Of course, correlation is not cause-and-effect ...

If it were, I'd just say "Canadian firearms legislation causes the homicide rate to be lower in Canada than in the US". I don't.

Sometimes what seem to be a cause and an effect are actually an effect and a cause ... or two effects of a single, different cause.

Perhaps Canada has the firearms legislation that it has because the lesser income disparity contributes to a society in which people are not afraid and suspicious of one another and feel no need to arm themselves against one another and are happy to forego firearms ownership in order to keep firearms out of the hands of those who actually might use them to cause harm -- so the relative income equality caused both the firearms legislation and the low rates of homicide. Who knows? Of course, that could not be taken to mean that Cdn firearms legislation does *not* contribute to reducing the homicide rate to even lower than it would be in the absence of that legislation.

One problem that we have is that the countries with more income equality than the US also have stricter firearms legislation than the US. That does make it hard to find an "all other things being equal" situation for comparison. But it also makes it hard to discount either factor as potentially causal.

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This issue is complex. Verry complex. There certainly seem to be many elements iether present in the US, and less so in canada, or present in Canada, and less so in the US- Probably both.


"One problem that we have is that the countries with more income equality than the US also have stricter firearms legislation than the US. That does make it hard to find an "all other things being equal" situation for comparison. But it also makes it hard to discount either factor as potentially causal."

It does make for difficult comparisons, from iether side.

It should be interesting to see other reasons/explanations/ contributors people can come up with as they hit this thread. Violence isn't an easy concept to understand thoroughly the many causes of-in the general sense(big picture).

"lesser income disparity contributes to a society in which people are not afraid and suspicious of one another"

Yeah, there IS alot of that going around in the US. Fear and suspicion= vicious circle, they just breed more of the same.

when it comes to drug laws or the war on drugs. First we are located right above mexico, where the drugs are comming from. Notice the violence of drug cartels and drug gangs around the Mexican border cities. Does canada have a growing gang population that i havent heard about or something? AMerica has a LARGE gang population. Take away the gangs cash...drugs and drug money, the gangs for the most part go away.

Can you explain why the US has a higher rate of homicides, capitol I, with any and all weapons in Canada even when you take the gun statistics away?

... that so many people know so little about.


"Canada is hardly similar to the US when it comes to drug laws or the war on drugs."

Relevant dissimilarities in those respects?

Drugs are illegal in Canada, and in great demand nonetheless in Canada. There is therefore a black market in drugs in Canada, and pots of money to be made by those involved in it, and violent competition over the profits. Does the energy with which the authorities enforce the law, which may indeed be a little lower here, affect the law-breakers' desire for profits, or desire to monopolize those profits and willingness to engage in violence to achieve that end?


"Does canada have a growing gang population that i havent heard about or something?"

Apparently.

Ask google for, oh, Montreal drugs gangs. Learn about the journalist who was killed. Learn about the kid killed in gang crossfire. Learn about the guy murdered while filling up at a gas station because his vehicle looked like one driven by a rival gang member's. Learn about how for some years Montreal had the highest bank robbery rate in the world. Learn about the turf wars in Quebec, and spilling out into the rest of Canada, between the indigenous Rock Machine (now part of the Bandidos, out of Texas) and the Hell's Angels.

Then read about Aboriginal gangs in western cities like Winnipeg (highest rate of gang membership in Canada, I recall reading), the Asian gangs in Toronto and Vancouver and Ottawa and elsewhere, etc. etc. Hell, I remember all the fun that unfolded in my own neighbourhood a very few years ago ... one bigshot in the local Italian gang world got killed, somebody killed the guy charged with that murder, somebody killed him ... by the time the dominos stopped falling, there had been five murders, as I recall, in the space of a few weeks.

No, we probably don't have quite the same problem as some US cities do. But then, not all or even most homicides and violence in the US, I would think, are gang-related.

Even the little whitebread city I grew up in, London, Ontario, population now about 450,000, had a fortified Outlaws clubhouse in a residential neighbourhood about a mile from my suburban childhood homestead, replacing the less secure one they had 35 years ago, although they now seem to have abandoned the fortification.

http://www.canoe.com/CNEWSBikers0202/15_london-sun.html

In January, members of the Hells Angels puppet club, the St. Thomas Jackals, were shot at during a confrontation with Outlaws leader Thomas Hughes.

Hughes is charged with four counts of attempted murder.

Two Hells Angels prospects, Jimmy Coates, 36, Douglas Johnstone, 38, were recently found guilty of extortion and are awaiting sentencing.

About a week ago, almost 100 members of the Hells Angels, Outlaws and Bandidos engaged in a battle of intimidation at the London Motorcycle Show at the Western Fair.

Biker gangs these days are of course an extremely sophisticated form of organized crime. Perhaps their relative prevalence here is just part of that grand Canadian tradition of being in the vanguard of developments in the transportation sector: the motorcycles give them the mobility they need to consolidate their power base. Air fares are expensive here.

At the other end, we'd have the little bands like the one that lived 3 doors away from me for two years (until the landlord finally responded to a threat from me to sue him), directing the local drug and prostitution trade. Not real sophisticated, but between them and the relatively freelance pimp/dealer then at the other end of the block, pretty unpleasant. No homicides that I know of though. A less violent class of criminal, perhaps.


"First we are located right above mexico, where the drugs are comming from. Notice the violence of drug cartels and drug gangs around the Mexican border cities."

Trust me ... having 5,000 miles of border with the US is pretty much the same deal.


"Can you explain why the US has a higher rate of homicides, capitol I, with any and all weapons in Canada even when you take the gun statistics away?"

If I do that, will you explain why the proportion of homicides committed with firearms is so much lower in Canada?

How about: will you explain the higher rate of firearms homicides in the US where the victims and offenders had nothing to do with gangs?

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Remind me tomorrow or whenever and i will reply to this. Night.