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Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

justice.gov

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Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Running a stoplight and making an illegal left turn into a kid running across the street, is unlwaful. Still counts as killing (legal term: manslaughter), not murder.

True, but that isn't relevant. I am saying it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it to be murder. By definition, it must be unlawful, but it also must be premeditated.

>True, but that isn't relevant. I am saying it is a necessary but not sufficient condition for it to be murder. By definition, it must be unlawful, but it also must be premeditated.

IANAL, but I don't believe murder can only be if it's premeditated. In fact, IIUC, most murders are not premeditated.

Some examples:

Felony murder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony_murder_rule

Depraved indifference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depraved-heart_murder

Murder without premeditation: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/crime/2019/11/20/kal...

I'm sure there are many other examples.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s gotten considerably worse over the past 20 years; we’re asked to present ID and tracked in government databases when purchasing allergy medicine .

That's because the allergy medicine might as well just be methamphetamine. That's really more or less what it is, modulo a reduction step. Nobody cares about your allergies, and if you go to buy Sudafed, they're just going to sell it to you. The only thing that will trip you up is if you go from store to store collecting lots of it.

> Nobody cares about your allergies, and if you go to buy Sudafed, they're just going to sell it to you. The only thing that will trip you up is if you go from store to store collecting lots of it.

That's not true. First they don't just sell it to you, they take your ID, record your information, send that to the state, and then sell it you. Going to one store after another after another collecting lots of pills isn't the only thing that will trip people up either. I've had times when I was told I couldn't purchase allergy medication because I'd purchased some already. I had recently, for the family, but I was traveling and didn't have the medication with me.

I wasn't going around to a bunch of stores buying mass quantities of allergy medications, I'd made a purchase once and several days/weeks after tried to make a second purchase. I can't imagine I'm the only person alive who has failed to bring a medication with them while traveling, or suddenly had need for it when they didn't have some immediately on their person, or made a purchase and soon after lost it, only to discover that a pointless restriction brought about by a failed war on drugs prevented a simple purchase fully intended for treatment of a medical condition.

Maybe a more sane threshold for treating people like criminals would help the situation, but honestly the entire program seems like a waste of time of money at this point.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s gotten considerably worse over the past 20 years; we’re asked to present ID and tracked in government databases when purchasing allergy medicine .

Yes, if you mean pseudoephedrine, that's to stop the production of meth.

> that's to stop the production of meth.

It didn’t.

Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of people buying allergy medicine have the sniffles, not a meth lab.

There’s always a “safety” justification for further privacy intrusions by the police.

If they can’t do their job without intrusive, non-targeted government monitoring of the general public, the police need to get better at their jobs.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No emissions, Growing up, we used to take the car for a run up/down the highway for a bit to "burn things off" before getting an inspection. There were also places you could go "outside of town" that did not do emissions testings. That was 30 years ago though. I thought all inspections required emissions testing now. Is it still not enforced outside of town? Of course, finding the guy to pay off is always going to b…

It varies by county. I sold a truck that I couldn't get inspected in Travis county (because of a sensor code that indicated misfires on start) to a buddy up in Lubbock, and it inspected just fine up there.

> It varies by county.

As in most of the US that have them barring California, which is Universal and why the BAR and OEMS has a 49 +1 system specifically for California, hence why the Prius was made for the California market yet suffering the most from this is ironic.

This what I found on emission on TX by county [0], and it looks a lot like Organ in that most don't do it except major metro areas.

0: https://www.emissions.org/loc/texas-emissions-testing/#count...

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#276
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where I live they don't even send police for non-injury accidents anymore. Even if there's a hit and run no police get sent. Property crimes don't matter anymore. When my friends got their catalytic converters stolen the police never even bothered to show up. Taking statements may not get their cats back, but it goes towards building up a large enough case to justify a unit to handle it. You are correct though. Our D…

Seattle just elected a "hard on crime" Republican prosecutor, who rode in on a wave of promises of prosecuting every misdemeanor, including the backlog (Her opponent was going to prioritize, and drop most of the backlog.) She got into office, paid a lot of money to legal consultants, and a few months later, announced that she will be... Dropping the backlog of misdemeanors.

She gave up on some of the backlog because the evidence was stale and there were bigger fish to fry. It’s not “giving up” rather declaring bankruptcy so you can focus on more current and serious crimes. This is what happens when you are passed a 3 year backlog from your predecessor.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#277
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just wait until you hear about the history of anti-fencing laws dating back to the 1600s. You're missing out on centuries of outage.

