Disclaimer:The views expressed on this article solely belong to the creator and don’t essentially characterize these of The Recent Toast.
I’m proud to report that the legislature of my house state of Texas has handed the ‘Star-Spangled Banner Safety Act’which is able to penalize skilled sports activities groups if they don’t play the nationwide anthem earlier than video games. Sadly, they might not change lyrics in order that they nonetheless say one thing about “the land of the free and the house of the courageous.” That might give individuals the incorrect thought.
For instance, the identical group simply determined that Texans can’t be trusted to own any amount of marijuana, though the penalties could also be diminished for a small quantity.
A 2021 College of Texas/Texas Tribune Ballot discovered that 60% of Texas voters imagine possession of small or giant quantities of marijuana must be authorized for no matter objective, however the majority of the legislature don’t belief the voters who voted for them.
In 2019, there have been greater than 45,000 arrests in Texas for possession of marijuana, however that was a lower from the practically 63,000 reported arrests in 2018, probably the most in America (out of a complete of half one million nationally).
Paradoxically, in July of 2019, the Texas Division of Public Security issued a memo instructing DPS officers to problem citations, reasonably than make arrests, for possession of lower than 4 ounces of marijuana. The Texas police are extra enlightened than the legislature! (Faint reward.)
Beforehand, the legislature voted to make it authorized for Texans to hold handguns and not using a license or coaching. A strong majority of Texas voters don’t assume permitless carry must be allowed, based on the newest College of Texas/Texas Tribune Ballot.
The Texas legislature additionally handed various different legal guidelines that limit voting, supposedly to “shield democracy”. However why trouble?
The distinction between the enforcement of the marijuana legal guidelines and gun legal guidelines nationally may be seen in an article revealed by The Hint, a nonprofit “Investigating gun violence in America.”
SEE: The ATF Catches Hundreds of Lawbreaking Gun Sellers Each Yr. It Shuts Down Very Few
The article begins with a report on Uncle Sam’s, an enormous pawn store in Man, a tiny city in West Virginia:
“This was the ATF’s third inspection of Uncle Sam’s in seven years. The 2 most up-to-date audits discovered that the shop had transferred weapons with out conducting background checks and failed to offer security notices to handgun consumers. At one level, ATF data present, greater than 600 firearms that ought to have been in inventory couldn’t be discovered — a pink flag for gun trafficking.”
Regulation enforcement shouldn’t be at all times so forgiving. “Black individuals in West Virginia are 7.3 occasions extra possible than white individuals to be arrested for hashish possession regardless of nationwide utilization charges being comparable, a report launched Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union of West Virginia reveals.”
SEE: Weapons And Marijuana. The Drug Battle Is The Best Risk To Gun Possession Rights
In 2018, the final yr I may discover information for gross sales, 8% (53,000) of 663,000 arrests for marijuana-related offenses had been for promoting or “manufacturing” the plant. There are extra marijuana arrests than for all violent crimes mixed, however arrests for gross sales are often prosecuted as felonies.
There have been 14,400 gun-related homicides in 2019 in the USA and people involving a gun accounted for practically three-quarters of all homicides within the nation that yr. After all, there have been no reported marijuana-related deaths.
SEE: America’s gun tradition in charts AND: Weapons And Marijuana. The Drug Battle Is The Best Risk To Gun Possession Rights.
Richard Cowan is a former NORML Nationwide Director and creator of Variations Between Shopping for CBD On-line And Offline.
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