How to Keep Guns out of "Bad Guy" Hands?

Status
Not open for further replies.
Pond said:
It just doesn't come into it in the same way it would with you or I as well-adjusted members of the law-abiding public.
In fact, the main reason you or I don't commit crimes is also less about imprisonment and more about what we've been brought up to see as right and wrong, so even for us it is our moral grounding that acts as a brake on criminal behaviour.

I'm positive that the vast majority of criminals know their criminal acts are wrong, at least from the view of society in general, otherwise criminals wouldn't try to be sneaky in committing their crimes, evade police, etc.
 
Part of the incarceration problem is that a lot of prisons have been privatized and as pointed out before it's a multi billion dollar business. They spend a lot of money lobbying for tougher laws and longer incarcerations, because that's how they make their money. The law also needs to be applied more evenly, without going into specifics there's a segment of the population that gets probation and another that gets jail time for the same offenses. On a federal level we should probably remove marijuana off the list of illegal drugs and let it be handled at the state level.

The education system in this country is a joke. Common core should be renamed Everyone Stupid. I've met teenagers who could do basic math because they just used calculators. And to really screw things up your average school is a liberal bastion. It's becoming harder and harder to get a teaching job if you aren't properly indoctrinated to the cause and use your position to do the same to your students. I mean seriously, we've had little kids suspended from school for eating a poptart in the shape of gun!

Frankly I'm not sure how to fix these issues but I haven't heard a "reasonable" idea about gun restrictions in 30 years. So I'll just dig in my heels and push back the best I can and try to vote in people who'll work to get some of the ridiculous out of the system.
 
Last edited:
Sailingonby said:
I'm so glad you asked!

IMO, gun control, gun violence, gun "problems" in general... these would be so drastically reduced -- as well as crime/economy/mostly all of the big issue problems right now -- If they diverted a LOT more money into basic education of our children. Educate them properly like the rest of the civilized world and their opportunities increase, the work force improves, the economy improves and crime decreases, thus, making guns less of a hot topic issue.

The US is already at the high end of the spectrum for educational spending. The idea that we don't pour enormous resources into education, both state and private is counterfactual.

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cmd.asp

How we educate them may be less than optimal. While I am not sure that caning young men is necessary, co-educational prep schools may be a mistake.

Stiffer penalties are demonstrably not the answer.

Long sentences may not be effective, but that does not suggest that stiffer penalties would not work to dissuade a behavior. It may only indicate that imprisonment isn't seen by every population as a stiff penalty.


Spats McGee said:
I'm curious, what is this "good, productive dialogue" that's being held back? What makes dialogue "good" and "productive?" And which views are the "extreme" ones that are holding it back?

This question is basic and merits an answer.
 
Last edited:
It takes a lot of imagination to come up with any kind of scenario where gun control laws realistically keeps guns out of the hands of criminals or nuts.

If anyone is freely walking the streets of America, they have access to firearms. Many can't walk into a sporting goods store and purchase a weapon, but pretty much everyone who is not locked up has access to firearms.

There was a time in the world when firearms did not exist, and yet every kind of person we believe should not have access to them did exist. Criminal intent is of the heart and/or mind, not the tools available.

Many Americans believe one the first naturally born humans on the earth was a murderer and killed his brother with a rock. You cannot regulate the human heart and mind by restricting the objects that they have access to, especially when the only way to restrict that access is by locking them up.
 
Again, I understand that tougher sentences may not serve as a deterrent to people committing the original crime, but longer jails sentences will reduce the number of subsequent crimes they commit. If a guy gets two years he’s out to commit more crimes after that. However, if the same guy gets ten years that’s eight additional years that he won’t be victimizing the public with or without a gun. Sounds effective to me.
 
Barry Lee said:
Again, I understand that tougher sentences may not serve as a deterrent to people committing the original crime...

If incarceration doesn't serve as a deterrent to crime, why do people who've just committed a crime flee from the police?
 
I'm positive that the vast majority of criminals know their criminal acts are wrong, at least from the view of society in general, otherwise criminals wouldn't try to be sneaky in committing their crimes, evade police, etc.

I'm not saying that they are oblivious to their acts being wrong, but rather that neither a moral compass (as with you and I) nor the threat of imprisonment if caught (a known social fact) act as a brake on their criminal behaviour.

If they did, criminals wouldn't be committing crimes....
 
