Since it's LEO day .... or maybe it's smokers day

GreenLantern

Has anyone ever gotten or heard of getting a ticket for throwing a cigarette butt out the window of a car? I know this is pretty trivial when you consider there's bigger crimes that occur every day. But, it's a big pet peeve of mine, I see it every day. How is a cig butt any different than throwing a pop can out the window when it comes to littering? But then in a way it doesn't surprise me given that I think if you smoke you probably don't care much about the environment.

Iconoclast

GL, as a former smoker, I take personal offense at the generalization. I care a great deal about the environment and always used the ashtray. When out in the woods, I always field-stripped my butts & brought home the filters - along with all the trash I could find & carry (all too often I find more than I can carry). But IAC, I do take offense at the statement.

mudge

Speaking of littering.....I was walking by a car in the Wally-world parking lot when this guy throws a crumpled cigarette pack out the window. It landed at my feet. I couldn't resist. I picked it up, showed it to him and asked: "Don't you want this?" He said "No". I then tossed it in the open window and said: "neither do we." He drove off, flipping me the bird AFTER he was 50 feet away.Mudge the illitterate(Did I say that right?)

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I can't come to work today. The voices said, STAY HOME AND CLEAN THE GUNS!

badboybob

A lighted cigarette but thrown out the window has started many forest fires. If you smoke that's your business, but when you commit arson by carelessly throwing a lighted butt out your window you are deliberately endangering people, property and wildlife. Besides I don't want to breathe your stinking second hand smoke.

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PC=BS

salzo

Yeah those evil cigarette smokers- what are we gonna do with them. How about you let them smoke their butts and leave them alone. Forest fires? Littering? Pulllease!

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Happiness is a warm gun

Iconoclast

salzo, I don't know the statistics but I do remember reading a long time back that a significant % of wild fires have started from smouldering smokes tossed out of cars. As to litter - take a look along any roadside - or even a well-used trout stream. If all those little white filters aren't litter, then neither are the bottles, cans, etc. Smaller, but seemingly, if not actually, more frequently discarded because the clean up crews don't police stuff that small. Litter, yeah, IMO.

Fitz

Only scumbags throw their butts out of there windows. Same thing as the trashy folks that spit in parking lots. I am an avid smoker and know well that it's damnright foolish.To the tree-huggers:Best one I ever saw was a volvo hidden behind a cloud of black smoke from it's exhaust. When it stopped at a light and the cloud went in front of it, I saw a bumper sticker on it that said, "Save the Planet".

GreenLantern

alltheway - I never thought of it that way but they do indeed contribute to society a lot more than I thought. They help employ doctors, nurses, morticians, medical device makers, insurance companies, fire-fighters to name a few.

gap1916

Here in the west more than one forest fire was started by a road side disguard. We take things like that with great interest here. Watch a few thousand acres burn and you will know what I mean.

treedawg

spitting in a parking lot??

idsman75

I have a friend who got an $800 fine for throwing a cigarette butt out the window in the state of WA just weeks after it was made illegal. The judge took pity and reduced it to $500. He quite smoking altogether that summer.

salzo

There is a place along the side of the road where I live, that has lots of dried out grass, and trash. Whenever I drive by, I toss a cigarette on the pile, hoping to see it flame up. Hasnt happend yey, but I try two or three times a day.

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Happiness is a warm gun

sodbuster

My wife smokes but not in the house or the car,,,,she go's out to the garage to smoke,,,,if she ever starts a fire out there and burns up my ol' Harley, she might find herself getting thrown out of a fast moving car window!! Anybody ever got a ticket for that? I think the Judge would understand,,,ol'Red is part of the family too,,,just kidding,,,,,, I don't expect the Judge to really understand,,,,

Bullzeye

Looks like we've got something we agree on, Salzo.Smoking is just one more thing for people to get righteously indignant about.Live and let live is dead and buried, apparently.I particularly like the yuppies in Los Angeles and New York City who are disgusted beyond words with having to sniff someone's smoke for 2 seconds at the entrance to a building, when they drive their 4 mile to the gallon SUVs and breathe a combined pack a day every single time they go outside.I dont smoke cigarettes, and if I did I wouldnt carelessly start fires or litter the freeway.But if you look at it in the right context, this is just another societally-sanctioned version of "I dont do it, I'm not friends with anyone who does, so therefore it should be banned".

salzo

How interesting! Just as I checked this thread, CSPAN mentioned that New York City was going to raise taxes on a pack of cigarettes. The cost will make smokers pay $7.50 a pack. Bloomberg said this was not at all about collecting revenue, but it was about creating a deterrent (Im sure they will find some nice use for the revenue they collect from smokers).

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Happiness is a warm gun

Iconoclast

Salzo & Bullzeye agreeing. OK, I can die, I've seen everything. Gentlemen, I have no problem w/ smokers. If it weren't for the all too clear impact on my health, I still would. I *liked* to smoke. I probably was one of the heaviest and least repentant smokers in the world. But, like firearms ownership, it does carry some responsibilities, among which is not to trash the whole environment for one's personal convenience. If you smoke, you are welcome to light up in my presence. Just don't toss your butts on my floor / lawn / roadside / forest / stream, OK?

joeaf1911a1

Green Lantern and others. Sounds like a lotof anti-smoking politically correct peoplewho love the hunting, BUT. After shootinggame do they police their empties, plasticwads, lead shot or leave them? Do they carry shovels for "after the call of nature" forburying their mess or just leave it for oneto step in? Let those without sin heave thefirst brick. My well put out cigar buttsare 100 percent organic leaves. Just likethe leaf of a tree that falls in autumn.

hunter280man

Never thought much about carying a shovel when I go deer hunting, hmm, I guess I thought that kinda disapeared in a couple of days and helped the environment. And yes I have stepped into "big-do-do", I just got over it. Kinda put it behind me so to speak. I have to admit that I will pick up others trash while in the woods, including butts, they just dont seem to go away! I appreciate anybody that tries to either carry-out, cover-up, or properly discard of their trash including butts.

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The older I get, The better I was!!!

GreenLantern

When I shoot clays I pick up all my empties and I take a walk though the field picking up as many pieces as I can. Then in the fall I'll take another walk though and pick up more now that the grass isn't standing straight up. Rifle/handgun brass? I don't when I'm target shooting at my place or my buddies, or in the woods hunting which might only amount to a round or two. If I'm offsite at a range, you bet.joeaf1911a1 ~ Re-read my post, the first sentence! As far as I know it's already against the law to litter out the car window onto the highway. Doesn't matter whether it's a cig or a shell casing. The hipocrisy is that if you were to throw out a garbage bag of trash onto the highway someone would call the cops, but it seems perfectly acceptable to throw a cig out. I don't get it.