From: Alex Le Heux <alexlh@xs4all.nl>
Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 02:54:26 +0800
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: Shooting the taggers
Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19970824204659.007f93f0@mail.xs4all.nl>
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On 22 Aug 1997 23:48:57 +0200, in list.cypherpunks you wrote:

[...]

>Here in Santa Cruz, graffiti spray-painted on the walls of businesses
is a
>big, and growing, problem. And laws require the businesses to paint
over
>the grafitti, or otherwise render it invisible, in a quick and timely
>manner. (The idea is that the grafitti is offensive to the
sensibilities of
>others, or somesuch, and that it encourages rival gangs to counter
with
>their own grafitti.)
>
>And yet can J. Random Businessman defend his property against this
>defacing? Nope. The cops say "Let us handle crimes." But they don't.
>
>There's a solution for taggers: snipers.
[...]

Grafitti is criminal (although many of us probably do things that are
'criminal' under some silly law or other), it is definately very
annoying and I wouldn't like someone spraying it on my front door, but
shooting people for it is a bit over the top I think.

Grafitti (as in writing your name on or in something that you don't
own) has existed for ages. Only since the invention of spraypaint has
it become a big problem. Technology can also provide a solution.
Surfaces can be treated so that grafitti can easily be removed. All
this of course costs money, but that is, imho, the price of being part
of a pile of millions of people, ie. a city.

Another solution, which works very well for shopfronts over here, is
to actually contract and pay a grafitti gang to spray the shops logo
or whatever on the front (or steel blinds).

Shooting people for this will probably only make them shoot back,
which will ony result in overworked morgue employees and/or high
hospital bills.

Alex

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