Why should convicted felons be punished if they have a gun?

I don't believe Dershowtiz. I've never heard any specifics, just the above vague statement.

 

The law evolved from codes like The Ten Commandments. Hence my question. How did we get from there to here:

“The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day.” Alan Dershowitz, http://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229

 

Pick any crime and search the US Code. You will find criminal statutes galore.
That is one reason why our leaders operate beyond the reach of the law to stay out of prison - as opposed to camera happy sailors.

 

True enough, but why are they released if they are not worthy or responsible enough to even exercise what are considered basic but essential rights? That seems to be the bigger issue. I'm not sure I support revoking someone's rights if the offense they committed had nothing to do with the right being revoked. If some commits a crime, but not a gun crime, I fail to see why they should have their 2nd Amendment rights revoked. Punish gun crimes severely and revoke the right after, but it seems morally wrong to revoke unrelated rights, particularly when it comes to ones own self-defense...

 

It's a federal felony.

 

Yes, that's the reason for this thread.

Obviously the fact that something is a law doesn't constitute justification for why that law shouldn't be changed. (or at least modified)

 

That's why they are punished.

Do you mean to ask why is it a felony for them to have a gun?

 

The fact that someone should be punished doesn't necessarily carry over into them posing a danger to everyone else. And the reverse of that is also true, to a lesser extent, in some cases, but that's something I won't go into here. I just don't think it makes sense to be automatically connecting one to the other, in all cases.

 

I've always been on the fence here.
I have no issue with a prohibition of firearms for violent felons. For others, I see shades of grey.
I support the position that if someone is too dangerous to be allowed in public with a firearm, he is too dangerous to be allowed in public, period.

 

Even for "violent felons" there are shades of grey. We're seeing kids in ordinary school fights being charged with felonies now, even in cases where they didn't start it and believed they were just defending themselves.


New Missouri Law Could Give Kids Serious Criminal Records For School Fights, Schools Say
Looks like the law passed: New Missouri law makes bullying, fighting in school a felony

another thread about excessive police involvement in public schools:
Police coming into schools, arresting children for misbehavior


This is just one example, there are countless others I could post here.

 

Our law evolves from the Greco-Roman civilization. But your comment above does not have a logical connection to it. There is no logica A hence B.

 

I think he was referring to the 4 out of the 10 Commandments which were civil laws, which formed the basis for the Judeo-Christian legal system and concept of justice. Thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

 

Greco-Roman law evolved from the earliest exampled of civilized law. They were all similar to the 10 Commandment.
From 10 we now have 10s of thousands of laws. What a miracle!
Reminds one of the loafs and fishes thing.

 

They were part of the Greek and Roman systems, to which the Jews and Christians were subject.

 

The public's enemies are the political/economic system, and the Wall Street/donor/"job creator" class

 

95% of the folks we incarcerate never get a trial, we live to punish, and often, we're punishing nothing but poverty and mental illness. But there's profit it in it, so hey ...

 

Woman charged with a felony after putting tape recorder in her child's backpack to try to expose bullying

Apparently "use of device to intercept oral communication" is considered a felony.


Let's take a look at the members of Congress, the ones writing all these laws:

The article from 1999 is a little dated but I'm sure the statistics probably aren't all that different today.

Just for a little comparison here, 11 Congress members would represent 2% of the total number in Congress.

I can't find current statistics but I did find this: https://www.deseretnews.com/top/2243/0/20-notable-politicians-convicted-of-crimes-since-2000.html

 

Government, historically, has always been the great deadly enemy of the people.
I used the term "public enemy" as in 'John Dillinger, Public Enemy #1'. All convicted felons are officially designated "public enemies".
Most of them probably are real public enemies.

 

There is now a great deal of well documented evidence that you are right. Alas.

“Politics in modern America has become a lucrative business, an industry that has less to do with policy and a lot more to do with accessing money and favors. … bills and regulations are often introduced not to affect policy change, but as vehicles for shaking down people for … money and favors. Indeed, the motive on both sides often has nothing to do with creating a “correct” policy but instead is often about maximizing profits.” EXTORTION, "How Politicians Extract Your money, Buy Votes, And Line Their Own Pockets, Peter Schweizer, HMO, NY, NY, 2013, p. 4.