PJP said:
I'm not saying that they are oblivious to their acts being wrong, but rather that neither a moral compass (as with you and I) nor the threat of imprisonment if caught (a known social fact) act as a brake on their criminal behaviour.

If they did, criminals wouldn't be committing crimes....

Deterrence and effective prohibition are distinguishable.

Any unpleasant outcome can deter a person from engaging in the behavior associated with the unpleasant outcome. If you anticipate that ISIS will crucify you for smoking or dancing, you are less likely to smoke and dance. Even the thread of ISIS crucifixion doesn't stop all smoking and drinking, but that shouldn't drive you to believe that if one cigarette is consumed that the noted brutality doesn't act as a brake on the behavior.

I speed almost every day. It is also true that the threat of a mere speeding ticket has me reduce the behavior.
 
That only works if a) the dancing smoker believes they are likely to be caught and b) they even give the possibility any consideration to begin with.

The police are around, multitudes of criminals have already been sent down. Yet people continue to commit crimes.

I'm saying that criminals probably don't care their act is wrong and don't really think they'll be the ones to be caught...

Seems to me the deterrence being employed at present is not that effective...
 
That only works if a) the dancing smoker believes they are likely to be caught and b) they even give the possibility any consideration to begin with...

A disincentive will influence behavior where if there is a real risk, as perceived by the actor, that he will incur the disincentive. Note american compliance behavior vis a vis federal income tax. For most people it is unlikely they will be audited. Compliance is forthcoming nevertheless.

Yes, one does need to be aware of the disincentive for it to be effective.

The police are around, multitudes of criminals have already been sent down. Yet people continue to commit crimes.

Of course they do. That doesn't suggest that criminal penalties are not a disincentive.

Do you really mean to argue that criminal disincentives are ineffective unless all crime stops?

I'm saying that criminals probably don't care their act is wrong and don't really think they'll be the ones to be caught...

Seems to me the deterrence being employed at present is not that effective...

Have you seen what happens in an american city when there is an announcement that police will be standing down? See Baltimore and Ferguson.

Certainly any rational person will reduce his risk of incurring the disincentive, i.e. getting caught and punished. That can take the form of abstaining from the behavior, or the form of evading detection but continuing the behavior.


This phenomenon pertains to firearms possession and the question in this thread. Criminal penalties are most likely to dissuade those who will see little to gain and much to lose from risking the sanction. Those penalties are more likely to be seen as incidental to a population engaged in felonious conduct already.
 
Last edited:
Longer sentences are a crime deterrent in the sense that the person serving the sentence is deterred from committing crime for a longer period because the sentence is longer.

Harsh penalties are a crime deterrent in that some persons (though certainly not all) will avoid an action which carries the chance of a significant penalty. The more the penalty and the higher the chance of it being imposed, the more the deterrence effect on those who understand cause and effect.

Preventing crime entirely is just not possible unless everyone is locked up and monitored constantly.

The issue is trying to find the balance between zero crime achieved by taking all freedoms away and unrestricted crimes allowed by giving everyone complete freedom to do as they please.

A meaningful discussion of this topic can't be based on the pretense that all crime can be prevented or that all freedoms can be completely uninfringed.

The real-world solution will involve allowing SOME crime in the interest of not limiting personal freedom too drastically and SOME limitations on personal freedoms in the interest of reducing crime to acceptable levels.

This discussion is about quantifying the two SOME's in the previous sentence.
 
Pond said:
I'm not saying that they are oblivious to their acts being wrong, but rather that neither a moral compass (as with you and I) nor the threat of imprisonment if caught (a known social fact) act as a brake on their criminal behaviour.

If they did, criminals wouldn't be committing crimes....

Putting criminals in prison keeps them from inflicting their criminal behavior on the general population and serves as an example to the rest of the population to avoid criminal activity. Put another way, for example, if you have a "x" criminals in the U.S., will there be more or less crime in the U.S. if they are in prison or free?
 
Last edited:
There is also an issue about incarceration I haven't seen addressed in this thread.

Different people have different rites of passage into adulthood. For lots of people my age, the difference between being a lad and an adult was college. For the older men in my office, their time in service was their formative experience.

There is a population for whom getting locked up is their diploma. What would function as a very powerful disincentive for most of us may seem quite a bit less powerful to others.
 
Last edited:
Do you really mean to argue that criminal disincentives are ineffective unless all crime stops?

