Sticking it to murdering gangsters the Dunnes Stores way

Snickers Man

Yesterday we witnessed the disgraceful scenes of a gang of men (one in drag) armed with battlefield weapons opening up on a group of unarmed people who were attending a perfectly legal function among hundreds of perfectly law-abiding people, many of them children.

What is to be done about thugs like this?

Some of our American cousins might be of the opinion that it would be much better all round if a few of the assembled people minding their own business had themselves been armed and they could have pulled out their pieces and had a party with the gangsters.

Without going into all those familiar and hackneyed arguments, let's just say that's not the Irish way.

As against that we have a largely unarmed police force (which is a good thing) but it does rather seem to suggest to the gangsters that they can do what they like because after all what is some greenhorn Garda just out of Templemore going to to do stop them armed with nothing but a baton and a walkie talkie?

Let's take a more traditional Irish approach: one made famous by the Dunnes Stores strikers more than 30 years ago. For those too young to remember this was when some shop assistants in Dunnes Stores refused to handle South African produce (mainly fruit) in protest at the nature of the Apartheid regime there.

Could we adopt a similar approach to drugs gangs? If only temporarily?

Just say no. For say a month. A week even. If we all went off dope, coke and ecstasy for a period of time we would really hurt these bastards where they don't like to be hurt. In the pockets. I say we but in reality I mean You Young People because I am in advanced middle age and have no wish to start indulging in drugs at this stage in my life.

I "dabbled" to a very small extent when I was a bit younger and never got too interested in the whole scene. Cocaine turns otherwise nice people into slobbering gibbering arseholes, dope and ectasy SERIOUSLY screw up your taste in music. And heroin is for losers. You take heroin, you're a screw up, not entitled to any sympathy and only a blight on anyone who gives you any.

I am not saying this from a "Drugs are bad for you, you shouldn't touch them" viewpoint. They ARE bad for you but if that's how you get your kicks, then off you go. This is from the point of view of making a statement about the world and indeed country we live in. Just like the Dunnes Stores strikers did all those years ago. These gangster bastards think they can do what they like to the point of treating an ordinary hotel full of ordinary people like a war zone.

Just say no. For a month. And urge your friends to say no as well. Indeed, treat your friends with the same contempt that your parent's generation treated their friends who watched South African rugby matches or bought Del Monte pineapples. Peer pressure. It works.

I'm not saying you shouldn't ever enjoy your chemical enhancement ever again. After all, I don't think the Dunnes Stores strikers did what they did because of their dislike of citrus fruit. It was the bastards that sold it to them they didn't like.

Boycott the bastards. What do you think?

Menas

I just dont see your average junkie going cold turkey in protest at yesterdays events....

Mesrine65

Snickers Man wrote: »

Boycott the bastards. What do you think?

Never work, what's the point of boycotting for a month only to return to the status quo the next month?

Lights On

I buy my weed, when I buy it which isn't too often anymore, off a mate who grows his own, not gangster affiliated. Do I have to boycott him too?

5uspect

Just decriminalise the ****ing stuff and cut their legs out from under them. I'm not going to start shooting up because heroine is legal.

Subcomandante Marcos

5uspect wrote: »

Just decriminalise the ****ing stuff and cut their legs out from under them. I'm not going to start shooting up because heroine is legal.

Decriminalisation won't affect dealers at all, legalisation will kill them though.

Owryan

Will I have to start doing drugs so I can start boycotting them?

Graces7

OP; Bless you! Something has to be done and we have to get a more effective Garda force too without the weaponry they have in the US. Did not know that re Dunnes; thank you. No illegal drugs here... plenty around but some action quietly taken as can happen in deep rural areas. Bless and thank you for caring and strength and please take care out there.

Berserker

Subcomandante Marcos wrote: »

Decriminalisation won't affect dealers at all, legalisation will kill them though.

