...in Austin:
AUSTIN — A 19-year-old accused marijuana dealer told Austin police that he fatally shot a young couple from Houston in their condominium near the University of Texas last week to avoid paying the male victim thousands of dollars in drug money.
Police charged James Richard “Ricky” Thompson, from the Austin area, with two counts of capital murder in the July 21 shooting deaths of Stacy Marie Barnett, 22, and John Forest Goosey, 21, a young Houston couple that had just earned degrees from UT.
But remember, friends, it's better that popular mind-altering substances less dangerous than alcohol remain illegal, because, well, drugs'r'bad, hmkayy?
I really do wonder though, how many people look at this and blame the "easy availability of guns" as opposed to the insane drug laws in place in this country today. That couple might well have still have gotten shot, but it does deserve to be pointed out that if weed was legal and the guy who shot the couple had worked in a legit distribution channel he'd have had some form of legal recourse. I don't mean for that to sound as though I would justify his actions, though. For what he did he deserves to die and it's just that simple to me. But I don't see anything wrong with pointing out the circumstances, how they didn't have to be the way they were, and that they're only this way because our elected officials are either ignorant, a bunch of chickenshits, or both.
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