• HelixDab2@lemm.ee
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    5 hours ago

    So, here’s a thought to mull over.

    Most crimes committed with firearms are pursuant to drug trafficking. Gangs fight other gangs to control drug territory, because it’s extremely lucrative. When I lived in Chicago, the gangs were hyper-local; the police had dismantled the leadership of the large gangs, leading to the fracturing of the gang structure, and creating more, and smaller gangs, all fighting over turf, and where and to whom they could sell drugs.

    When you move that off the streets and anonymize all of it, you remove the motivation to commit violent acts. A gang on street A is no longer competing with a gang on street B for customers; now they might be competing with someone across the country, or in another country entirely. Not only that, but you de-motivate adulteration of drugs; if you sell low-purity trash, or cut your percs with fent, your customers now have a plethora of other options to try.

    The Silk Road made drugs and the drug trade safer for everyone. If this had become the norm, instead of p2p sales, we could have seen significant drops in violent crimes associated with the drug trade.