Wednesday, August 14, 2013
The US is Number 1 in Prisoner to General Population Rate
The story in Business Insider is about mandatory minimum sentencing and drug offenders. But what came to mind for me was the continual evasion we keep hearing on the part of gun-rights fanatics. Instead of tightening up the gun laws, they say, we just need to get tougher on criminals.
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Get tougher on criminals and start executing the ones that will never see the light of day again (life with no chance of parole) stuck in prison.
ReplyDeleteGun rights are already strangled in a large part of the country. Shall no be infringed should be enforced instead.
Here's an idea: don't create 10 million new felonies in the name of gun control.
ReplyDeleteWe need major overhauling of our justice system. First we need to stop locking up people who don't need locked up. Then we can keep people locked up who do need locked up. No more victimless crimes.
What do you think we should do, Mike. We are the most incarcerated nation, our prisons are operating at 140% capacity, and you want a massive amount of new crimes around gun ownership.
You've read my stuff enough to know I don't want to lock up people for non-violent crimes.
DeleteYou may not want to, but the politicians who support gun control all seem to love the current system. Sure, Holder has recently said he's going to do something about the mandatory minimums in drug cases, but he and the president are not calling to get rid of the law, they just plan on undercharging some people, but keeping the law on the books to be used at their discretion.
DeleteLike any system with too much discretion, this leaves the door open for plenty of abuses and problems: racial disparities, using the potential charge to leverage people, new grounds for people to challenge their convictions (e.g. they say they'll use it only on cartels--get ready for lawsuits about how they only got prosecuted so hard because of being Mexican, etc.)
And when it comes to your side's proposals, they don't propose your rules. Instead, they propose a system where I've committed a felony that could put me in one of those prisons for 1-3 years (with a maximum possibility of 10) because I let my friend handle one of my guns down in the woods rather than in my house.
If your desire for gun control did not trump every other position you hold, you would oppose these laws as written and push for other laws, but however much lipservice you give to not wanting to over-incarcerate, the one overarching thing you want is gun control--No matter who has to be jailed or for how minor an offense.
As long as we're submissive little wards of the state, you don't care that we walk the streets? Mikeb, here's something you need to absorb: You'll never be in power. That means that you'll be right there beside us in the police state paradise that you yearn for.
DeleteMike, they why would you support a law that creates 10 million new felonies? Were we right to oppose the background check legislation then?
DeleteAgain, you lie. What I have said and what others have said is that prison should be for violent offenders and other serious crimes. We don't have cells for them because we've stuffed the prisons with druggies. But you can't resist twisting things against gun owners, no matter what the subject is.
ReplyDelete