[HN Gopher] Copper Thieves Are Wreaking Havoc Across America
___________________________________________________________________
Copper Thieves Are Wreaking Havoc Across America
Author : JumpCrisscross
Score : 16 points
Date : 2025-11-29 21:49 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| mrtesthah wrote:
| Why are people desperate enough to raid their own communities of
| basic infrastructure? Guaranteeing access to basic necessities
| like food, shelter, and healthcare would go a long long way to
| aligning society's collective values and interests toward the
| preservation of its infrastructure.
| aeonfox wrote:
| America needs to reflect on why it's unique amongst first world
| countries at having third world problems.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _America needs to reflect on why it 's unique_
|
| When it's unique, yes. In the case, metal theft is documented
| in Australia, Australia, Canada, France, Czechia, the
| Netherlands and the UK [1].
|
| (To be fair, I'm not seeing any sources credibly auditing
| prevalence versus occurrence.)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metal_theft#Notable_metal_t
| hef...
| aeonfox wrote:
| Right. One instance of metal theft in any country is enough
| to discredit the argument. As someone who lives in
| Australia, I've seen it show up in the news here just once.
| And I've spent time in other first world countries
| including the US, so my opinion doesn't come from a place
| of ignorance.
| sltkr wrote:
| I didn't do a quantative analysis (I bet neither did you),
| but copper theft happens everywhere:
|
| - https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/baden-
| wuerttemberg/heilbronn/t...
|
| - https://www.ladepeche.fr/2025/11/14/info-la-depeche-
| explosiv...
|
| - https://nos.nl/artikel/2591857-na-koperdiefstal-in-
| veenhuize...
| aeonfox wrote:
| Basically a repeat of the sibling comment, so I won't
| repeat my reply.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Why are people desperate enough to raid their own
| communities of basic infrastructure?_
|
| At least in Arizona, it's a lot of meth addicts. (Friend works
| in the space, albeit around water versus electrical
| infrastructure.)
| stebalien wrote:
| We do need to provide better services, but that's not going to
| solve this issue. The vast majority of people struggling to
| make ends meet don't stoop to destroying public infrastructure.
| Only the true anti-social assholes go there.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| This is the kind of attitude that gets us here. "Bad people
| don't deserve help or services. This is reserved for the
| morally pure." Or even more simply "Criminals don't deserve
| help. Lock em up and forget about em." We are still
| destroying lives over fucking weed. It's all connected.
| UberFly wrote:
| Your unrelated rant doesn't even reflect what the previous
| commenter wrote.
| vondur wrote:
| These are thieves looking for a quick buck. They aren't
| desperately poor.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _They aren't desperately poor_
|
| Some of them are. The ones using "hard hats and vests to
| disguise themselves" and "utilizing more-professional tools,
| such as battery-operated saws" probably aren't.
| andy99 wrote:
| Is this what they call "victim blaming"? Why does it have to be
| society's fault and not the people stealing the copper?
|
| If we have litter and excrement all over the streets, do we
| blame ourselves instead of the people littering? Is every "this
| is why we can't have nice things" situation actually our own
| fault? How about holding people accountable for their actions?
| Fogest wrote:
| Unfortunately even when these people who are a drain on
| society get caught, they often are treated like a victim and
| get very light sentences (or even none at all). We see this
| with shoplifting too. When the consequences are virtually
| eliminated, this kind of crime becomes pretty lucrative.
| Especially if you're homeless or a drug addict, you the
| consequence of spending maybe a single night in jail is
| pretty much a non-issue. And fines given are absolutely
| useless because they aren't paid, and they have no assets to
| take to pay them.
|
| I'm honestly a bit tired of nothing productive being done
| about drug addiction. And I am pretty convinced programs like
| safe injection sites are pushed by NGO's because they make a
| lot of money off them. A lot of the information suggesting
| they are useful is pushed by the same groups making major
| money off running them.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Look at the comments. In the US, we aren't interested in fixing
| systemic issues. We know what causes crime but it's believed
| that punishment and retribution is the answer even though it's
| not at all true.
| baiac wrote:
| The amount of copper thieves is finite. The fact that this
| keeps happening means that, if anything, there isn't enough
| retribution.
| defrost wrote:
| That's one interpretation, sure.
|
| Mind you the US already has globally record setting levels
| of retribution in the form of imprisonment, death
| penalties, broken justice system etc.
|
| Perhaps it's worth looking at other G20 countries with
| lower crime rates, less economic disparity, police that
| carry minimal weaponry, etc. and ask how is they appear to
| be doing better.
| marcusverus wrote:
| Th US spends >$30K per year on HUD, medicaid, and food stamps
| for every person whose household income poverty line. The idea
| that this issue is somehow evidence of the need for more
| welfare is only possible if you don't have any idea how much
| we're already spending on welfare. This low-effort, blindly
| empathetic mindset of "oh those poor criminals" will be the
| death of our civilization.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| If people would suck cock to pay for their drug addiction, then
| they would be just as willing to scrub toilets for minimum wage
| to pay for their drug addiction. They can't though, because of
| piss tests.
| andy99 wrote:
| A janitor needs to be reliable, it would be tough to manage
| someone who only wants to show up and clean toilets when
| they're desperate for a fix. Maybe someone can build an app to
| coordinate that /s
| slillibri wrote:
| I highly doubt that anyone is doing 8 hours of BJs a day to pay
| for their habit.
| wronglebowski wrote:
| There's a scrapyard right by my hometown with a fancy billboard,
| like the ones for the lottery that have the number displays. It's
| just for showing copper prices, bright copper, copper #1 and
| copper #2. There's so much money in it they can afford to
| advertise now.
| cglan wrote:
| It feels like we (and I specifically mean the left) has decided
| to nearly universally stop enforcing rules on a large basis as an
| alternative to legislative reform.
|
| We've basically decided that actually reforming the bureaucratic
| machine is much too hard, so instead of reform let's just not
| enforce anything.
|
| One of Zohrans ads is such an on the nose example of this. He has
| an ad where he says he's gonna help out small business by cutting
| down the fines that they face. Which on the surface sort of
| sounds nice, but now we basically just get shitty businesses
| selling shitty things and facing small slaps on the wrist instead
| of actually going through and removing the onerous laws and
| enforcing the important ones.
|
| Same thing going on with immigration. The system is so fucked up,
| that instead of reform just not enforce immigration laws.
|
| You see the same thing with housing that abundance basically
| called out. The system has gotten really good at writing more and
| more complicated laws at the cost of things basically falling
| apart in the real world
|
| These copper thefts affect millions of people. It regularly
| happens to the MTA and shuts down the subway. A functional
| society would make an example of people committing these thefts
| so that the rest of us can continue to contribute and live their
| lives without being screwed by antisocial people
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-11-29 23:00 UTC)