It won't. Legalisation of drugs is not going to mean the end of these guys. Cigarettes are legal but counterfeit cigarettes are still a massive earner for them. OP, druggies are not going to be able to stop for a week. Your suggestion is noble but it won't work, I'm afraid. I would like to see dedicated police resources hounding these guys from every angle. Make their lives a living hell. The bleeding heart brigade would play the harassment card if they did this though.

Snickers Man

5uspect wrote: »

Just decriminalise the ****ing stuff and cut their legs out from under them. I'm not going to start shooting up because heroine is legal.

Different argument. Which I'm not going to engage in for the purposes of this discussion. (I generally agree with you anyway) I'm talking about the reality of the situation as it stands at the moment.

Snickers Man

Mesrine65 wrote: »

Never work, what's the point of boycotting for a month only to return to the status quo the next month?

Cash flow.

These lads are ultra capitalists. The only good buck is a fast buck.

Sunnyisland

Jesus we can't even close the pubs for two days a year and it's like the end of the world, ya wouldn't have a hope of abstinence from drugs for a whole month.

As we are an island if given the resources the Garda wouldn't be to long in closing down any organised gang that operated here, but there just Isn't the will there from governments to take that expensive action,for the most part the underworld is in the underworld and it don't effect most normal living people.

KomradeBishop

It's impossible to completely stop violence between drug gangs, but you can kill their profits with decriminalization - and select legalization of some of the lesser drugs - as well as by providing appropriate addiction treatment programs, where government directly provides drugs as medically necessary - cutting out a large portion of that drug from the black market.

Liberalization of drugs and treatment of it as a health issue is the answer - beefing up police arms/presence, and restrictions/infringements on civil liberties isn't (arguably, the latter is the primary reason for continued prohibition: it creates useful excuses, for seeking the latter politically - same as terrorist scaremongering).

Owryan

Graces7 wrote: »

OP; Bless you! Something has to be done and we have to get a more effective Garda force too without the weaponry they have in the US

Serious, you wanted unarmed gardai to go up against scum bags wielding machine guns.

Discodog

The Gardai have plenty of weapons but bizarrely them tell the scumbags which cars carry them. In the UK there would of been a very different response.

syklops

You've convinced me OP. I'm never buying drugs again.

recylingbin

Lights On wrote: »

I buy my weed, when I buy it which isn't too often anymore, off a mate who grows his own, not gangster affiliated. Do I have to boycott him too?

Your mate is arming terrorists in Syria with his ill gotten profits

Nodin

Snickers Man wrote: »

Yesterday we witnessed (...........) you think?

People on heroin are not going to boycott gangsters over their shooting some other gangsters, given that they haven't when they and their mates have been beaten, blackmailed and killed by them on a regular basis over the years.

Nodin

recylingbin wrote: »

Your mate is arming terrorists in Syria with his ill gotten profits

Tis true. A stash of assault rifles was found over there with stuff like "Sponsored by Anto" or "Sponsored by The Finglas Massive" engraved in the stocks.

Snickers Man

Nodin wrote: »

People on heroin are not going to boycott gangsters over their shooting some other gangsters,.

I'm not talking about junkies. I'm talking about "recreational" drug users, the cool young people who like to partake at weekends of substances like dope, coke and ecstasy. The ones who COULD say no, if only for a while, unlike those hopeless cases who can't.

Seriously. If you all laid off the dope and coke for about a month, it would really hurt these dirtbags financially.

Shame on you if you don't.

end of the road

Berserker wrote: »

The bleeding heart brigade

don't exist

Berserker wrote: »

The bleeding heart brigade would play the harassment card if they did this though.

so many of these "cards" who manufactures them? i've been googling but no company manufactures harassment cards.

thattequilagirl

Or we could just let the scum kill each other off. The deceased knew what he was getting into.

Fleawuss

These drugs families have no support in any community. They are feared and hated in equal measure.
Re-open Portlaoise and intern them. Their communities would be the better for it.
After about 30 years see what they have to say for themselves. And the next gang that tries to replace them: same treatment.
In the meantime push ahead with controlled legalization and decriminalisation. The killers are gone, the trade is now s source of income, stoners still get stoned and Suoerman can keep his knickers on.

