Hell Has Frozen Over: The NRA and Brady Campaign Decide to Agree!

"The United States has the world's biggest prison population and incarcerates its citizens at a rate several times higher than any other nation in the world. How can we have a crime problem? Aren't all the criminals locked up already? Gee, maybe it's not working..."

No, all the criminals aren't locked up already. We still have crime don't we? But you knew this, didn't you?

Nice try guy, but glib words don't cut it.

Those other countries have crime too. Maybe they need to incarcerate a few more of their crooks and clean up the streets.

John
 
OK, so the superior decision making and efficiency that one sees at the federal level was not the reason the feds had to assume traditional state powers. So what was it? Is it as simple as following the money? Virginians not wanting to pay their own way? Government is, after all, that great fiction through which everyone attempts to live at the expense of everyone else.

Is that what I'm missing, jbt?
 
Publius:

Here in Boston there are a relatively small number of impact players in the gang world. Lock those guys up for a long time, a long ways off in federal prison, and the crime rate falls dramatically. The same is true in much of the nation.

Whether John Q. Perp is locked up here in MA or in Marion, IL, has little effect on the ultimate cost to the nation -- we still have to pay room and board for the guy. Furthermore, there is a large economic cost to crime. If putting him in Marion, IL as opposed to Walpole, MA significantly reduces crime, then the transportation cost is easily covered.
 
Publius, no you are missing what made the system work. Perps are not scared of the state prison. They've already been there several times. Their fellow gang members are there. They basically run the place. So several years in state prison is not a deterrent for them.

They haven't been to federal prison. Their gang doesn't run federal prison, so they will be low man on the totem poll. They don't know anyone there. It will be too far away for their family and friends to visit them. Ten years in federal prison is a deterrent to them.
 
I see. So why bother even having state justice systems? Shouldn't the feds handle everything? I mean, if the states can't even build a scary prison, how can they accomplish anything?

Whether John Q. Perp is locked up here in MA or in Marion, IL, has little effect on the ultimate cost to the nation -- we still have to pay room and board for the guy.
Click to expand...

That sentence is a classic illustration of the "federalize everything" attitude which is undermining the balance of powers in our system. Cost to the nation, huh? So maintaining duplicate systems, one for some state crimes to be handled at the state level, and one for other state crimes to be handled at the federal level, is the model of efficiency?

I think that if a state can't get control of their own justice system, applying some federal welfare is not helping, but is coddling.
 
I see. So why bother even having state justice systems? Shouldn't the feds handle everything? I mean, if the states can't even build a scary prison, how can they accomplish anything?
Click to expand...
Publius, creating silly strawman arguments doesn't help convince anyone.

This was only used on a very, very small portion of the defendants, and yet proved to dramatically reduce violent crime in Boston. The only one suggesting that everything should be federalized is yourself.

So maintaining duplicate systems, one for some state crimes to be handled at the state level, and one for other state crimes to be handled at the federal level, is the model of efficiency?
Click to expand...

I guess you are unaware of the distinctions between the federal and state justice systems. The federal criminal courts have jurisdiction over federal crimes. They do not have jurisdiction over state crimes. In these cases, the perpetrators were charged with federal crimes -- usually for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

The program works.
 
This was only used on a very, very small portion of the defendants, and yet proved to dramatically reduce violent crime in Boston.
Click to expand...

172 out of 646 in two years, according to jbt. One in four is a small portion? OK, it is subjective.

I guess you are unaware of the distinctions between the federal and state justice systems.
Click to expand...

The two seem to be merging, but historically have had different authorities and responsibilities. The feds are unquestionably intruding into policing local crimes, which brings up the question of where the authority comes from.

The authority to prohibit felons from possessing guns comes from the same place as the authority to prohibit guns near schools, the authority to prohibit homegrown wheat, cannabis plants, or machine guns for personal use, and the authority to prohibit loan sharking - that Swiss Army Knife of constitutional phrases - the commerce clause.

Let's see...maybe I can reword Justice Stewart's dissent in the Perez case so that it applies to felons in possession, not loan sharks...

Congress surely has power under the Commerce Clause to enact criminal laws to protect the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, to prohibit the misuse of the channels or facilities of interstate commerce, and to prohibit or regulate those intrastate activities that have a demonstrably substantial effect on interstate commerce. But under the statute before us a man can be convicted without any proof of interstate movement, of the use of the facilities of interstate commerce, or of facts showing that his conduct affected interstate commerce. I think the Framers of the Constitution never intended that the National Government might define as a crime and prosecute such wholly local activity through the enactment of federal criminal laws.

