May 5, 2006

...AND AMERICANER...:

Tories target gun crime (TONDA MACCHARLES, 5/05/06, Toronto Star)

The federal Conservatives have proposed tough new sentences for gun and gang-related crimes that would swell inmate populations in federal prisons and provincial jails.

The measures — contained in two separate bills — don't go as far as Prime Minister Stephen Harper pledged during the election campaign.

But they were still criticized by opposition parties and criminologists as an overreaction when violent crime rates are falling and too harsh to survive court challenges.

"We are changing the focus of the justice system so that serious crime will mean serious time," said Justice Minister Vic Toews.


The simple lesson of the last 25 years in the States: more criminals in prison means less crime outside.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 5, 2006 7:12 AM
Comments

But Fox Butterfield Syndrome among the elities is very hard to cure.

Posted by: John at May 5, 2006 10:40 AM

I thought all those gun ownership restrictions they had in Canada meant that there wasn't any gun crime?

Posted by: Brandon at May 5, 2006 12:50 PM

Father Neuhaus has an intresting article that partly is devoted to this issue in a recent issue of First Things.

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0603/public.html

"Consider the ratio of prisoners to the number of crimes committed. If the ratio was the same as it was when Ronald Reagan took office, we would today have a prison population of 490,000. In fact, the current prison population is over two million. Imagine what the crime rate would be if tomorrow we released 1.6 million prisoners. That is what is meant by declining crime but increasing criminality."

Posted by: george at May 5, 2006 1:17 PM

Burn witches and witchcraft declines.

Posted by: oj at May 5, 2006 1:27 PM

The talk of "gun crime" still puzzles, inasmuch as our many, many guns demonstrate no criminal behavior whatsoever.

Our local media have been running clips of Mayor John, "The brothers and sisters are in charge," Street posing behind tables and tables of guns every description, supposedly seized by city police this year alone.

This huge arsenal is offered as evidence that more gun laws are needed.

But wait. Since the guns were seized, each and every one of them was already already illegsally possesses, covered by this or that law, and is conclusive evidence not that more laws are needed, but of the opposite.

Those who respect clear speech and clear thought would do well to steer clear of phrases such as "gun crime" and "gun violence."

Posted by: Lou Gots at May 5, 2006 2:12 PM
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