Of course not:

If people suggest harsher prison sentences then we have to first decide if prison is an effective deterrent to begin with. It has some deterrent value but it is not an efficient one, based on what I've read and heard on the subject.

You tell me if the status quo seems satisfactory to you as a US tax-payer (who presumably pays their taxes not through fear of getting caught, just because that is what you are supposed to do).
Are you getting your money's worth?

I've found references online to the US having a budget of about 74 Billion USD for the prison system. You have a prison population of about 2 and a quarter million and recidivism rates in the US can be as high as 60%, and you have a crime rate that is not exactly Scandinavian. On top of that, death penalty states appear to have higher homicide rates than those without, even when comparing neighbouring states with and without.

If people suggest harsher sentences, they'd better be prepared to pay for them.

TBH, it sounds a little like the anti-gun logic that if X amount of gun control hasn't achieved the desired affect let's for (X)*2 amount of gun control, overlooking the fact that gun control is perhaps not the solution to begin with, but hey.... it looks good so let's do it anyway.

On the other, I imagine that crime rates are higher in those with lower education standards and lower aspirations and opportunities.

Those who grow up on high-crime areas are likely add to the problems not reduce them. Interesting, then, that the US education budget of just under 70 billion USD for 2017. Less, I'm sure you'll notice, than the prisons'.

A study showing that education attainment and crime rates are inversely related.

A report claiming that investment in schools could see a drop of around 30% in spending on prisons.
 
Last edited:
Putting criminals in prison keeps them from inflicting their criminal behavior on the general population and serves as an example to the rest of the population to avoid criminal activity. Put another way, for example, if you have a "x" criminals in the U.S., will there be more or less crime in the U.S. if they are in prison or free?

Except that if drug-dealer A is slung in jail, there are a dozen lining up to take his place on that street corner so the net result on the street is the same. The fact that one is doing time doesn't seem to put the others off...
 
It has some deterrent value but it is not an efficient one.
Considering recidivism rates and the actual cost of serious crimes, keeping serious criminals incarcerated longer is probably very efficient.

Is it efficient to keep someone in jail a long time for a relatively minor crime, or one that has no real victims? Obviously not. The cost of incarceration vs. the cost of letting a petty criminal do what he/she wants is probably badly "upside down".
If people suggest harsher sentences, they'd better be prepared to pay for them.
People tend to group all offenses together when they make statements like this.

Violent offenders are only about a tenth of the population in federal prisons, and about half of the population in state prisons.

Harsher sentences for violent offenders make a lot of sense, and we could probably manage that without any additional cost at all if we were to cut back on the incarceration rates and sentences for non-violent offenders.
Except that if drug-dealer A is slung in jail, there are a dozen lining up to take his place on that street corner so the net result on the street is the same. The fact that one is doing time doesn't seem to put the others off...
The fact that there are always criminals doesn't mean that harsh sentences don't deter anyone at all ever, it just means that they don't deter EVERYONE.

There are very likely many who are "put off" but all it takes is a few who aren't to fill the gaps.
 
PJP said:
Do you really mean to argue that criminal disincentives are ineffective unless all crime stops?
Of course not:

OK. Then continuing crime isn't an argument against incarceration as a disincentive. I can agree that it may not be an optimal disincentive, but that doesn't suggest that it isn't a disincentive.

PJP said:
You tell me if the status quo seems satisfactory to you as a US tax-payer (who presumably pays their taxes not through fear of getting caught, just because that is what you are supposed to do).
Are you getting your money's worth?

That isn't a real public policy question as you've phrased it. It's like asking if you are satisfied with the state of cancer treatment. Matters at which one continues to make an effort may not be satisfactory, but that doesn't indicate that the effort is fruitless.

PJP said:
TBH, it sounds a little like the anti-gun logic that if X amount of gun control hasn't achieved the desired affect let's for (X)*2 amount of gun control, overlooking the fact that gun control is perhaps not the solution to begin with, but hey.... it looks good so let's do it anyway.

Actually, it doesn't, unless you accept that criminal penalties don't have the desired effect. If the desired effect is to deter crime, then those penalties are doing their work.

PJP said:
On the other, I imagine that crime rates are higher in those with lower education standards and lower aspirations and opportunities.

Those who grow up on high-crime areas are likely add to the problems not reduce them. Interesting, then, that the US education budget of just under 70 billion USD for 2017. Less, I'm sure you'll notice, than the prisons'.

