Age, Crime, Punishment and True Justice

I agree with all that has been posted on this thread so far: some of it is keyboard commando-ism. Some is frustration with attitudes of tolerance towards crime. Many things. I for one think that people make mistakes, and a mistake that doesn't cause long-term harm in another should be forgiven. I'm not happy about our current system of giving out felony convictions like they were parking tickets, and then the felony conviction disables (ie, civil disability) the person for ever and stays on the record forever. America is using its justice system to create a large pool of eternally second-class citizens. They are paid less, they have to do what they are told by employers (conditions of parole), they cannot vote, they cannot own a gun. So many things are felonies these days. It's not legal to discriminate based on race, age, many other factors, but it is legal to discriminate against a felon, which means paying less money. Also felons know they have a hard time getting a job so employers can abuse them and they won't speak out about it.

As for defending myself against criminals: certainly I would do it if my life is threatened. If someone just wants some property (usually to buy drugs) and I don't feel my life is in danger, let him take it. I saw on another post somewhere "count on spending $50k in legal bills for every shot you fire." Ok, that's not a solid rule but there is some truth to it. So even if you shoot to defend property you still don't come out ahead. It sucks to be the victim of a criminal and nothing can erase the damage from it.

In the words of Capt. Malcom Reynolds, fictional smuggler, thief and man of honor:

You don't know me, son. So let me explain this to you once: If I ever kill you, you'll be awake, you'll be facing me, and you'll be armed.

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I've seen the same things, Old Dog... I agree with you wholly.

I'll just cast a stone to see the ripples in the pond.

And statements such as this reflect exactly the attitudes I was speaking of in my post. I truly hope this attitude is not representative of most of the THR membership (if it is, perhaps a name change for the forum would be in order).

This sort of thinking is not going to win over any antis or fencesitters on the RKBA issues.

For the people who believe that a death sentence for every petty thievery is justified, I just have to wonder -- where's the humanity here?

Not every crime is a capital offense. Not every criminal is beyond redemption.

For those who believe that killing children who perform criminal misdeeds is justice, well, I can only pray that no child in your family or circle of friends would ever be involved in one of these cases. And for those who righteously maintain that "It will never happen in my family because we raise our children properly," here's hoping that you never have to find out the hard way that even kids from loving, attentive and morally upstanding families do stray off the right path sometimes ...
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Will

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Lemme venture this: What we are seeing here is a reaction to an overly permissive society.

IOW, it's okay to steel if you are a child (under 25), it's only property or some other collectivist justification.

By making value judgement on the response of the damaged, you may well be justifying criminal behaviour. He was only stealing a car stereo, or a horse or something.

You've a choice here:

Accept the occasional over-response: Killing a petty criminal (or child under 25).

OR: Awarding societal benefits to culturally disadvantaged perpetrators.

So, who's the real victim? Should the victim have the right of self defense?

Utimately, what you are proposing is criminalizing response to criminal action.


Howzat for tossing Occam into the deep end?

Old Dog,

In re the kid running into traffic story. After doing something wrong, and facing the foreseeable consequences (maybe excessive and illegal, but still reasonable to foresee) of getting caught, THE KID RAN INTO TRAFFIC!

The guy was just chasing him, not herding him. If someone breaks right instead of left it isn't the pursuers fault. If the kid can't think clearly enough about setting up his little prank ambush to have a back door out (like I always did, and if I'm smart enough to think it through he should be too, cause we're all equal right ) and pulls a bonehead move as a result, it is HIS FAULT what happens.

End of story. It is sad, and I feel for his family's loss, but I refuse to grieve terribly over an idiot having his idiocy catching up with him.

Just as I refuse to weep when people who CHOOSE to commit crimes suffer the consequences, excessive or not. THEY chose to do wrong and THEY failed to do wrong in a smart way. THEY had the absolute ability to control their fate up until the last moment.

I REFUSE to be taken to task as bloodthirsty for failing to have sympathy for the criminal. ESPECIALLY the ones who aren't even smart enough to pull off crime successfully.

