Should the penalty be the same....

[RoeBear]

...for crimes committed with a knife or a gun?
What is the difference for the victim between having a gun stuck in your ribs or a knife held to your throat?
Who advocates the added penalties for crimes committed with a gun,
pro-gun or anti-gun forces?

Discuss among yourselves.

[demsrule4life]

1. Murder is murder

makes no difference how it happened.

[LibLabUK]

3. Surely not...

Do you not believe in mitigating circumstances?

I'm no lawyer, but isn't there a difference between a crime of passion and a pre-meditated killing?

[Superfly]

5. I don't know, ask the dead person

maybe they have the answer.

[CO Liberal]

6. Mitigating Circumstances is One Thing

Use of a weapon is another.

And if someone uses a deadly weapon - ANY weapon - to commit a crime, they should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

[Liberal Classic]

14. Well said

And if someone uses a deadly weapon - ANY weapon - to commit a crime, they should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

Thank you, and I wholeheartedly agree.

[jody]

15. CO, I agree completely. eom

[demsrule4life]

7. You are correct

I will try it this way, the type of weapon used should make no difference in the punishment.

[DoNotRefill]

12. Ummm...I think he's talking about...

apples and apples and oranges and oranges.

If you kill somebody in a premeditated manner, the punishment should be the same, regardless of if it's a knife or gun. If you commit manslaughter, the penalty should be the same, regardless of if you use a knife or a gun. See what I'm saying?

[RoeBear]

4. That makes me think of...

...the different penalties betweeen murder and attempted murder. Some bad guy plugs his victim six times leaving him for dead. The only reason the victim lives is because of a bullet being 1 millimeter off from a deadly hit, that and modern medicine.
If left up to me both would get life sentences.

[happyslug]

16. You listen to to much GOP properganda.

In most states, except for Murder (and that only applies to the use of the Death Penalty) any attempt is treated the same as if you actually did the act. Thus there is NO difference between doing a crime and attempting to do a crime, both are treated the same by the law.

The reason Murder is different is that the Courts have been uncomfortable with sentencing someone to death if the victim is still alive. Except for the death penalty, attempted Murder is treated the same as Murder itself (With Death reserved only to Murderers of the First degree who meet some form of aggravating factors that justify the Death Penalty).

Now, sometime a Judge will use the failure of the Attempt to lower the figure, for example the murder plot failed when the potential murderer saw the victim in his gun sights and than could not bring himself to pull the trigger. It is still an attempt, but no trigger was pulled. The Courts tend to what to reward such pains of conscience, but other than to reward such failure to proceed do to the actions of the potential murderer, the sentences tend to be the same.

[jody]

17. And under the Patriot Act, "thinking about the act" is apparently enough

to justify placing a suspect in an unknown prison and denying him/her due process.

[meegbear]

2. assault with a deadly weapon ...

attempted murder, murder. I don't think an extra penalty should be added if they use a gun. The crime, it's intent and it's result are the same.

[iverglas]

8. and another example

... of talking about things that one does not quite understand.

There is a whole lot more to sentencing theory and practice than the facts of an individual case and the effect of the sentence on the individual offender.

"General deterrence" is one of the recognized purposes of sentencing. That is, deterring the public at large from doing what the individual in question did.

The reason why sentences are commonly bumped up when a firearm was used in the commission of the offence has little to do with the "seriousness" of the offence committed (robbery is robbery is robbery ...), and a lot to do with the public purpose served by sentencing. In this case, the public purpose is to deter people from using firearms to commit crimes.

I believe that much was made, in an earlier discussion of the recent decline in Canadian numbers for armed robbery, of the fact that using a firearm is considered an aggravating factor for sentencing purposes. That is, the argument was made, by those opposed to Canadian-style restrictions on firearms possession, that heavy sentences for using firearms to commit crimes were more likely the causal factor in the decline than reduced access to firearms.

I'm therefore wondering whether I'm seeing anyone speaking out of both sides of his/her mouth in this instance.

If increasing the sentence for an offence when a firearm is used to commit it is actually an effective deterrent to the commission of the offence, or to using a firearm in the commission of it, what's the problem?

There is actually a whole hell of a lot of "difference for the victim between having a gun stuck in your ribs" and being assaulted in some other way in the course of a robbery. It is a blatantly obvious and well-known fact that the mortality rate among victims of crimes such as robbery that are committed using firearms is higher than among victims of crimes committed without firearms -- that's why the mortality rate among victims of robbery is so much higher in the US than in other western nations, for example. So what's the problem with trying to reduce that risk to victims of crimes such as robbery, by attempting to deter the use of firearms in robberies?

It is a problem if one does not, for example, recognize "general deterrence" as a valid consideration in sentencing. One would be running rather directly contrary to the entire human history of punishing offenders, if one took that position.

.

[RoeBear]

9. It would be helpfull...

...if you would tell me how I feel about this subject.
Thanks,
RoeBear

[iverglas]

10. sorry

did you want me to try writing that again in words of one syllable?

.

[RoeBear]

13. Would you please?

And in short paragraphs also.
Thanks,
RoeBear

" and another example of talking about things that one does not quite understand."

What is your example from this thread?

"I'm therefore wondering whether I'm seeing anyone speaking out of both sides of his/her mouth in this instance."

Since you are replying to the original message that I posted I then assume that you are talking to me. Where did I speak from both sides of my moutn?

"blah blah blah"

Does that mean that you are in favor of Operation Exile?

[jody]

11. All arms used by a criminal should carry the same punishment.

In 2001, nearly 900 homicides were committed with rifles/shotguns and nearly 1,800 were committed with with knives or cutting instruments.

In addition, every person prohibited by federal law of possessing a firearm should also be prohibited from possessing any other type of arm.

To treat firearms different from all other arms would acknowledge that firearms are somehow more evil than other arms. :shrug: