Gun bill may be too costly

[demsrule4life]

Many fear prison overcrowding

In an effort to crack down on gun-related crime in Delaware, House Speaker Terry Spence, R-Stratford, last year proposed drastically ratcheting up penalties for use of a firearm during the commission of a serious crime.

Under current law, possession of a firearm during the commission of a felony carries a minimum mandatory sentence of three years in prison.

Spence's bill would retain the three-year minimum for possession of a gun. But if a criminal displayed the gun, he would face a minimum of 15 years behind bars.

Shooting a gun during the commission of a felony would result in a mandatory 25-year sentence, and wounding someone would result in life in prison without the possibility of parole.

"I don't want you on the streets, I don't want you in the state," said Spence, a member of the National Rifle Association. "I want you in jail."

http://www.delawareonline.com/newsjournal/local/2004/04/04panelgunbillmay.html

[Muddleoftheroad]

1. The only problem with that

Is that wounding gets you mandatory life without parole. Then why not kill?

Other than that, yes, let's clear out the minor drug offenders and put the serious offenders in jail big time.

[MrSandman]

2. Back off on drug laws...

If prisons are overcrowded.

[Cicero]

3. Triple prison capacity overnight

Have them sleep 3 to a bunk, in 8 hour shifts. It's good enough for our submarine crews, so...

That having been said, I also agree lightening up on drug laws and other victimless crimes.

Later,

[demsrule4life]

4. Speaking of subs

my youngest son is on his first cruise on the U.S. Ballistic Missile Sub Tennessee. I have to remember to ask him how it is sharing a bunk.

[MrSandman]

5. That sounds so cool...

Anchors Aweigh

[MrSandman]

6. Recidivism does seem to be a problem

Of the 845 assailants identified in the killing of law enforcement officers from
1991-2000 --

almost half had a prior conviction
almost one-fifth were on probation or parole at the time


http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/leok.htm#leokweap

TWO-THIRDS OF FORMER STATE PRISONERS REARRESTED FOR SERIOUS NEW CRIMES

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Sixty-seven percent of former inmates released from state prisons in 1994 committed at least one serious new crime within the following three years, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. This was a rearrest rate 5 percent higher than that among prisoners released during 1983.

State prisoners with the highest rearrest rates were those who had been incarcerated for stealing motor vehicles (79 percent), possessing or selling stolen property (77 percent), larceny (75 percent), burglary (74 percent), robbery (70 percent) or those using, possessing or trafficking in illegal weapons (70 percent).

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/press/rpr94pr.htm

Imagine, a law enfocement press release.;-)