Protest Easy Guns

[The Rabbi]

No, I have not. Some criminals commit crimes due to economic circumstances. Not one word of what I wrote undermines that. Not all crime is economically motivated, not all poor people commit crimes. I see no contradiction or erosion.

Uh, no. It IS a starter. While it is true that many people who are poor do not commit crimes, it is also quite true that many people who do commit crimes do so party due to their economic situation. As I said in my original comment, some do, some don't. Economics, whether the economics of poverty or the economics of the drug trade have a large role to play in crime.

So "not all crime is economically motivated" but "economics...have a large role to play."

At this point I confess to not knowing what your position is. If you say there are people out there who commit crimes because they are poor and need the money, I guess that's true. It is also not much of an insight.

If you say that a very large number of crimes committed are done because people are poor, I disagree strongly. But I can't tell whether you mean to say that or not.

It is certainly a far cry from:

" We have to address the underlying social, philosophical, mental, and economical reasons for un-necessary violence and killing."

As well as:

"Also, there is statistical evidence to support the idea that good economic times lower crime rates. Some people will work rather than steal if given the opportunity. Not all of them, but some.

Showing my bias here, but I believe economic issues, both macro and micro, local, national, international, all have a HUGE impact on everything from crime, to poverty, to international relations, etc."

[fury2neon]

In my opinion this is an over-simplification of a complex social and economic issue.

But your opinion is not supported by the data from the world wide community. The UN claims you are right but their own data disproves it.

When ever there is a terrorist attack the first thing out of liberals mouth is "oh, they attacked us because they were uneducated poor people." Then the facts come out and the terrorist are from middle class homes with advanced degrees.

Criminals come from all walks of life; rich, poor, handsome, ugly, educated, illiterate, etc... The one thing criminals who are caught say consistently is that if the punishment was much tougher they would not commit the crime. And its proven all over the world. Japan has very strict punishment for offenders and they have a low crime rate. We have a very lenient punishment system and our crime rate is over all high. Thailand has a very low crime rate because minor offenses gets you a lot of lashes with a cane.

Consistently, countries who believe in rehabilitation have higher crime rates and much higher rates of repeat offenders. Of course in some of those countries that do not believe in rehabilitation they execute criminals for things that would only get probation here

[Guest crytes]

Also when compareing crime rates and who the perpitraitors are you need to look at what their crimes are. My dad was put in jail for driveing an uninsured car. Hi simply couldn't afford the expence and needed to get to work. Now I'll admit that this was ill advised but should he be labeled a criminal for just doing what he needed to do. How many crimes do we have here that are simply unaplicable in those places whith lower crime rates? And how many such laws can you think of that can fit this catagory? And how many crime go unoticedf and thus uncouted in those low crime rate contries?

Crytes

[Marswolf]

My dad was put in jail for driveing an uninsured car.

Was that in Tennessee?

[towerclimber37]

Criminals come from all walks of life; rich, poor, handsome, ugly, educated, illiterate, etc... The one thing criminals who are caught say consistently is that if the punishment was much tougher they would not commit the crime. And its proven all over the world. Japan has very strict punishment for offenders and they have a low crime rate.

I find it interesting that in Japan, the state does NOT provide food or anything else to the prisoner...if they don't have family to bring them food daily, they WILL starve. too bad, so sad.

its so bad that the prisoners WANT to reform their ways!

[Guest Len]

But your opinion is not supported by the data from the world wide community. The UN claims you are right but their own data disproves it.

Its not really my opinion, but it is in fact, true. To argue otherwise is to completely ignore many variables. Rabbi was arguing, and I quote:

The decision to engage in crime rests on 2 things:

1) How likely is it the perpetrator will get caught?

2) If he does get caught, how severe will the punishment be?

This is a gross over-simplification, as any "crime of passion" would prove. Economics come into the crime thought process at an earlier stage of the game in some cases (I never have argued that all crime is economically motivated, only that some crime is). Social factors also come into play (level of education, access to proper health care, peer pressure, presence of the father, of drugs/alcohol, poverty, neighborhood crime rates, parental involvement, church involvement, leadsership figures, etc.......) The list goes on. It is JUST NOT THAT SIMPLE. Which is exactly why I oppose most "gun control." It is a simple solution to a complex problem, and so it just wont work.

The typical refrains we hear from the right "throw the bad people in jail and throw away the key" and what they claim the left says "oh, they all just had bad mommys, lets rehab them and give them another shot" are gross over-simplifications. Neither works and the evidence abounds. The US has one of the highest crime rates in the "civilized" world and one of the highest, if not the highest, rates of incarceration in the world. The more prisons we build the more we fill them up. Many would argue we just dont have enough prisons, then. I would argue that something else must be going on.

Complex problems call for complex solutions and an abandonment of politics for the sake of the good of society.

[The Rabbi]

Thus my use of the term "decision", implying some forethought. A crime of passion wouldn't fall into that category.

Again, I mystified by what your position is. If it is that some crime is economically motivated, that doesn't seem very insightful. One can always find isolated examples of whatever.

If it is that you tend to find more crime among groups that exhibit certain socio-economic traits, again that seems like a blinding flash of the obvious.

But if you insist that economics "has a huge effect on crime" as you implied in an earlier post, then I would have to disagree strongly.

[Marswolf]

Complex problems call for complex solutions and an abandonment of politics for the sake of the good of society.

[/i]

I'm not too concerned about the good of society. I'm interested in the good of the individuals that make up society. There is a difference. The principle of "the greatest good for the greatest number" can produce a lot of really bad consequences. Hitler undoubtedly argued that extermination of the Jews was for the good of German society.

