Good thing for those tight gun laws

In reply to yamaha:

Something something something history something something repeating something something. I dunno, I can't remember how it goes. I'm sure it'll pop up again later.

Bobzilla wrote:

dculberson wrote:

unk577 wrote: After a violent offender hurts you or your family let me know if you're still sympathetic of them. Especially is they were able to plea out of prison time on a previous offense

Ah, yes, the laziest of arguments. I've lost loved ones to violence, that doesn't mean I trust the government to get 100% of convictions right to the point of expanding the death penalty.

This is the strawman of all strawman arguments. We're talking about REPEAT OFFENDERS. Not talking about first time offenders. WE're also not saying that we think they should be executed the following day after sentencing. We're talking about the REPEAT VIOLENT OFFENDERS that account for almost 65% of gun related homicides. That would reduce those from ~9000 gun deaths last year to ~3200. But hey, I'm sure we're fine just letting those guys back out on the street so they can do it again. I mean, it works now, right?

Ehh, I doubt we would have a constructive argument, Bob. I'd rather not crap up yet another thread with our personality clash.

unk577 wrote: ...The solution is the death penalty, and not dying of old age on death row while you wait for appeal after appeal after appeal. Nor did I imply the denial of due process. There should be no plea deals for violent offenders, it's only will embolden them the next time to know they won't be held accountable. DA's and SA's get paid to do a job, they need to do it to choose another career field...

The death penalty, as has been shown, is neither economical or effective (or moral for some). Maybe that can be improved, but maybe a different philosophy about prisons should take hold.

One of the reasons for the reduction in crime in the last few decades appears to have a lot to do with so many potential criminals being in prison.

I think it is also pretty common knowledge that most people that has been in prison for more the 3-5 years or so are pretty useless to society after that (institutionalized), or simply so disadvantaged because of their history they have little chance.

Maybe a bit more of an "Escape from New York" approach is needed. Not walling off a city, but essentially making a more clear separation between the common citizens and the imprisoned, kind of like two societies.

At some point, a person will pass from one society to the other with no assumption of return. Permanently removed. Yes it would be expensive, but it would be a sort of "safety tax", similar to the concept of the military. Hopefully there would be some efficiency of scale.

Anyway, just thinking. Probably best to keep the president (or Donald Pleasence) out of one though...

I think the "ship them all off" idea has been done. England sent their unwanted citizens to the far side of the world (Australia for those of you who don't know). Banishment doesn't work too well unfortunately.

I do have an idea for the prison problem but it would never work, too effective.

Naaa.. We need the death penalty as applied in Singapore.

Ohh.. You were involved in a gun crime? Ohhh. You deal drugs.. Ok.. you die and soon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Singapore

Fueled by Caffeine wrote: Naaa.. We need the death penalty as applied in Singapore. Ohh.. You were involved in a gun crime? Ohhh. You deal drugs.. Ok.. you die and soon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Singapore

Keep talking like that and I'm going to start wondering if you really are Iggy.

Toyman01 wrote:

Fueled by Caffeine wrote: Naaa.. We need the death penalty as applied in Singapore. Ohh.. You were involved in a gun crime? Ohhh. You deal drugs.. Ok.. you die and soon. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Singapore

Keep talking like that and I'm going to start wondering if you really are Iggy.

I am serious. They have strict laws and actually enforce them. Gun ownership is highly restricted, but there is no need for one for self defense and no real land to hunt on... So usage is limited to target shooting.

I wanted to live there for a while. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-24428567

Car prices and rules are a bit of a pain.. but that's why malaysia is close.. Anything goes there.

dculberson wrote:

Bobzilla wrote:

dculberson wrote:

unk577 wrote: After a violent offender hurts you or your family let me know if you're still sympathetic of them. Especially is they were able to plea out of prison time on a previous offense

Ah, yes, the laziest of arguments. I've lost loved ones to violence, that doesn't mean I trust the government to get 100% of convictions right to the point of expanding the death penalty.

This is the strawman of all strawman arguments. We're talking about REPEAT OFFENDERS. Not talking about first time offenders. WE're also not saying that we think they should be executed the following day after sentencing. We're talking about the REPEAT VIOLENT OFFENDERS that account for almost 65% of gun related homicides. That would reduce those from ~9000 gun deaths last year to ~3200. But hey, I'm sure we're fine just letting those guys back out on the street so they can do it again. I mean, it works now, right?

Ehh, I doubt we would have a constructive argument, Bob. I'd rather not crap up yet another thread with our personality clash.