You don't get to be stupid in an inherently dangerous business and expect to live a long life. Just as an inherent, foreseeable, yet excessive and illegal, risk of doing crime is victimization by brutal cops or fellow inmates, so is getting illegally shot or beaten by pissed off victims. There's no excuse for anyone, us or them, whining about it after the fact. You do reap what you so.

It's not being cruel or bloodthirsty, it is just being realistic and tired of the whining.

I was originally wondering if many members were actually as bloodthirsty and heartless and ready to kill as they seemingly want readers of their posts to believe. I am speaking of the image we portray when we go on record with some of the heinous comments such as "Good; he got what he deserved" when written in response to a story about a 12-year-old boy being killed.

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I'm not sure that I agree with your assessment. A lot of people have no qualms about writing a quick snippet like this on an internet forum because it's not that meaningful a discourse here. People tend to read a bunch of quick stories, fire off a short response and move on to the next one. It doesn't shock anyone anymore and perhaps it shouldn't. I'm not saying that this is the way most of these people would personally react in this situation but the logical conclusion of the actions are hardly surprising anymore.

Not sure if you have kids or not but here's my point. When your kid is going to a party on a weekend night with a bunch of other kids and you decide to warn them about drinking and driving, do you tell them, "Hey Bobby, it's not a good idea to drink and drive because if you're caught, you might lose your license and have to pay a big fine." Dear Lord I hope you don't. I warned my daughter not to because it could get her killed.

The point is just when we think that something is right or just, real life tends to interfere very quickly and often in harsh ways. Sometimes it's self-inflicted and sometimes it through someone else's stupidity. Either way, I don't think your going to find a lot of people that are outwardly shocked when things turn out this way. Does that mean that they would willingly choose the same penalty or outcome? Hardly.

Utimately, what you are proposing is criminalizing response to criminal action.

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Exactly.

The line keeps getting pushed back. "Oh, all he did was [blah]... That ain't so bad..."

And then suddenly doing [blah] really isn't regarded as criminal anymore, in so far as no one seems to think that it's worth punishing,
and more importantly, anyone who defends against someone doing [blah] to him or his property is now considered to be wrong, to be overreacting.

So whuppin' the ass of some teen punks who keep spray painting your garage is bad, because they're just "having innocent, although misguided, fun," and now you are wrong to be expecting that your property may not be vandalized. Your property is to be sacrificed to the permissiveness that willfully refuses to see the miscreants punished like they should be.

And people will call you "bloodthirsty" if you make a peep that suggests you feel otherwise.


-Jeffrey

Old Dog,

Now do you see why we don't all address the bravado? Those that bluster, seldom listen, so there's no point in trying to talk to them.

Until you have looked down the sights at another human being and squeezed the trigger, you will never know what an immense decision that is. Anyone who speaks lightly of it has not had to make the decision.

That said, I have no sympathy for criminals of any age who suffer unforseen consequences of their criminal behavior. I don't advocate the death penalty for a bottle rocket but, will not lose sleep over a stupid person being the victim of their own stupidity.

Mike
Well said.
Biker

Thanks to the 60's and 70's

IF I want it and I don't think I will be caught I'll DO IT! That is the common attitude now days, we are by any measure a very permissive society yet we do a poor job of teaching our young how to be legally responsible for their behavior, sadly it's something thats forced upon them when it's too late. After they are caught and have to pay the piper, they are VERY sorry (but hey! I got away with X number of other crimes you can't prove). There is no light at the end of the tunnel and the "new" breed of offenders coming into the prison system are much worst than those of the past. Most "old timers" cooperate because they want to do easy time but the new breed only desire a fearsome reputation among their peers. Too many people can't handle the freedoms this country offers, thats why our prison population continues to grow. If you have poor self discipline, and are a convicted felon how long are you going to be content with flipping hamburgers? You WILL be back in the system! My prison will soon be converting to handle inmate classifications of only four and five's, the worst of the worst. They are for the most part violent and deranged..."Did you have a nice day at work today dear?" The price for freedom isn't paid on the battlefield alone.

IF I want it and I don't think I will be caught I'll DO IT! That is the common attitude now days, we are by any measure a very permissive society yet we do a poor job of teaching our young how to be legally responsible for their behavior

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Good Point...

That said:
Someone - I don't know who - defined HONOR and INTEGRITY as Doing the RIGHT thing even when no one is looking.

Critical concept there. As pointed out in the quote above it is very common to believe it must be OK if one doesn't get caught. HELL! Look at the attitudes of young people today concerning downloading music or software they didn't pay for off the internet. They do not even consider that wrong and no amount of argument can convince them it is.

The concepts of HONOR & INTEGRITY have been forcefully ripped from the fabric of our society. I don't have a clue how that happened nor how we got to where we are today but if we don't get both back then we are truly in a decline that society may never recover from.

I don't want to have to shot anyone ever.

That said, I will if I have to.

My 'have to' may be different than yours.

BUT, don't get too bent out of shape about some internet posts. Lots of noise in here.

Is death/paraplegia/whatever the proper punishment for property crime?

Our elected representatives say "no," and assign sentence guidelines they think is appropriate after the criminal is caught, in custody, and not currently able to threaten persons or property.

Until the time the BG is in custody, and especially during the comission of a crime, the BG should have no expectation of his own safety or passivity on the part of those he vicitmizes. The BG has already proved that he is willing to break the law to get what he wants. Therefore, the BG is a proven threat.

In my state of residence, if someone walks on to my property at night and proceeds to steal something, I am legally justified in using force to prevent the BG, to include deadly force. This is pulled straight out of the Old Testament. In reality, I would not likely draw down on someone messing with my car in my driveway, though it is legal and moral* to do so. I will not criticize someone who makes the other decision. [If my auto were essential to my livelihood (work truck, tools, etc.), the BG can expect that I would use every legal means to stip him, to include deadly force. My family is not going to go hungry for the sake of the BG.]

OTOH, any BG who enters my house will likely leave in a horizontal position unless all I am quick enough to catch is his back as he is walking out the door with my VCR. I'd let him keep walking. A BG not actively working to leave my home will be considered a deadly threat and dealt with in the appropriate manner.

The reason I would not draw down in the property crime situations described above is not because I'm such a taaaahlerant, compaaaasionate guy thinking about hs faaaaahmily's greif if their choirboy gets his just desserts. It is becasue the financial consequences of rightfully shooting the BG would likely be greater than letting the BG get away with his crime. The replacement cost of my 25" TV, VCR, DVD player, and doorframe are less than $1000, for example. I would file charges & give the police all cooperation, but I might not even report it to my insurance company. This is not the moral response, but since I'm married & have a kid, I can't afford to be quite as principled as I ought. $50,000 in lawyers' fees for a righteous shooting is not a burden I would impose on my family for the sake of my car or society's betterment. Only my family's safety is worth such a risk.

WRT the two threads Old Dog mentioned:

1. The 12yo who ran into traffic bears the responsibility for his actions. Unfortunately for him, he made a poor decision by running into traffic. I am not going to stay up nights weeping over a person who intentionally endangered motorists and then sought to evade responsibility and punishment. I sympathize with the gal who's car he ran in front of.

2. I would not have drawn on the 15yo who was paralyzed by the security guard's shot, for reasons mentioned above. I also am not going to call for the guard's head on a platter for doing his job with zeal.

* It is the moral thing to do if you love your neighbors and would prevent them from being the next ones victimized by the BG.

I agree that the some people are going overboard by cheerleading for dead/paralyzed bad guys, but that said I don't have much sympathy for the bottle rocket kid. Shooting bottle rockets at cars is pretty much the same thing as dropping rocks on them, and kids who do that are almost always working their way up to serious sociopathic crimes.