thallub said:
For several years the federal government investigated the cases of individual felons and restored the gun rights of some. Some of those convicted felons used their newly restored gun rights to commit new violent crimes, including murder. Not surprisingly, congress ended the program.
That implies possession of a crystal ball that enables them to know that those criminals would not have obtained guns illegally if their rights hadn't been restored. Such an alternate reality, where being stripped of the RKBA actually keeps those criminals from obtaining a gun, is unlikely.
I don't think the government should be
giving away guns to ex-cons for self defense, but neither do I think they should be stripped of their RKBA. I'm strongly in favor of giving everyone back their rights once they're no longer in prison or under strict supervision like parole. (Parole won't keep violent thugs from re-acquiring guns either, but I'm not going to waste my time arguing for changing standard parole conditions.)
If someone's inclined to return to a life of crime, nothing's going to stop them. Except... one thing that might stop some of them is to make it easier for them to re-integrate into society. I'm sure it's difficult to re-integrate when you have prison ink and no skills except being a thug, but it's even more difficult when almost nobody will hire you, when you don't even have the dignity of being able to legally defend yourself (or your family if you try to start one) with a gun, and when you've been socially conditioned in prison to identify yourself as a criminal.
Keep the few animals who really need locking up locked up longer, and stop the insane, counterproductive legal and sociological punishment of those who've committed lesser crimes. Keep lesser criminals away from the more violent criminals with poor impulse control, to keep it from spreading. Criminality as it spreads through the prison system seems almost like a contagious disease. None of those changes will happen, but that's what I'd like to see.
Brian Pfleuger said:
I believe that crimes of physical harm should be the only such crimes. These would include drug related offenses (dealing/distributing not using).
Agreed on the first part, but I don't understand how you justify putting drug dealing under the violent crime umbrella. Drug-dealing-related violence is virtually all caused by criminalization, and has nothing inherently to do with drug commerce. Criminalization also causes many of the negative health effects of drugs. When was the last time there was a turf war between CVS and Walmart over selling aspirin? When was the last time ibuprofen was contaminated with drywall or rat poison by distributors to pad profits? There's probably some occasional violence related to alcohol or cigarette smuggling, but that only proves the point: it's caused by restrictions and differentials in what's legal and taxation levels. And it's minor compared to what there was when alcohol was constitutionally banned.
Corrections cop said:
I'm sorry but Felon = No Guns
Magical thinking: that by banning released felons from owning guns, they will not actually have guns. I get it. I think everyone gets it. Many inmates are bad news, and will not reform once they're released. The idea of them with guns is a nightmare. What does that say about releasing them to begin with? What does that say about a little bit of ex-con ingenuity and a trip to a hardware store? Think about how closely you monitor them when they're confined, and how clever they are at getting contraband. Do you really think
laws are going to stop them from acquiring whatever they want or need on the outside to fuel their criminal activities?
The only advantage to prohibiting ex-cons from having guns is that you can then throw them back into prison if they get caught with a gun, even if you have insufficient evidence to convict them of any other crime. That's a horrible system for dealing with recidivists, though. Given the level of criminality in American cities, I don't believe it's very effective, either.