In order to sustain this law we would, in my view, have to be able at the least to say that Congress could rationally have concluded that possession of a gun by a felon is an activity with interstate attributes that distinguish it in some substantial respect from other local crime. But it is not enough to say that felons with guns (are) a national problem, for all crime is a national problem. It is not enough to say that some felonious gun possession has interstate characteristics, for any crime may have an interstate setting. And the circumstance that felons in possession of guns (have) an adverse impact on interstate business is not a distinguishing attribute, for interstate business suffers from [402 U.S. 146, 158] almost all criminal activity, be it shoplifting or violence in the streets.

Because I am unable to discern any rational distinction between felons with guns and other local crime, I cannot escape the conclusion that this statute was beyond the power of Congress to enact. The definition and prosecution of local, intrastate crime are reserved to the States under the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. [402 U.S. 146, 159]
Click to expand...

Yep, still makes sense to me.
 
Here's how the author of our Constitution, James Madison, saw the distinction between state and federal justice systems:

The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State. The operations of the federal government will be most extensive and important in times of war and danger; those of the State governments, in times of peace and security. As the former periods will probably bear a small proportion to the latter, the State governments will here enjoy another advantage over the federal government. The more adequate, indeed, the federal powers may be rendered to the national defense, the less frequent will be those scenes of danger which might favor their ascendancy over the governments of the particular States. If the new Constitution be examined with accuracy and candor, it will be found that the change which it proposes consists much less in the addition of NEW POWERS to the Union, than in the invigoration of its ORIGINAL POWERS. The regulation of commerce, it is true, is a new power; but that seems to be an addition which few oppose, and from which no apprehensions are entertained.
Click to expand...

Are felons in possession of guns principally "external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce" or are they among "the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State?"

I think the latter, but as has been pointed out, I don't understand very well the differences between state and federal justice systems. Maybe someone can explain to me the foreign and/or commercial aspects of felonious gun possession so that I'll have a better grasp of the situation? I'll be waiting...
 
Let's try to get past this idea that the opinions of some guy 230 years ago are somehow relevant to the reality of the here and now today, especially when even if James Madison's opinions were controlling today--which they aren't--the specific question that we're talking about now on 2008 was never put directly to James Madison. Nobody asked him what he thought about federal courts sending serious criminals to prison for violations of federal law despite the fact that there are similar state laws that could have allowed the cae to be brought in state court.

But the real bottom line is that this IS the 21st Century. It's not Madison's government any more. It's OURS. That means that we, the People (of the 21st Century), get to decide what we want it to do. That's reality. What Madison might have thought about our issues today is academic at best, but not really relevant. The country's founders left us some great ideas on how things should run, but also the ability to modify them as we see fit.

As far as I'm concerned, one of the relatively few proper roles of the federal government includes running a federal court system and maintaining federal prisons to house violators of federal law. If putting some armed violent felon into one for five years makes our streets just a little bit safer, I'm all for it. I'd rather see the money used for that than AIDS prevention in Africa or welfare for illegal aliens and able-bodied Americans.
 
Here's a perfect example of a criminal going away for conviction in federal court.

http://your4state.com/content/fulltext/?cid=25391

Pagan Motorcycle Leader Going To Prison For Weapons Charges
Reported by: Megan Healey

Friday, Aug 8, 2008 @05:21pm EST

Baltimore, MD - U.S. District Chief Judge Benson E. Legg sentenced Jay Carl Wagner, age 67, of Hagerstown, Maryland, president of the Pagan Motorcycle Club in Maryland, Friday to 30 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for being a felon in possession of 19 guns, announced United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein.

According to his guilty plea, Maryland State Police troopers observed Wagner on May 9, 2007 walk out of his residence armed with a handgun. ATF agents and Maryland State Troopers searched his home and seized 19 rifles, handguns, shotguns and numerous ammunition.

Wagner was prohibited from possessing the firearms because he had been previously convicted of resisting arrest. Rosenstein thanked the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Maryland State Police for their investigative work, and commended Assistant United States Attorney James T. Wallner, who prosecuted the case.
Click to expand...

And before people start decrying the fact that his underlying felony conviction was "only" Resisting Arrest, bear in mind that to catch a felony RA instead of the usual misdemeanor generally requires a felony-level violent act--a weapon being used or serious injury caused. This guy was pretty clearly a scumbag and he'll do two and a half years only because he chose to plead instead of going to trial.
 