A study showing that education attainment and crime rates are inversely related.

A report claiming that investment in schools could see a drop of around 30% in spending on prisons.

US spending on education is up at the high end of the spectrum, along with Switzerland. Any sense that the US doesn't spend lavishly on education is factually mistaken.

While you may see a correlation amongst crime rates and education that should not suggest that modest education causes crime, but that both modest education and criminal activity can stem from causes present in a single population. Inferior foresight explains both.
 
I can agree that it may not be an optimal disincentive, but that doesn't suggest that it isn't a disincentive.

Then we agree.
I never said that it did not deter at all, simply that it is not the deterrent people take it to be. I also made this point to underline that pursuing ever greater incarceration times is not necessarily the solution to criminals using guns. Which in turn stemmed from my point that singling out crime involving guns is a narrow-minded approach by the establishment: reducing crime reduces gun-crime and my view is that, although not a quick fix, improving the education and opportunities of this generation and the next in schools will, over time lead to lower crime. Whilst not the instant fix people would like, I think it is a fundamentally surer one.

It's like asking if you are satisfied with the state of cancer treatment.

Actually, if you were to find heavy investment being made in chemo-, radio- and biological treatments but find far less spending on lifestyle/risk factor education that reduce the risk of incidence to begin with or screening programs designed to allow for early detection which, lead to far greater survival rates, then I'd argue the analogy was quite similar.

Actually, it doesn't, unless you accept that criminal penalties don't have the desired effect. If the desired effect is to deter crime, then those penalties are doing their work.

Well, based on the figures surrounding prison population, reoffending rates and crime rates that I found, I don't think they have the desired affect. In either absolute terms, nor in cost-benefit terms, but that is my opinion. You may think it is fine. And, after all, they're your tax dollars, not mine...

US spending on education is up at the high end of the spectrum, along with Switzerland. Any sense that the US doesn't spend lavishly on education is factually mistaken.

I never said it was spending little. Just that it was spending less than it is on prisons especially, as in a person's life, school comes first (and at a character forming stage in life) while any criminal career comes after. The former is chronologically very well placed to affect the latter.

While you may see a correlation amongst crime rates and education that should not suggest that modest education causes crime

No, it doesn't, but it does cause lower job prospects, lower aspirational goals and narrowed horizons, by and large. These then can lead to crime being an easy/obvious/default choice in some people's lives.
 
PJP said:
... you have a crime rate that is not exactly Scandinavian.

We also have sub-populations that are "not exactly Scandinavian". The comparison to a region with a highly homogenous population until the recent import of turks is dubious.

Pardon my elipses below, and let me know if you believe it obscures your point.

pjp said:
Actually, if you were to find heavy investment being made in chemo-, radio- and biological treatments but find far less spending on lifestyle/risk factor education that reduce the risk of incidence to begin with or screening programs designed to allow for early detection which, lead to far greater survival rates, then I'd argue the analogy was quite similar.

***

No, it doesn't, but it does cause lower job prospects, lower aspirational goals and narrowed horizons, by and large. These then can lead to crime being an easy/obvious/default choice in some people's lives.

I believe you've placed an emphasis on spending, especially state spending, that really misses the problem the US faces.

It costs nothing to have your mother tell you to come indoors and finish your homework. It costs nothing to have a father tell you that you can't run around with the dead enders in your neighborhood.

The problem the US has faced over the last century is the same one the UK faced in the 19th century with agrarian populations heading for the cities without the social tools to live in cities. In both instances, there was conspicuous damage to the ordinary order of family structure and the creation of a sort of feral person unmoored from some useful conventions.

That is a sort of cultural maladjustment that a government isn't well suited to addressing.
 
Evil is very difficult to deter. Evil, i.e. the exploitation of innocence for personal gain, is as much a part of human nature as is compassion. Evil people have slaughtered hundreds of millions of people over the centuries under the banners of power, greed, lust, legacy, etc. Every single day I receive emails from people trying to trick me into sending money or clicking a link, many seeking to crash as many computers as possible and create chaos just for the fun of it. I am always astounded by how many evil people walk among us.

I don't know how to fix evil. I suppose parenting, education, opportunity, and the judicial system all help in some way, but none are the cure for what I believe is a basic human defect. I don't expect anyone to figure out and implement a solution in my lifetime, which is why I keep guns to protect myself and family from the more violent ones.

TomNJVA
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top