Gun control vs. criminal control

Truncador · Apr 9, 2005

Man faces 10 charges in shooting
Suspect served time for '95 killing. Teen recovering after being wounded in attack at Fairview mall parking lot

PAUL CHERRY
The Gazette [Montreal]

Saturday, April 09, 2005

A 28-year-old man is in custody after he is alleged to have shot and wounded a teenager while robbing the victim near a Pointe Claire shopping centre.

[...]

Joseph faces 10 charges in all, including three related to court orders that prohibit him from possessing a firearm. One ban was imposed after he received a six-year prison sentence for a 1995 homicide.

Joseph shot a single mother to death while he and two other youths stood at the entrance of a crack den in an apartment building on Walkley Ave. in the Notre Dame de Grace district. Joseph was 19 at the time.

In addition to his six-year term, Joseph was prohibited from possessing a firearm for 15 years.

He committed three armed robberies in Montreal in 2002 - before the six-year term had expired. He was sentenced on Feb. 6, 2003, to 20 months in prison. He was also prohibited from possessing a firearm for 10 years

(Bold mine).

Earth to liberal criminal justice system:

-100 percent of repeat offenders commit acts that are prohibited. These can include shooting people, ignoring gun laws, etc.

-100 percent of convicted killers who are executed or serve life sentences never commit crimes again.

In America they finally realized this a while ago, and crime rates there are falling through the bottom of the graph. Will common sense be politically incorrect in this country forever, or are we going to catch up eventually ?

Don · Apr 9, 2005

Truncador said:
In America they finally realized this a while ago, and crime rates there are falling through the bottom of the graph.

umm... you didn't look at any real stats before you posted this, did you?

Peeping Tom · Apr 9, 2005

One only has to look at England, where total gun bans have spurred the criminals to new lows. London is now murder capital of the world and now the police state over there, in frothing insanity over the failure of their demented reasoning, is pushing for a ban on knives - it seems they will do anything to protect the criminals from the wretched citizens.

Truncador · Apr 9, 2005

Don said:
umm... you didn't look at any real stats before you posted this, did you?

Real stats

Don · Apr 9, 2005

Peeping Tom said:
One only has to look at England, where total gun bans have spurred the criminals to new lows. London is now murder capital of the world and now the police state over there, in frothing insanity over the failure of their demented reasoning, is pushing for a ban on knives - it seems they will do anything to protect the criminals from the wretched citizens.

you're telling me that London has a higher homicide rate then say cities like Detroit?

Don · Apr 9, 2005

Truncador said:
Real stats

I don't doubt that crime in the US is down. But the analogy of why crime is down. Toronto has a lower crime rate than most comprable US cities yet guns are illegal here and people in the US think we have liberal criminal justice system.

djk · Apr 9, 2005

all I know is if i ever get jumped or attacked and the criminals get away scot free.

next time, i'm packin heat. i dont care what the law says in canada.

the cost of liberty is blood.

Truncador · Apr 9, 2005

re: crime rates in England

— Crime did not fall in England after handguns were banned in January 1997. Quite the contrary, crime rose sharply. Yet, serious violent crime rates from 1997 to 2002 averaged 29 percent higher than 1996; robbery was 24 percent higher; murders 27 percent higher. Before the law, armed robberies had fallen by 50 percent from 1993 to 1997, but as soon as handguns were banned, the robbery rate shot back up, almost back to their 1993 levels.

— Australia has also seen its violent crime rates soar after its Port Arthur gun control measures in late 1996. Violent crime rates averaged 32 per cent higher in the six years after the law was passed (from 1997 to 2002) than they did the year before the law in 1996. The same comparisons for armed robbery rates showed increases of 45 percent.

— The 2000 International Crime Victimization Survey, the most recent survey done, shows that the violent crime rate in England and Australia was twice the rate in the US.

— Canada has not gone anywhere near as far as the United Kingdom or Australia. Nevertheless, their gun registration system is costing roughly a thousand times more than promised and has grown to be extremely unpopular, with only 17 percent of Canadians in a poll release this week supporting the system. Nor does the system seem to be providing any protection. The Canadian government recently admitted that they could not identify even a single violent crime that had been solved by registration

link

The Brus · Apr 9, 2005

Mr Truncador

At last, a man who thinks the same way I do about firearms and the law. The Liberals, with their BS in 1978 and 1995, and the Conservatives with their 1991 baloney, have penalized the gun community with useless and costly regulation to accomplish zero.