 

That's an interesting perspective, because once they can manage to ensnare several million members of the population in these laws, then they can be the ones to decide their rights.
One example was the passage of concealed carry laws in several states and then some of those jurisdictions routinely denying permits, in the majority of cases.

The way the law sounds, it makes most people assume all these persons are rapists, robbers, thieves and drug dealers, etc. when in reality it's just another tool for prosecutors to be able to go after people, if they want, for what could potentially be minor technicalities of the law. In other cases, they might try to dig up dirt on people. There was one local case where a prosecutor dug through a police chief's record, back 6 years ago, and found a report of "inappropriate touching" that had been made against him by some drug addict lady who just wanted to spite him. These type of baseless complaint reports aren't that uncommon when an officer is working out in the field making arrests on a daily basis. Then that was used to remove him from an election (can't remember the details), or get him off the case because he was investigating the prosecutor's office for corruption.

 

Governments can be, and usually eventually become instruments for the ultimate racketeers - professional politicians.

“Former Microsoft COO, Robert Herbold told me, “you're crazy if you don't play along. They will go after you.” Ray Planck, the founder and former chairman of Apache Corporation, has seen his company cough up to both parties for 50 years. He told me that campaign money and lobbying contracts are “protection money. It's what you expect from the mafia.” EXTORTION, "How Politicians Extract Your money, BuyVotes, And Line Their Own Pockets, Peter Schweizer, HMO, NY, NY, 2013, p. 3.

 

I'm not going to look up a link, but I know you can if you want to. But the recidivism rate among released felons is very high, especially the younger they are. The recidivism rate starts significantly dropping around middle age - to old age.

These rates do not lie. So we know that as we release felons from prison as they complete their terms, we are going to have more victims of crime because of their release. We know this. It is one of those awful calculations our society makes in the hopes that a criminal will go straight. We are essentially saying that we will tolerate a certain number of murders, a certain number of robberies, a certain number of sex crimes, etc, etc so that some ex cons can start a new life on the straight and narrow. But we will destroy some more innocent lives - knowingly and predictably - to give that other guy a chance. Since we can't be sure which ones will re-offend, we try to protect society by preventing all of them from possessing firearms.

I'm OK with this. Choices have consequences, and the recidivism rate is a fact. And so, the rights of the innocent and law-abiding to live in safety must outweigh the rights of this high-risk minority - felons - to possess firearms.

And no, I don't have any sympathy for the non-violent offenders either - like someone who defrauds an insurance company or embezzles money from their company. They knew what they were doing, and they knew the consequences before they did what they did.

 

Maybe instead of lumping all felons together we should be looking at particular kinds of felonies. You'd have to break it down by kinds of crimes to be more accurately able to predict the recidivism rate.

Do you think there should be an exception built into the law, if they can reasonably prove they weren't aware what they did was a crime? (Which is becoming increasingly more common these days)
They'd still receive the punishment, but just not have their rights taken away afterwards.​

 

Nah ... Society doesn't owe it to these people to go through all kinds of legal contortions to make exceptions for this crime and that crime. How about this?

Don't commit the crime. About 8% of the population is a felon. That means that 92% are not felons. It can be done.

 

If you're talking about "real" crimes, the ones that are also very serious, then I'd agree with you.
The issue is that modern-day life is gradually being turned into a legal minefield, where even something very small or something you didn't expect could constitute a serious crime and be turned against you.

Plenty of specific types of situations where they don't know if a particular individual committed a crime but they feel it's appropriate to punish them. I don't have time here to go into that.
Sometimes they feel it's better to make sure a crime doesn't go unpunished. One case I'm aware of involved a huge financial fraud where someone happened to be working for the small company and they weren't sure whether he took part in the scheme, so they just decided to punish him with 16 months, while the other two who they knew were guilty got many many years.

So obviously your comment, while well-meaning, expresses ignorance about how things actually work.