What is there to argue? You keep repeat offenders behind bars and they cannot commit crimes against the general population. Period. There is no argument here. There's no "interpretation". A locked up violent offender cannot commit crimes against the public. If you can argue that, you may have a reality perception issue.

aircooled wrote: One of the reasons for the reduction in crime in the last few decades appears to have a lot to do with so many potential criminals being in prison.

Ever read Freakonomics? It discusses in great length the sudden drop in violent crime at a time when all predictions said it should be skyrocketing. The most likely cause?

Roe v. Wade

See legalizing abortion was a huge impediment to violent crime. It greatly shrank the pool of people most likely to become violent offenders.

So really, if the goal is to address the root causes of violent crime the best way to do that is through education, access to birth control, and raising the living standard of the lowest rungs of society.

In reply to Beer Baron:

Yup, most of the people in prison these days are not violent offenders(7.9% federal and 52.4% state), they're drug offenders.

Funny how this graph coincides with that whole "war on drugs" thing.

Which legalizing and then taxing the ever loving crap out of recreational drugs would likely make plenty of room in the prisons for the violent offenders committing the violent crimes.

In reply to Bobzilla:

The trouble with that logic is much violent crime in the US surrounds the drug trade, legalizing drugs would lead to heavily reduced prison populations. Of course, due to privatization of prisons, a lot of people have it in their best interest to keep prisons full.

Kenny_McCormic wrote: In reply to Bobzilla: The trouble with that logic is much violent crime in the US surrounds the drug trade, legalizing drugs would lead to heavily reduced prison populations. Of course, due to privatization of prisons, a lot of people have it in their best interest to keep prisons full.

Can we refill them with all of our crooked politicians? That sure seems like a win-win to me.

Would being able to exercise our 2nd Amendment rights have a positive effect on violent crimes? Ie: open carry I believe so.

Those that a visibly able to defend themselves would deter more violent encounters than those who could not.

In my opinion, drugs shouldn't be legalized, they should be decriminalized. You're addicted to heroin? Fine. You register and are proven as a heroin addict and every morning you go to a hospital and get an injection so you can go about your day. You get a little less each day. Can you walk into a store and buy heroin or meth, etc? No, that's stupid. (marijuana is a different issue, if alcohol and tobacco are legal it may as well be)

KatieSuddard wrote: In my opinion, drugs shouldn't be legalized, they should be decriminalized. You're addicted to heroin? Fine. You register and are proven as a heroin addict and every morning you go to a hospital and get an injection so you can go about your day. You get a little less each day. Can you walk into a store and buy heroin or meth, etc? No, that's stupid. (marijuana is a different issue, if alcohol and tobacco are legal it may as well be)

I believe that Switzerland, or possibly one of the nordic countries, has this in play.

We should send our violent criminals to Deomcratic Republic of Congo. Between DRC, Congo, CAR and Sudan, I think many would be begging to get back to the states. Our street gangs have nothing on their warlords.

KatieSuddard wrote: In my opinion, drugs shouldn't be legalized, they should be decriminalized. You're addicted to heroin? Fine. You register and are proven as a heroin addict and every morning you go to a hospital and get an injection so you can go about your day. You get a little less each day. Can you walk into a store and buy heroin or meth, etc? No, that's stupid. (marijuana is a different issue, if alcohol and tobacco are legal it may as well be)

As long as mary jane was removed from the "cannot have list" and put on the "taxed and regulated like tobacco/alcohol" list I would be OK with this. It's at least a step in the right direction as far as I'm concerned. According to this: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Marijuana#sthash.zIrTUdoi.dpbs 1.2million arrests per year are for just possession of MJ. That would free up a lot of our CJ system.

Beer Baron wrote: Ever read Freakonomics?...

Yup, and seen the movie (which covers some things that are not in the 1st book at least). I particularly like the part about the Japanese police crime conviction rates (hint, basically the same reason as the accident attorney success rates)

You do have to remember though, that's its still statistics and be careful not to draw definitive conclusions.

I do absolutely agree though that the real solution to the problem, and the problems in many parts of the world is... good jobs. When people are working, and making decent money, they are less likely to "pop a cap" or strap on a bomb vest.

I didn't want to post that though, since it might imply a certain political stance, which I do not want to do. In the interest of balance though I will state I don't think the people pontificating about "jobs" have much of a solution as they think they do and are likely and realistically no better at creating them then the "others".

Bobzilla wrote: Which legalizing and then taxing the ever loving crap out of recreational drugs would likely make plenty of room in the prisons for the violent offenders committing the violent crimes.