Note: all the usual arguments about rights and legalities belong to a different era. We need definitions of rights that allow for their removal when you wage war on your own community.

Arbiter of Good Taste

Snickers Man wrote: »

I'm not talking about junkies. I'm talking about "recreational" drug users, the cool young people who like to partake at weekends of substances like dope, coke and ecstasy. The ones who COULD say no, if only for a while, unlike those hopeless cases who can't.

Seriously. If you all laid off the dope and coke for about a month, it would really hurt these dirtbags financially.

Shame on you if you don't.

If those people are too stupid not to see the link between what they are sticking up there noses on a Friday night in the toilet of whatever pub is trendy these days, and the latest shooting in Finglas/Coolock/Darndale, etc, etc, then this is not going to affect them unfortunately.

Special Circumstances

Yeah put em all on zero hours contracts Dunnes Stores style. They'll go stone mad not knowing when their next honest days work will be.

TheLastMohican

What group have caused the most hardship since the year 2k?

Lots of drug dealers/wholesalers but no bankers.

The politicians love this because it deflects the poop which should be thrown at them.

Nodin

Snickers Man wrote: »

I'm not talking about junkies. I'm talking about "recreational" drug users, the cool young people who like to partake at weekends of substances like dope, coke and ecstasy. The ones who COULD say no, if only for a while, unlike those hopeless cases who can't.

Seriously. If you all laid off the dope and coke for about a month, it would really hurt these dirtbags financially.

Shame on you if you don't.

I wouldn't touch coke, never took E (may do at some stage before I croak, but am in no rush) and ethically source my herbal pastimes. You might better ask - given the example of prohibition - why many of these things are illegal, given the counterproductive effects of the ban.

Bio Mech

I heard that South African fruit is highly addictive and almost impossible to give up so there are definitely parallels.

Grandeeod

Snickers Man wrote: »

Yesterday we witnessed the disgraceful scenes of a gang of men (one in drag) armed with battlefield weapons opening up on a group of unarmed people who were attending a perfectly legal function among hundreds of perfectly law-abiding people, many of them children.

What is to be done about thugs like this?

Some of our American cousins might be of the opinion that it would be much better all round if a few of the assembled people minding their own business had themselves been armed and they could have pulled out their pieces and had a party with the gangsters.

Without going into all those familiar and hackneyed arguments, let's just say that's not the Irish way.

As against that we have a largely unarmed police force (which is a good thing) but it does rather seem to suggest to the gangsters that they can do what they like because after all what is some greenhorn Garda just out of Templemore going to to do stop them armed with nothing but a baton and a walkie talkie?

Let's take a more traditional Irish approach: one made famous by the Dunnes Stores strikers more than 30 years ago. For those too young to remember this was when some shop assistants in Dunnes Stores refused to handle South African produce (mainly fruit) in protest at the nature of the Apartheid regime there.

Could we adopt a similar approach to drugs gangs? If only temporarily?

Just say no. For say a month. A week even. If we all went off dope, coke and ecstasy for a period of time we would really hurt these bastards where they don't like to be hurt. In the pockets. I say we but in reality I mean You Young People because I am in advanced middle age and have no wish to start indulging in drugs at this stage in my life.

I "dabbled" to a very small extent when I was a bit younger and never got too interested in the whole scene. Cocaine turns otherwise nice people into slobbering gibbering arseholes, dope and ectasy SERIOUSLY screw up your taste in music. And heroin is for losers. You take heroin, you're a screw up, not entitled to any sympathy and only a blight on anyone who gives you any.

I am not saying this from a "Drugs are bad for you, you shouldn't touch them" viewpoint. They ARE bad for you but if that's how you get your kicks, then off you go. This is from the point of view of making a statement about the world and indeed country we live in. Just like the Dunnes Stores strikers did all those years ago. These gangster bastards think they can do what they like to the point of treating an ordinary hotel full of ordinary people like a war zone.