Ridiculously targeted laws like this are quite a new invention. I see that the “[feeling of] safety above all” contingent is quite voracious about defending this latest government intrusion, so I’ll stop giving them comments to downvote.

I don't think a law like that is really a problem. There are already laws on the books similar to it (pawn shop laws and such) where KYC is a big thing to prevent the fencing of stolen goods.

It can be as simple as this:

1. Joe brings in a cat

2. Store takes the cat, but writes down Joes important information (DL #, name, address, etc)

3. If Joe brings a new cat in within some reasonable time period factoring in possibly fixing a used car or something he's reported to the authorities for suspicion of theft.

Exceptions to (3) can be made to people who can present the valid credentials of an auto repair shop and are operating as agents of that shop. Then the shop can be placed in the record book and tracked with different standards.

With this in place you will only be able to fence X number of cats easily where X is the number of shops within some reasonable distance. You could even make this national if you really wanted to prevent transportation over a border.

Sure, you could argue this won't fix anything because shops that are dirty will remain dirty. This is simply solved by having an already existing traffic enforcement body once a year check books. If your books are out of order your business is closed and an investigation is done to see if you're acting as a fence. Same as pawn shops.

There is absolutely no "intrusion" to speak of here. You are in possession of a highly valuable, commonly stolen item. KYC by a company should be a minimum standard. Do you think that requiring a car title and asking for registration, etc when you sell a car to a lot is also an intrusion? I'm afraid to ask you if you even know what fencing actually is. No one is saying you can't cut your own cat off and sell it privately. The goal is to eliminate the easiest possible routes for fencing and make it not only difficult but also expensive criminally to continue.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because the allergy medicine might as well just be methamphetamine. That's really more or less what it is, modulo a reduction step. Nobody cares about your allergies, and if you go to buy Sudafed, they're just going to sell it to you. The only thing that will trip you up is if you go from store to store collecting lots of it.

> Nobody cares about your allergies, and if you go to buy Sudafed, they're just going to sell it to you. The only thing that will trip you up is if you go from store to store collecting lots of it. That's not true. First they don't just sell it to you, they take your ID, record your information, send that to the state, and then sell it you. Going to one store after another after another collecting lots of pills isn't…

How much Sudafed did you buy?! The daily purchase limits are pretty high. Did you max out your monthly limit in your hometown before traveling?

Really, if we're this wound up about the situation, the answer is simple: just make Sudafed require a prescription, like a zillion other medications. The problem with Sudafed is extremely straightforward: it is a very trivial chemical reaction away from being methamphetamine.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder if that's related in any way to it also relatively common to straight-pipe in Texas. No emissions, low state taxes, low fuel price, and abysmally little to no self awareness about climate change is a better explanation. FL is still the best way to get around smog stuff in the US because of inherit corruption, you an register anything if you have the money: see Motorex sandal And tis is despite Hawaii being…

>No emissions, Growing up, we used to take the car for a run up/down the highway for a bit to "burn things off" before getting an inspection. There were also places you could go "outside of town" that did not do emissions testings. That was 30 years ago though. I thought all inspections required emissions testing now. Is it still not enforced outside of town? Of course, finding the guy to pay off is always going to b…

A couple of decades ago, there was one gas station in Tianjin you had to go to fill your tank (from empty) before doing your emission exam. Turns out the other gas stations were selling gas that didn’t allow them to pass, and it was an open secret in how to get your car to pass the exam by using proper gas.

Re: Justice Department announces takedown of catalytic converter theft ring

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd expect the charging cables to be the easy target then. EV owners, please correct me if I'm wrong but I can't imagine that the charging port would be able resist a cordless drill for more then 4 or 5 seconds. And from what I've seen of the CCS connectors, Home Depot probably carries big drill bits long enough drill into into and completely destroy the locking mechanism. Drill in, destroy the the charging port on t…

Why would you go for one that's plugged in to a car? There are plenty of unoccupied ones around and they don't have 800 volts running through them.

Wasn't really thinking about the high voltage fast chargers; you can just cut those straight off the super charging station without a car there. I was thinking more along the lines of those little Level 1 CCS chargers that someone would use to charge a parked car on the street overnight.

And aim here is to retrieve the charging cable intact. If you do it right the drill bit shouldn't be getting anywhere close to the energized lines. Just an example, check this data sheet for an EV inlet port: https://www.phoenixcontact.com/us/products/1162148/pdf

The locking mechanism is located to the side. You don't need to remove the locking pin as it's recessed in the charging handle itself, you just need to destroy the mechanism behind the pin so that there's enough void there for you to jostle the pin out and free the connector.

In theory it should actually be quite safe for a thief.

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