Gun violence

[Pat Hartman]

Shouldn't he be locked up too?

I don't know what incident you are referring to so I am commenting blind but yes, laws should be applied evenly. Otherwise, we are a banana republic. Except for the fact that Biden is the President, he should have been locked up for removing secret documents from SCIFs. And when he leaves office, that is yet another crime he should be charged with. Same goes for Hilary's mishandling of secret documents. If you are going to charge the "little" people and throw them in jail, then you need to charge the "important" people. If we are going to charge Trump, who had the authority to remove secret documents, then we have to arrest Biden who never had that authority when he removed the documents. The law is supposed to be blind. It shouldn't matter who you are or who you know or how much money you have. Biden's current excuse is you can't punish me if I gave them back when you asked. How does that fly in court? Well I gave the diamond ring back. How can I be charged with a crime?

We both know that that isn't how the law works but that is how it is supposed to work. People with money get off because they have good legal representation and people who are poor go to jail for the same crime because the public defenders don't have the resources to put on a winning defense. People look at our justice system and say it is racist. While I'm sure there is always some, the problem is more likely economics.

Gun crimes and crimes that deliberately cause people physical harm should be punished to the limits of the law. These are the crimes where the law need to squash the perpetrators, not only to punish them but to serve as a deterrent to others. Our entire legal code is a complicated mess. We have way too many laws. If you take something that isn't yours, it is theft. The only question is one of value. It shouldn't matter whether it is intellectual property or my lawnmower.

We also shouldn't be locking people up for minor crimes that do not involve physical injury to others. We need better "consequences". Things like community service and restitution when it is feasible.

 

[moke123]

who had the authority to remove secret documents,

?

public defenders don't have the resources to put on a winning defense.

Hate to tell ya Pat, but they have more resources than private attorneys. And they're free. You pay for them.

I don't know what incident you are referring to so I am commenting blind

Wow. explains a lot.

We also shouldn't be locking people up for minor crimes that do not involve physical injury to others. We need better "consequences". Things like community service and restitution when it is feasible.

So your ok with prostitution, drugs, etc?

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Firstly, the cat is not harming anyone.
The original post by super Pat was 'guns don't kill. . . ', I'm just saying in certain circumstances, they can. I really don't know why the deadly duo continue to argue, especially as Doc admitted days ago it could happen however remote. Still, if they want to continue arguing then that's up to them.
Col

When that cat does his naughty little thing, you are MORE likely to get bartonella henselae (cat-scratch fever) than you are to be shot.

 

[AccessBlaster]

Actually I believe gun thefts from cars is #1. A number of years ago almost every gun found during drug raids in my area all came back stolen from Tennessee. There were at least 15-20 of them.

We should pass a "new law" making it illegal to steal guns from cars, that should do it.

 

[jpl458]

You could sleep with the gun in your hand and the hammer cocked with your finger on the trigger. It isn't going to do a bit of good unless you have some warning that someone's coming.

I can't think of any time in my life or anywhere I have ever lived where I've ever had any fear of an intruder. If I did I think I would invest in a good security system before I invested in a firearm.

I am wondering where the line is and why we don't legalize M 60 machine guns, or bump stocks on the AR 15? It seems to me the demarcartion point is baseded on rounds per minute. Why is it everyone agrees that machine guns are not available for purchase by the public, but the AR 15 is? If you want real protection you need a 20 mm gatling gun. But I agree with Moke, get an alarm system. My current weapon of chioce is a Bug_a_Salt pump pistol. Looks a lot like the German MP 40 machine pistol. I dispatch flys, spiders and other unwanted intruders in my domicile. I could acutallu blind a human intruder with it. BTW, the projectile is table salt.

 

[Isaac]

Actually I believe gun thefts from cars is #1

Well, yeah, in places that have stricter gun control laws.

Otherwise, I'd have a hard time believing that the volume of stolen guns actually exceeds the volume of bought guns

 

[AccessBlaster]

I am wondering where the line is and why we don't legalize M 60 machine guns, or bump stocks on the AR 15? It seems to me the demarcartion point is baseded on rounds per minute. Why is it everyone agrees that machine guns are not available for purchase by the public, but the AR 15 is?

Because you won't stop there, you'll just keep going and going and going. We understand that giving into this will result in the eventual break down of the constitution.

 

[Isaac]

Why is it everyone agrees that machine guns are not available for purchase by the public, but the AR 15

I think it's just a matter of realizing that we have to draw the line somewhere. Both sides are more comfortable with a line drawn than without - the gun control advocates because "if not, they'll want every imaginable weapon to be legal", and the gun control opposition because "if not, they'll want to ban every weapon".

I think drawing the line at semi vs. fully automatic is a pretty decent place to start, 90% of people can agree on banning the sale of machine guns.

But even there, be careful. Remember Mexico. They did the same thing. The only result of that is that now ONLY the cartel has those guns.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

But even there, be careful. Remember Mexico. They did the same thing. The only result of that is that now ONLY the cartel has those guns.

Which underscores the point that criminalizing guns is not an answer. It has been tried and it failed.

 

[ColinEssex]

When that cat does his naughty little thing, you are MORE likely to get bartonella henselae (cat-scratch fever) than you are to be shot.