Just say no. For a month. And urge your friends to say no as well. Indeed, treat your friends with the same contempt that your parent's generation treated their friends who watched South African rugby matches or bought Del Monte pineapples. Peer pressure. It works.

I'm not saying you shouldn't ever enjoy your chemical enhancement ever again. After all, I don't think the Dunnes Stores strikers did what they did because of their dislike of citrus fruit. It was the bastards that sold it to them they didn't like.

Boycott the bastards. What do you think?

I see your point. But lets extend it a bit more. Lets start obeying the rules of the road too for a month. Lets start buying a TV License for a month. If little old Ireland obeyed all the rules for a single month the state would have serious financial problems.

Crime pays.....for the state, the judiciary and the legal profession. There is no incentive to eliminate crime in a country like Ireland.

222233

Snickers Man wrote: »

Boycott the bastards. What do you think?

I agree with your idea however it's still not the people at the top who will end up hurt its the lower class dealers who have been roped in that will pay the price.

Birneybau

I've a better idea. Why don't we all hold hands and sing 'Kumbaya'...

Seriously though, that is one of the most naive things I've ever heard.

KingBrian2

Decriminalisation of drugs has already started. People in seriously distressed and desperate situations are allowed administer drugs with social workers assisting in programs designed to tackle the scourge of drug dealing. Unfortunately the drug market is very lucrative and sick people look to them for the drug instead of seeking help.

Sunnyisland

There is nothing going to happen, in another week this incident be all forgotten about and everyone will go back to the groundhog days of life,until the next incident where the media will go into another frenzy and demand this that and the other meanwhile N Korea just invaded the USA :-)

Ally Dick

What a strange idea OP. Next, you'll want them bombarded with a fiercely worded leafleting campaign

myshirt

I never heard a fella say 'Christ lads, I've a house full of drugs there and I just can't sell them'.

Drugs sell themselves guys, it ain't gonna work.

Hammer89

Snickers Man wrote: »

Yesterday we witnessed the disgraceful scenes of a gang of men (one in drag) armed with battlefield weapons opening up on a group of unarmed people who were attending a perfectly legal function among hundreds of perfectly law-abiding people, many of them children.

Let's not exaggerate. If they had opened fire on hundreds of civilians then there wouldn't have been one fatality, who was a gangster.

cowboyBuilder

5uspect wrote: »

Just decriminalise the ****ing stuff and cut their legs out from under them. I'm not going to start shooting up because heroine is legal.

This.

Legalise, Regulate, Tax it!!!

Make some money (maybe Irish Water can get in on it?) and put those cnuts out of business.

end of the road

thattequilagirl wrote: »

Or we could just let the scum kill each other off. The deceased knew what he was getting into.

allowing them to shoot each other isn't an option for many, very obvious reasons.

Fleawuss wrote: »

These drugs families have no support in any community. They are feared and hated in equal measure.
Re-open Portlaoise and intern them. Their communities would be the better for it.
After about 30 years see what they have to say for themselves. And the next gang that tries to replace them: same treatment.
In the meantime push ahead with controlled legalization and decriminalisation. The killers are gone, the trade is now s source of income, stoners still get stoned and Suoerman can keep his knickers on.

Note: all the usual arguments about rights and legalities belong to a different era. We need definitions of rights that allow for their removal when you wage war on your own community.

Internment is against ones human rights and is illegitimate. it goes against justice and all that it stands for. it belongs in dictatorial states. all the usual arguments about rights and legalities belong in the here and now. the only legitimate justice is . evidence gathered, the accused brought before a court and tried by a jury of his or her peers.
by the way i didn't know portlaoise closed, when did that happen?

Fr_Dougal

Ok, I'm in.

Going to pretend it's Lent again, no crystal meth for me this week.💉💉💉

KingBrian2

The Gardaí would need serious hardware to take out some of these gangsters. Would the public be okay with UK style policing. The army is only used in weather emergencies. Our police need to be able to take on these drug dealers with the full support of the judiciary, the public and politicians.

