Once again, I find myself in a state of confusion trying to understand positions of the American Left. On the one hand, American firearms owners are treated with suspicion and dread over crimes that have not even been contemplated. Statistics show that Americans who legally own firearms are overwhelmingly law abiding as the percentage of those arms used in the commission of a crime is infinitesimally small. On the other hand, the American Left willingly accepts the premise that someone who has actually been convicted of a heinous crime is eminently redeemable with a little therapy, a support group and perhaps some medication while facts prove beyond reasonable doubt violent convicted criminals have a high percentage of recidivism. According to statistics from the Bureau of Justice: “Among nearly 300,000 prisoners released in 15 states 67.5% were rearrested within 3 years. “These offenders had accumulated 4.1 million arrest charges before their most recent imprisonment and another 744,000 charges within 3 years of release.” “Released prisoners with the highest re-arrest rates were robbers (70.2%...these folks by definition use illegal weapons)… those in prison for possessing, using, or selling illegal weapons (70.2%).” My questions are: How are these recidivists acquiring “illegal weapons”? (30 to 35% of those currently incarcerated by the Washington State Dept of Corrections are recidivists) Why can we not focus on those who we know have no respect for the law and leave the law abiding alone?
maybe they should spend our tax dollars on things like taking those criminals and illegal guns off the street and leave us law abiding non crazy non gun crime commiting people alone Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk 2
Those were, in fact, the most recent numbers. One can only believe that upon finding those same facts over and over again and not seeing any improvement over a few decades, the number is pretty stable. As is so often the case with well-meaning programs, once hard facts are obtained and a political group is making a paycheck, it becomes very difficult to change course (politically and ideologically).
My husband is a lawyer who does a lot of criminal defense. He will tell you that the bad guys have no problem buying drugs or guns. And they start their criminal careers as juveniles. And that's exactly what it is, a career choice.
I think the thing that most drives me “around the bend” when discussing social issues with the narrow-minded is the fact that even when faced with the fact that a “solution” of theirs is not working (i.e. rehabilitation of sexual predators and bank robbers), they refuse to accept their approach is not working and requisition more money to throw away. The cost of trying and retrying the same offenders, combined with actual losses (financial and emotional) to the citizenry is one of the largest drains to the nation we incur. There is a line from True Grit that continues to haunt me that is completely applicable: “Mr. Rat, I have a writ here that says you are to stop eating Chen Lee's cornmeal forthwith. Now, It's a rat writ, writ for a rat, and this is lawful service of same! [to Mattie] See? He doesn't pay any attention to me. [shoots the rat] You can't serve papers on a rat, baby sister. You either kill him or let him be.”
Its always funny how you enter one argument/issue and the standard opposition response is "if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about" but then a few years later and something else comes up and its the OTHER side saying the same thing.
Yes, the last time I checked, there is no thing such as “thought crime” in the United States. In America, we are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. Some want to persecute the innocent and turn a blind eye to the patently guilty.