I cannot understand why the Government and judicial system regard criminals as really nice guys who have to be helped with minimal sentencing and extended rights. I cannot understand why I have to go to jail if I plug some punk breaking into my house. I cannot understand why those six punks who shot the girl at the 7-11 a few years ago are out already while their victim is in a wheelchair. Why won't we punish the punks in Canada.

Asterix · Apr 9, 2005

Truncador said:
In America they finally realized this a while ago, and crime rates there are falling through the bottom of the graph. Will common sense be politically incorrect in this country forever, or are we going to catch up eventually ?

Homicide rates have dropped in the US after a peak in the early 1990's, which was largely due to a huge increase in juvenile and young adult crime at the time. Despite this drop, the US homicide rate per capita is still three times that of Canada, and the likelihood of guns being involved in any individual homicide, double. Canada's homicide rate has dropped 40% since 1975, the last year it iimposed the death penalty. In the US, states with the death penalty continue to have some of the highest homicide rates, states without it the lowest. All this while the US earned the distinction in 2003 of having the highest incarceration rate per capita in the world.

Exactly what lessons in approaching criminal justice are you suggesting Canada learn from the US?

Asterix · Apr 9, 2005

rubmeister100 said:
Tell me just how many of those US criminals among the "highest level of incarceration" while incarcerated?

You're going to have to try this again in english. I have no idea what you're asking.

rubmeister100 said:
One lesson that is beyond argument is that a dead or incarcerated criminal poses no risk to citizens outside of jail!

The USDJ estimates that 1 in 15 people in the US will spend significant time in prison at some point in their lives. For some minorities, some as african-americans, it is closer to 1 in 3. At some point we have to respond to problems in society other then simply imprisioning people at a greater rate than any other country in the world.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0818/p02s01-usju.html

papasmerf · Apr 9, 2005

Asterix said:
The USDJ estimates that 1 in 15 people in the US will spend significant time in prison at some point in their lives. For some minorities, some as african-americans, it is closer to 1 in 3. At some point we have to respond to problems in society other then simply imprisioning people at a greater rate than any other country in the world.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0818/p02s01-usju.html

Seems pretty simple. How would you do this??And how would youpay for it?

Asterix · Apr 9, 2005

papasmerf said:
Seems pretty simple. How would you do this??And how would youpay for it?

How would I pay for it? I think you miss the point. There is something fundamentally wrong with what is arguably the richest country in the world, incarcerating the highest percentage of their citizens, than any other.

Truncador · Apr 9, 2005

The Brus said:
I cannot understand why the Government and judicial system regard criminals as really nice guys who have to be helped with minimal sentencing and extended rights. I cannot understand why I have to go to jail if I plug some punk breaking into my house. I cannot understand why those six punks who shot the girl at the 7-11 a few years ago are out already while their victim is in a wheelchair. Why won't we punish the punks in Canada.

It's a question this country seriously has to start asking itself, indeed.

Asterix said:
Exactly what lessons in approaching criminal justice are you suggesting Canada learn from the US?

-That respecting the inherent human right of individuals to arm for their own self-defense doesn't open the floodgates of anarchy, and quite probably reduces crime.

-That the scumbag from the article in the opening post (and others like him) wouldn't be in a position to shoot children at a shopping mall in a white-picket-fence suburb in the present if he'd been spiked or locked up for life for having killed in the past.

Truncador · Apr 9, 2005

Asterix said:
At some point we have to respond to problems in society other then simply imprisioning people at a greater rate than any other country in the world.

Imprisoning/executing repeat offenders does address the societal side of the problem in several important ways. For one thing, when gangsters and people like that are removed from society, they aren't swaggering around serving as perverse role models and mentors for kids in distressed neighborhoods. Also, severe punishments bolster values of social discipline and personal responsibility that are essential in breaking up the culture of poverty and crime. They also instill respect for authority (nobody, tough-guy types least of all, likes to take orders from people who can't/won't enforce them or are otherwise perceived as weak). Finally, creating economic opportunities is useless if more lucrative avenues of criminal opportunity aren't decisively closed (nobody in their right mind will take that job at Wal-Mart if they know they can make 10x as much peddling crack or whatever).

papasmerf · Apr 9, 2005

Asterix said:
How would I pay for it? I think you miss the point. There is something fundamentally wrong with what is arguably the richest country in the world, incarcerating the highest percentage of their citizens, than any other.

