I have a sneaking suspicion that this article was only written to inflate the price of bitcoins so that a gawker staffer can sell off a bunch at a higher price
I first visited this site after the first Gawker article, and I believe I saw guns for sale then too. Also, there is a seemingly large and vocal group on the SR forums that strongly oppose the sale of guns there, but it seems that it will be hard to stop. I think the reason there is no child porn is because the users would quit using the site/go somewhere else, and they'd probably get taken down by anonymous or something...
The site's functionality is based on user reviews of vendors. There is a new user guide when you join that basically says to purchase at your own risk, and presume that those with higher ratings will have higher success rates. First, the site uses escrow, and warns of dealing outside that system. If something does happen, there is actually a "resolution center" of sorts where Silk Road admin reviews each case individually. From reading the forums, it seems that a 50% refund is the standard "order never arrived" fix. Also from reading the forums, it seems scamming goes both ways, but there are many who seem to have no problems using a couple of trusted vendors.
What election was more racist than the 2008 election? And no cheating by going back to when both candidates were just hating on native americans and slaves.