Why? The cat doesn't touch you.
Although if you are talking about American life across the country, that may well be true, I've no idea of the incidences of being shot versus cat scratch fever, I'm guessing as you seem to have an opinion on everything perhaps you can tell us

 

[jpl458]

I try to attack the problem from all angles. They all could matter depending on what happens. Again, one in five homes will experience a break in, and about 50% of all home invasions involved violence to the homeowner. You'd have to be foolish not to take precautions.

The are roughly 150,000,000 homes in the USA. In 2017 there were 1,401,840 burglaries, and roughly 50 % of the gurglaries were home violent invasions, which cuts the number of violent invasions to 700,000. Which means you have a .004% chance of a voilent home invasion.

 

[moke123]

Now I think you should argue Drugs don't kill People, People Do.

Like bullets, they're inanimate objects that cause no harm unless someone puts one into you.

 

[moke123]

The are roughly 150,000,000 homes in the USA. In 2017 there were 1,401,840 burglaries, and roughly 50 % of the gurglaries were home violent invasions, which cuts the number of violent invasions to 700,000. Which means you have a .004% chance of a voilent home invasion.

And numbers are declining.

Most people think the U.S. crime rate is rising. They're wrong.

Almost 80 percent of Americans, and 92 percent of Republicans, think crime has gone up. It actually fell in 2023. An expert blames a familiar culprit for the mistaken impression.

www.nbcnews.com

 

[ColinEssex]

Now I think you should argue Drugs don't kill People, People Do.

Like bullets, they're inanimate objects that cause no harm unless someone puts one into you.

No argument from me. Although others here may do.
Col

 

[Pat Hartman]

So your ok with prostitution, drugs, etc?

Unlike Alvin Bragg, I believe that crime is crime and letting perps who were on film beating up two cops simply walk out and give the camera man the finger is criminal and I want to know who is going to jail for that crime? Then he gets on TV and makes a ridiculous speech about pursuing them to the ends of the earth.

Re Prostitution - it is very sad to be in a position to have to sell your body to live. I would make buying a crime. I was shocked when I moved to Miami in the early 70's and found out that they listed the names of all the Johns they arrested in the Miami Herald the next day. I don't know if that had any impact. We were only there for a year.

Re Drugs - Somehow the war on drugs didn't work. Of course since no one laid out any actual expectations there is nothing to judge the results against but clearly it didn't work but a lot of people ended up in jail with very long sentences.

The people who make laws - Congress and the unelected civil servants who make our lives miserable with their stupid, nit-picky regulations - really need to work more like businesses. You make a plan, you set goals, you check your progress, you adjust your plan. The people who write the regulations think that the act of adding a regulation to our body of law automatically solves a problem. So what we end up with is - Every regulation is permanent and we never review them to see if they had any positive impact. Trump was making some progress with his direction to remove two rules for each new one but he had hundreds of years of bureaucracy to dig through and nowhere near enough time or willing participants. Of course that Executive order was a casualty of the Biden administration since Dems are in the business of making laws that they never intend to actually enforce but only to use against their "enemies".

 

[Pat Hartman]

The original post by super Pat was 'guns don't kill. . . ', I

You are mis-quoting me. That is not what I said. You conveniently cut off the end of the sentence. Is that how you have to make your point? I'm not sure you would even get moke to agree with you on this one and he knows more about guns and their misuse than any of us.

When you focus on the wrong problem, you can never solve the real problem. You just keep making new laws that don't get enforced but for 5 minutes, you feel morally superior because you "did something". You get idiots like those in NY (and other states) actively choosing to not enforce existing laws. There is something very wrong with this picture.

That bunch of illegal alien thugs that beat up the NY cops weren't smoking cigarettes on the sidewalks of NY. The were beating up police officers. AND THEY WALKED, and immediately got on a bus to get out of town. I'm guessing they'd be at Rikers now, if they were caught smoking on the street because that is an actual crime unlike beating up cops.

You have to solve the right problem but you can only do that if you understand the problem to begin with.

 

[moke123]

I believe that crime is crime and letting perps who were on film beating up two cops simply walk out and give the camera man the finger is criminal and I want to know who is going to jail for that crime?

Are you talking about your tourists or the immigrants?

 

[Pat Hartman]

So, you are OK with people just beating up cops? The police arrest them and just let them walk? Really?

 

[Isaac]

The are roughly 150,000,000 homes in the USA. In 2017 there were 1,401,840 burglaries, and roughly 50 % of the gurglaries were home violent invasions, which cuts the number of violent invasions to 700,000. Which means you have a .004% chance of a voilent home invasion.

Those numbers are totally wrong.

 

[moke123]

So, you are OK with people just beating up cops? The police arrest them and just let them walk? Really?

I'm pretty much against anyone beating anyone else up regardless of who they are. I don't know know much of the facts with that case as I've only seen it on The Sewer, formally known as X, formally known as twitter. From what I understand the primary aggressor is at Rikers and the others released and were allegedly seen getting on a bus to Ca. Usually there are conditions for release on PR. They don't just say see you later. It may be that they are required to check in with probation weekly or even daily. Another condition might be that they remain in the state. If that's so they'd already be in violation. If the bus driver doesn't know where they got off, and they didn't jump off a moving bus, the cops in every town that bus stopped at is looking for them. Honestly, if you took the fact they are immigrants out of the story, the same thing happens day in and day out in every city in the country. Is it shocking? Sure, it was caught on camera just like the tourists on January 6th. Am I worried they wont be held to account? Not really.