You said we need to do something else in another post.

what is it we should do and how would you pay for it????

Asterix · Apr 10, 2005

papasmerf said:
You said we need to do something else in another post.

what is it we should do and how would you pay for it????

The question is, how are going to pay for the system we have now? The prison population in the US has quadrupled since 1980. To put in perspective, the US incacerates 7 times as many people per capita as Canada, and 15 times as many as Japan, and still has higher rates of violent crime than either. The cost of housing this many people is staggering, California spending nearly $5.4 billion per year on prisons alone. 70% of inmates in the US are in for non-violent crimes, and nearly half of those for drug charges.

The link is to a recent article in that famous looney left publication, "The Economist", that OTB likes to refer to so often. It describes the failures and inequities of the prison system now used in the US. We have essentially created a prison industrial complex, and one that by it's very nature is self propagating.

http://www.economist.com/world/na/displayStory.cfm?story_id=1270755

BiggieE · Apr 10, 2005

Truncador said:
Imprisoning/executing repeat offenders does address the societal side of the problem in several important ways. For one thing, when gangsters and people like that are removed from society, they aren't swaggering around serving as perverse role models and mentors for kids in distressed neighborhoods. Also, severe punishments bolster values of social discipline and personal responsibility that are essential in breaking up the culture of poverty and crime. They also instill respect for authority (nobody, tough-guy types least of all, likes to take orders from people who can't/won't enforce them or are otherwise perceived as weak). Finally, creating economic opportunities is useless if more lucrative avenues of criminal opportunity aren't decisively closed (nobody in their right mind will take that job at Wal-Mart if they know they can make 10x as much peddling crack or whatever).

....there IS a God......hehe...I recall saying some of these same things awhile back. I even had some member saying it was wrong for battered women to shoot those who were battering them. If you commit a crime, you go to jail. I do not understand what is so hard to understand about such a simple premise........

WoodPeckr · Apr 11, 2005

Truncador said:
Imprisoning/executing repeat offenders does address the societal side of the problem in several important ways. For one thing, when gangsters and people like that are removed from society, they aren't swaggering around serving as perverse role models and mentors for kids in distressed neighborhoods. Also, severe punishments bolster values of social discipline and personal responsibility that are essential in breaking up the culture of poverty and crime. They also instill respect for authority (nobody, tough-guy types least of all, likes to take orders from people who can't/won't enforce them or are otherwise perceived as weak). Finally, creating economic opportunities is useless if more lucrative avenues of criminal opportunity aren't decisively closed (nobody in their right mind will take that job at Wal-Mart if they know they can make 10x as much peddling crack or whatever).

Maybe the above type of thinking allows you to sleep better at night but facts seem to show that the USA, the richest country in the world, leading all other nations with the most people per capita in prison, has serious problems with their growing prison populations and what they are turning into. This fact alone should signal that something is seriously wrong in the USA.

Here is a long video expose showing what is going on in the US prisons presently and it's not pretty or hopeful at all:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8451.htm

Unless the underlying economic causes of crime are addressed (namely jobs being exported from the USA) the prison industry/populations will continue to surge. As things are heading expect monies earmarked for education to be diverted to prison construction as more cells are needed for future prisoners.

Truncador · Apr 11, 2005

WoodPeckr said:
Unless the underlying economic causes of crime are addressed...the prison industry/populations will continue to surge.

Economic conditions are certainly important determinants of crime rates, but not the only ones. The most effective anti-crime measures make use of both carrots and sticks. On the economic side, cutting taxes and easing the regulatory burden on business helps the economy to thrive and flourish, creating more and better-paying jobs in the process, while the existence of discount chains like Wal-Mart makes cheap goods and groceries available to the working poor, serving as a sort of private welfare program that helps keep property crime down. Also, in addition to punishment, rehabilitation and re-integration are important too; hence the importance of Pres. Bush's recent faith-based initiatives, which put existing community-level institutions to work at little cost to government.

For crime prevention, governments are already making use of private initiative by respecting the right of citizens to arm for self-defense, which is a proven crime deterrent and almost cost-free to boot. Collective forms of exercise of 2nd Amendment rights in the form of groups like the Minutemen could also one day prove enormously useful as a cost-free auxiliary to professional police forces in providing the sort of diffuse police presence needed to both deter and respond to crime.

Gun control vs. criminal control

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