Let's try to get past this idea that the opinions of some guy 230 years ago are somehow relevant to the reality of the here and now today, especially when even if James Madison's opinions were controlling today--which they aren't--the specific question that we're talking about now on 2008 was never put directly to James Madison.
Click to expand...
Perhaps not, but he did find occasion to comment on such potential uses of the commerce clause, and here is what he had to say:

For a like reason, I made no reference to the "power to regulate commerce among the several States." I always foresaw that difficulties might be started in relation to that power which could not be fully explained without recurring to views of it, which, however just, might give birth to specious though unsound objections. Being in the same terms with the power over foreign commerce, the same extent, if taken literally, would belong to it. Yet it is very certain that it grew out of the abuse of the power by the importing States in taxing the non-importing, and was intended as a negative and preventive provision against injustice among the States themselves, rather than as a power to be used for the positive purposes of the General Government, in which alone, however, the remedial power could be lodged.
Click to expand...

If Madison isn't recent or relevant enough for you, how about the thoughts of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas? He is part of a major branch of our current government, after all, and he seems to think our commerce clause jurisprudence has gone off the rails, and that now our government of limited and defined powers can regulate "virtually anything."

Felons in possession of guns are already illegal in every state. Some of them are prosecuted for that crime in state courts. Some of them (the particularly bad ones?) are prosecuted in federal court for the same crime. Paraphrasing then-Judge Alito from the Rybar case, I am left wondering whether possession of a gun by a really bad felon is inherently more "economic" or more "commercial" than possession of firearms by some other felons? Where is the connection to commerce that does not exist in the case of the almost-as-bad felon who wound up in state court for the same crime?
 
Last edited:
Stagger Lee said:
But the real bottom line is that this IS the 21st Century. It's not Madison's government any more. It's OURS. That means that we, the People (of the 21st Century), get to decide what we want it to do.
Click to expand...
And they (them old dead white guys) left a mechanism to effect that change. But then, amending the Constitution is so much harder than imagining emanations and penumbras of power.

Since that is the current reality and I don't agree with it, I should just shut up?
 
Anyone know where I got this?

(1) The Congress finds and declares that—
(A) crime, particularly crime involving drugs and guns, is a pervasive, nationwide problem;
(B) crime at the local level is exacerbated by the interstate movement of drugs, guns, and criminal gangs;
(C) firearms and ammunition move easily in interstate commerce and have been found in increasing numbers in the possession of felons, as documented in numerous hearings in both the Committee on the Judiciary [3] the House of Representatives and the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate;
(D) in fact, even before the sale of a firearm, the gun, its component parts, ammunition, and the raw materials from which they are made have considerably moved in interstate commerce;
(E) while criminals freely move from State to State, ordinary citizens and foreign visitors may fear to travel to or through certain parts of the country due to concern about violent crime and gun violence, and parents may decline to send their children to school for the same reason;

...

(H) States, localities, and school systems find it almost impossible to handle gun-related crime by themselves—even States, localities, and school systems that have made strong efforts to prevent, detect, and punish gun-related crime find their efforts unavailing due in part to the failure or inability of other States or localities to take strong measures; and
(I) the Congress has the power, under the interstate commerce clause and other provisions of the Constitution, to enact measures to ensure the integrity and safety of the Nation by enactment of this subsection.
Click to expand...
 
And before people start decrying the fact that his underlying felony conviction was "only" Resisting Arrest, bear in mind that to catch a felony RA instead of the usual misdemeanor generally requires a felony-level violent act--a weapon being used or serious injury caused.
Click to expand...

Isn't eluding police also generally a felony too??

Our society seems to demand that folks cooperate with the police.

.
 
Have you remembered where you found it yet?
Click to expand...

Actually, it is nowhere to be found in exactly that form. What I posted was the slightly altered section A from USC 922(q), the Gun Free School Zones Act.

Amazing how well it applies to the current discussion with only a few words altered. Seems like I'm seeing quite a bit of support on this thread for the legal logic underlying the Gun Free School Zones Act, and opposition to the Lopez decision which tried unsuccessfully to call into question the federal authority for that law.
 
Isn't eluding police also generally a felony too??

Our society seems to demand that folks cooperate with the police.
Click to expand...

Fleeing and Eluding can be either, depending on the state and the type of fleeing (on foot, in a vehicle, etc.)

But I'm good with that. There's no legal justification or excuse for resisting or running from the police when they are acting lawfully on behalf of the rest of us and all too often when it happens, someone gets hurt--typically someone not even involved.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top