Cee-Jay-Cee

Snickers Man wrote: »

Yesterday we witnessed the disgraceful scenes of a gang of men (one in drag) armed with battlefield weapons opening up on a group of unarmed people who were attending a perfectly legal function among hundreds of perfectly law-abiding people, many of them children.

What is to be done about thugs like this?

Some of our American cousins might be of the opinion that it would be much better all round if a few of the assembled people minding their own business had themselves been armed and they could have pulled out their pieces and had a party with the gangsters.

Without going into all those familiar and hackneyed arguments, let's just say that's not the Irish way.

As against that we have a largely unarmed police force (which is a good thing) but it does rather seem to suggest to the gangsters that they can do what they like because after all what is some greenhorn Garda just out of Templemore going to to do stop them armed with nothing but a baton and a walkie talkie?

Let's take a more traditional Irish approach: one made famous by the Dunnes Stores strikers more than 30 years ago. For those too young to remember this was when some shop assistants in Dunnes Stores refused to handle South African produce (mainly fruit) in protest at the nature of the Apartheid regime there.

Could we adopt a similar approach to drugs gangs? If only temporarily?

Just say no. For say a month. A week even. If we all went off dope, coke and ecstasy for a period of time we would really hurt these bastards where they don't like to be hurt. In the pockets. I say we but in reality I mean You Young People because I am in advanced middle age and have no wish to start indulging in drugs at this stage in my life.

I "dabbled" to a very small extent when I was a bit younger and never got too interested in the whole scene. Cocaine turns otherwise nice people into slobbering gibbering arseholes, dope and ectasy SERIOUSLY screw up your taste in music. And heroin is for losers. You take heroin, you're a screw up, not entitled to any sympathy and only a blight on anyone who gives you any.

I am not saying this from a "Drugs are bad for you, you shouldn't touch them" viewpoint. They ARE bad for you but if that's how you get your kicks, then off you go. This is from the point of view of making a statement about the world and indeed country we live in. Just like the Dunnes Stores strikers did all those years ago. These gangster bastards think they can do what they like to the point of treating an ordinary hotel full of ordinary people like a war zone.

Just say no. For a month. And urge your friends to say no as well. Indeed, treat your friends with the same contempt that your parent's generation treated their friends who watched South African rugby matches or bought Del Monte pineapples. Peer pressure. It works.

I'm not saying you shouldn't ever enjoy your chemical enhancement ever again. After all, I don't think the Dunnes Stores strikers did what they did because of their dislike of citrus fruit. It was the bastards that sold it to them they didn't like.

Boycott the bastards. What do you think?

The above is far too long for me to read. Can I have a shortened version, please.

Azalea

You dabbled yourself OP. Nothing wrong with you changing your outlook since then and expressing yourself accordingly, but you could be a bit less preachy imo.

Snickers Man

Nodin wrote: »

I wouldn't touch coke, never took E (may do at some stage before I croak, but am in no rush) and ethically source my herbal pastimes. You might better ask - given the example of prohibition - why many of these things are illegal, given the counterproductive effects of the ban.

I don't disagree with you. I think we should look at that whole legalisation issue. So many people don't think it's wrong and are unashamed about indulging in mind-altering substances.

But I just see the parallels between the Anti-Apartheid struggles before that regime fell and what to do about the crime issue today. What could a few shop assistants in Dunnes Stores do to bring down the regime? Not a lot, in the grand scheme of things but every little bit helped.

That's why I'm drawing a distinction between debating the whole use of recreational drugs per se and taking a small step towards putting these gangs in business. At the moment, if you imbibe in coke, ecstasy or marijuana (apart from the very few keen horticulturalists among you ) you are dealing with a bunch of criminals every bit as murderous as Apartheid South Africa.

Just say no. For a while. This does not affect your position of wanting to indulge in the same substances in the future.

RobbingBandit

Lights On wrote: »

I buy my weed, when I buy it which isn't too often anymore, off a mate who grows his own, not gangster affiliated. Do I have to boycott him too?