Careful though. To much taxation will just bring the "illegal" stuff back. Apparently that is already happening a bit. Even in legal states, drug dealers are still doing business (some of it is paranoia of course... I wonder where that comes from )

aircooled wrote: In the interest of balance though I will state I don't think the people pontificating about "jobs" have much of a solution as they think they do and are likely and realistically no better at creating them then the "others".

So, to clarify you're stating that both "side" are full of crap and offer no real solutions. That is something I think most of us can agree with.

On that note, why is it so damn hard to get on a government job building roads or other necessary infrastructure? You'd think there should be some law that says if you're building a government funded project, that you need to accept all able bodied (pass a physical) workers and adjust your pay scale as necessary.

We need to find some way of putting people to work, even if its less efficient.

unk577 wrote: There was no implication of further militarizing our police. And just because some wear BDU's or military style uniforms, or carry a gun that might look like a military weapon doesn't mean they are militarized. Just because someone wears scrubs in a hospital doesn't mean they are a doctor. Your concerns about the police are misdirected. You should be worried about your federal government that continues to attack your rights. Your first line of defense between you and the federal government is your local Sheriff.

The militarization of police isn't about uniforms or BDU's. It's about tactics, training, and equipment. The equipment the police are getting is military equipment. An armored troop carrier? Military equipment from DHS or other gov't org. Full auto weapons? The same. Storming a house with stun and flash grenades? Tactics used in Iraq during urban warfare. Our police are militarized. Make no mistake.

Quick aside, BDU stands for Battle Dress Uniform. You say that the police are not militarized and yet their clothes have the term "Battle" in the title? Sounds militarized to me. Remember when the police used to be "peace officers"? Me too.

I do agree that we should be worried about the government. We should also worry about how the police are being trained to treat the populace like combatants in a war that we, as a nation, never declared.

aircooled wrote:

unk577 wrote: ...The solution is the death penalty, and not dying of old age on death row while you wait for appeal after appeal after appeal. Nor did I imply the denial of due process. There should be no plea deals for violent offenders, it's only will embolden them the next time to know they won't be held accountable. DA's and SA's get paid to do a job, they need to do it to choose another career field...

I think it is also pretty common knowledge that most people that has been in prison for more the 3-5 years or so are pretty useless to society after that (institutionalized), or simply so disadvantaged because of their history they have little chance. Maybe a bit more of an "Escape from New York" approach is needed. Not walling off a city, but essentially making a more clear separation between the common citizens and the imprisoned, kind of like two societies.

Another potential issue is that we're locking too many people up. The non-violent offender or some sorry college kid busted with too much weed on him/her faces some serious time. After having to disclose that for every job they try to get then not many will find jobs with that kind of record. So we lose out on their personal productivity in the workplace as well as the taxes they would've paid toward our Great Nation.

We currently have the largest percentage of our population incarcerated in the World. That includes the godless commies living in China. We need to incarcerate less so that we have those guys working and paying taxes instead of learning how to be better criminals in prisons.

unk577 wrote: Would being able to exercise our 2nd Amendment rights have a positive effect on violent crimes? Ie: open carry I believe so. Those that a visibly able to defend themselves would deter more violent encounters than those who could not.

You also make yourself a target by being so conspicuously armed. If a bank is being robbed the criminal doing the robbing is going to go for the armed threat first. That makes you and the bank guard the first guys to get hit. Might I suggest carrying concealed for your own safety. The best weapon you have is the one no one knows about.

Let's also consider the false bravado some folks feel from carrying a weapon. I would argue it's best to flee when at all possible using force to defend yourself as the last resort.

Do what you will...these are just my opinions.

aircooled wrote:

Bobzilla wrote: Which legalizing and then taxing the ever loving crap out of recreational drugs would likely make plenty of room in the prisons for the violent offenders committing the violent crimes.

Careful though. To much taxation will just bring the "illegal" stuff back. Apparently that is already happening a bit. Even in legal states, drug dealers are still doing business (some of it is paranoia of course... I wonder where that comes from )

Same difference as moonshiners.......they'll still get nabbed, prosecuted, and such.

PHeller wrote: On that note, why is it so damn hard to get on a government job building roads or other necessary infrastructure? You'd think there should be some law that says if you're building a government funded project, that you need to accept all able bodied (pass a physical) workers and adjust your pay scale as necessary. We need to find some way of putting people to work, even if its less efficient.

This works to a certain extent, but to a certain extent is also doesn't work. Do you really want to drive at speed on a road built by a bunch of guys who only show up at work because of a court order or as a requirement to receive assistance?