My interest is in thugs not committing criminal acts. I don't care why they do it. There is no legitimate excuse for such behavior. It isn't "society's fault." Those who use external factors, such as economics to justify criminal behavior do harm to the overall society they supposedly revere.

Actually, simple solutions do often work. But the penalty has to be sufficiently severe and sure to prevent the criminal behavior. Basic negative conditioning. Like a rat getting shocked in a Skinner Box. Our problem is that we are unwilling to make the punishment appropriate for the crime. Would we want to live in such a society? Do we like the society we have now?

[saintsfanbrian]

I am all for putting electrical current through the bars at prisons and keeping prisoners in their cells. I don't care about their "rights." In my opinion, they willingly gave up all but the basic rights when they were found guilty of whatever crime they committed. I am all for allowing them to live and to eat, but beyond that, I don't think they deserve anything extra. You want to work? Great, you can work, part of your pay goes to room and board, part of your pay goes to your victim and if there is anything left, after taxes, you can have it for the commissary that we have. I hope you like stale cookies!

[fury2neon]

I find it interesting that in Japan, the state does NOT provide food or anything else to the prisoner...if they don't have family to bring them food daily, they WILL starve. too bad, so sad.

its so bad that the prisoners WANT to reform their ways!

Sorry, they provide food and shelter for their inmates but they have harsher punishment for minor crimes, beatings, that sort of thing.

[Mark@Sea]

I'm not too concerned about the good of society. I'm interested in the good of the individuals that make up society.

Marswolf, you sound like the sort of cantankerous old SOB that I'd get along with quite well. Refreshing being non-pc in a world of conformists, isn't it?

Hope we can get some trigger time in sometime.

By the way, does anyone have info on how many morons actually showed up in Nashville for the protest?

[Marswolf]

Mark, I imagine we can find some common range time. I might even shoot with your brother.

I'm kind of Jekyll and Hyde. Either really nice, or really-really not. I don't think I have ever been described as a conformist.

I have a lot of sympathy for people who have a hard time in life and who try. I'll gladly volunteer to try to help them. But there is nothing - absolutely nothing - that justifies preying on another human. People like that should be ejected from a plane over the ocean to feed the sharks. Decent people shouldn't be forced to be around them.

[Mark@Sea]

Roger that.

Nobody has any numbers for the Nashville chapter of Lemmings, Inc?

[Guest Phantom6]

I'm not too concerned about the good of society. I'm interested in the good of the individuals that make up society. There is a difference...

Sounds like a pennies and dollars kind of thing. I believe it was Benjamin Franklin that said something to the effect that if you mind your pennies then the dollars will take care of themselves. The more apt a society is to recognize and promote it's good individuals, the more apt a society is to be a good one. Otherwise they wouldn't care.

Mars you went on to say that "... simple solutions do often work. But the penalty has to be sufficiently severe and sure to prevent the criminal behavior. Basic negative conditioning. Like a rat getting shocked in a Skinner Box."

An extreme example of this would be that of Vladislav Basarab, the son of a nobleman born in the town of Sighisoara, in the Tîrnava Mare valley of Romania. The year after he ascended the Wallachian throne in 1454, he invited the Boyars, a large family of wealthy German merchants who had tried to strangle him politically to an Easter celebration where he killed about half of them and marched the rest off to build his new palace as forced labor. At that site he had them construct a well and at that well he placed a basket of gold with the stern admonition that no one should touch his gold or "else". According to writers of the day the gold lay unmolested for six years until shortly after his death at the hands of the Turks. Basic negative conditioning stopped the theft of his basket of gold sitting in the open at the well during those six long years. What could have been so negative in his method of conditioning? Just about every crime was punishable by death, from idleness on up. He was after all, Vladislav Tepes, the man we know today as Vlad the Impaler or Dracula, responsible for over 40,000 deaths during his brief six year rule, but a mere light weight when it came to using a torturous death as a negative conditioning tool as compared to Robespierre's Reign of Terror in Paris, from 1793-4, when over 20,000 were killed or Hitler who killed millions of Jews, Gypsies, Catholic and Protestant religious as well as academic and business opponants. Now that's one hell of a hat trick for the Skinner Box of European power.

By the way, screw the Easy Guns campaign. Just my humble opinion

[Marswolf]

Vlad was such a fun guy!

[saintsfanbrian]

Isn't he the same one that when a man came in to complain that he had been robbed, Vlad found the robbers and killed them in front of the victim. He then handed back the victims pouch of gold (+1) and when the man counted it out, he returned the money to Vlad. That was a good thing or else the man would have also been killed.

There is a great something to having the punishment fit the crime. When certain people are able to "buy" their way out of prison it disgusts me. Granted, if you can afford Jonnie Cochran, then of course you should have him, but ones "stature" in society should not dictate your penalty. How many of these Hollywood socialites is it going to take drunk driving before one of them actually has to do the punishment prescribed by law. Paris Hilton should have been sentenced to 11 m 29 d for a repeat offense.

That aside, if you were found guilty of a crime punishable by death and you were actually put to death in a timely fashion, say 30 days from sentencing, well, that would a.) decrease the surplus prison population. and b.) tend to be more of a detractor to others who may commit that crime. If the sentence were to be carried out by the victims family or the victim, I think that would be another great motivator to not perform the act. If we got rid of parole, time off for good behavior, the "club med" atmosphere in prisons (Cable, Internet, etc.) brought back chain gangs, HARD time etc. I think more people would be less inclined to commit some of the crimes. Get rid of convicts "rights" and make them be "responsible" for their own care. Work for perks like something other than bologna for dinner.