Kynoch
member
What should really be done about gun violence in the US?
We could start by locking up violent offenders for lengthy periods of time instead of preaching rehabilitation and installing revolving doors on our prisons. We could lock up some of the violent felons we never even bother investigating for trying to fraudulently obtain firearms. We can train lawful citizens in the use of firearms to better protect our communities from violence. We can make concealed carry permits easily accessible and inexpensive for any lawful citizen who wants one. We can provide free or reduced cost training for lawful citizens who want to further increase both their safety and proficiently with their firearms. What won't work are more laws that hinder the ability of the common man to obtain, carry, and use firearms that will have absolutely no effect on the criminal element who, by definition, commit crimes.
Its not necessarily a "reactive" move because many violent offenders are released early from their sentences, only to go out and commit more crimes. By keeping them locked up, we are proactively keeping them from committing more crimes in our communities. The violent criminal tends to remain a violent criminal....why we release them into society and blindly hope otherwise often shocks me, espscially when we have prisons overcrowded with nonviolent offenders who have never shown signs of violence. Its not that we don't have the means or the room to do this, its that we grossly mismanage resources when it comes to corrections. Imagine the empty cells if we decided one day to release nonviolent drug offenders and white collar criminals from our prison systems. Then we could actually focus on locking up the true threats to public safety, without overly burdening the law-abiding citizen with more meaningless laws.
And conversely, there are a large number of "drug users" who never commit a single violent act and break no other laws than those dealing with the possession of said drugs. Just because your statement is true doesn't make mine false. The vast majority of marijuana smokers I believe fall into this category. There are millions of them out there, and they aren't all hardened criminals. Look at areas that have legalized it recently....while not a lot of data to go on at this point, so far, crime rates are DOWN in Colorado.Reckless people likely to do violence are also likely to do drugs
What should really be done about gun violence in the US?
taking the 5th would be automatic conviction.
It all comes down to did you do the action? (pull the trigger, use the knife, throw the rock, throw that punch) or not. Reason's why do not mitigate the fact that you did (or did not)