Rat him out and tell him he can stash his crop with you at the same time. Win Win for you.

Shurimgreat

Really can't see how decriminalising drugs would prevent any of this. Cigarettes are legal and yet there is a massive black market in cigarettes. The smuggling of drugs would continue in the blackmarket. In the normal market, the criminals would just open shops and import massive amounts of cocaine, heroin, etc all legally.

The whole point about making Class A drugs illegal is that they are seriously damaging to your health and well being and lead to huge societal issues. They are incredibly addictive, particularly heroin. The more freely available they are, the more problems occur. The focus on restricting the sale and supply of class A drugs is right.

Shurimgreat

No pharmaceutical companies would make any of these drugs by the way.

So Anto over-doses on heroin, what happens next? His family try to sue the manufacturers.

Posh lawyer gets addicted to cocaine, well he's going to sue them too.

Someone dies from MDMA, family go after the pharmaceutical companies, with government support.

Nope the manufacture of drugs would still remain with the same dodgy people who are doing it now, mixing it with all kinds of ingredients.

ohnonotgmail

end of the road wrote: »

allowing them to shoot each other isn't an option for many, very obvious reasons.



Internment is against ones human rights and is illegitimate. it goes against justice and all that it stands for. it belongs in dictatorial states. all the usual arguments about rights and legalities belong in the here and now. the only legitimate justice is . evidence gathered, the accused brought before a court and tried by a jury of his or her peers.
by the way i didn't know portlaoise closed, when did that happen?

i was with you up until that point. Special criminal court for this lot.

Nodin

Snickers Man wrote: »

I don't disagree with you. I think we should look at that whole legalisation issue. So many people don't think it's wrong and are unashamed about indulging in mind-altering substances.

But I just see the parallels between the Anti-Apartheid struggles before that regime fell and what to do about the crime issue today. What could a few shop assistants in Dunnes Stores do to bring down the regime? Not a lot, in the grand scheme of things but every little bit helped.

That's why I'm drawing a distinction between debating the whole use of recreational drugs per se and taking a small step towards putting these gangs in business. At the moment, if you imbibe in coke, ecstasy or marijuana (apart from the very few keen horticulturalists among you ) you are dealing with a bunch of criminals every bit as murderous as Apartheid South Africa.

Just say no. For a while. This does not affect your position of wanting to indulge in the same substances in the future.

....who we'd like to thank, on everyones behalf, for their efforts.

Snickers Man

Mannix Flynn strikes the right note on this. Apparently he told the Guardian recently
"the Dublin middle classes are to blame, especially those who snort their cocaine in their nightclubs, their golf clubs, their rugby clubs or at home among their friends. They are bigger consumers of drugs than the working class and the real ones fuelling the wealth of these career criminals, enriching these gangs.”

And he was echoing earlier comments by Michael McDowell who once said:

“If you do a line of cocaine in Foxrock you are personally responsible for the murder of somebody, say, in Coolock or Clondalkin or wherever.”

Both quoted in Loony Doolally's column in the Irish Times today.

As Flynn is running in my constituency I'll give him a vote for that.

ohnonotgmail

Snickers Man wrote: »

Mannix Flynn strikes the right note on this. Apparently he told the Guardian recently
"the Dublin middle classes are to blame, especially those who snort their cocaine in their nightclubs, their golf clubs, their rugby clubs or at home among their friends. They are bigger consumers of drugs than the working class and the real ones fuelling the wealth of these career criminals, enriching these gangs.”

And he was echoing earlier comments by Michael McDowell who once said:

“If you do a line of cocaine in Foxrock you are personally responsible for the murder of somebody, say, in Coolock or Clondalkin or wherever.”

Both quoted in Loony Doolally's column in the Irish Times today.

As Flynn is running in my constituency I'll give him a vote for that.

and i'm sure he has excellent statistics to back that up.

PARlance

Just as well I've never done a few lines in Foxrock.... Couldn't live with that guilt.