Lexi,
If it is desired to prove a point or to be seen as winning a debate then excuses can be found even for the most heinous crimes. The argument that our prisons are not an effective deterrent is proven when released prisoners offend again. One could argue again that it was the incarceration caused him to re-offend or one could argue that he is just one bad piece of character. Of course you could defend him if that's what you want, most victims though would prefer to condemn him. I have been a victim several times, my wife has been a victim also. We are definitely not inclined to be lenient on those who caused us so much grief. I can not even begin to understand how people who lost much more than we did must feel. Again, I fail to see how they could feel anything but condemning the mongrels.

Lexi, "if people are free to own guns, some will use them to rob and kill each other"

Again, that is not the case is it? US citizens are not allowed to own and use guns however they wish.

They must obtain licences and use them in strict accordance with available laws.

There is abundant, incontrovertible evidence that has been put to you many times in previous threads. But you persistently attack the law abiding, respectable citizens who go through the various invasive character tests and other hurdles to legally obtain a licence and purchase from legal sources. Such citizens prove that they can also be trusted to continue with their demonstrated life habits of complying with laws, all laws.

You keep putting up your US examples and where the evidence goes against your emotional world view, you challenge the person not the facts. Where that fails, you ignore the evidence entirely.

It is all Greens spin and while you infer you are not a Green, you talk the talk and walk the walk of the Greens, but unfortunately not that of the original Greens, more that of the crazy authoritarian left and Marxists who do damage to both Labor and Greens, and embarrass the real Left as they do so.

Tell me, why do you persistently mislead readers, and trash law abiding citizens, while knowing full well that it is all lies and your deception serves to protect the very people who offend through their violence and criminal acts?

No law, no ban, no restriction will prevent an offender who sets out to break laws. That is what offenders do, they set out to break laws. Doubling and trebling laws, making more legal and procedural redundancy with higher mountains of bureaucratic paperwork, to waste police resources monitoring respoectable citizens, only puts more police behind desks, anchored in their stations and away from what they want to do, which is to detect and collar criminals.

You take attention away from the good work that is being done by police and authorities in attempting to deal with violence. Why?

Dear Individual,

<<Yes quite a number of prisoners should not be in prison. So why are thy ? Because some incompetent magistrate or judge is totally out of whack with reality.>>

Well that's a fact of life, it's human nature, so it must be taken into account and not ignored: magistrates will not become perfect saints before everyone else does.

<<I can not even begin to understand how people who lost much more than we did must feel. Again, I fail to see how they could feel anything but condemning the mongrels.>>

And so they may feel. Feelings are out of our control and nobody should be criticised for what they feel, but choices and actions are a different matter. Jails are full of people who acted out their raw feelings.

OTB,

The main types of crime in the United States can be
conveniently classified into four principal categories:
crimes of violence; crimes against property; crimes
without victims; and white-collar and corporate crime.
Information can be obtained from sources such as
annual reports of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), which compiles data provided by local police
forces. The FBI regards crimes of violence and crimes
against property as the most serious offenses.
These acts - homicide, robbery, rape, aggravated assault,
burglary, larceny, auto theft, and arson - are known
as the eight "crime index" offenses, and the FBI reports
concentrate on them.

My husband and I lived and worked in Los Angeles for ten
years. I have a cousin who was a senior detective with the LAPD.
(now retired).

In international terms, the United States is an extremely
violent society, with a homicide rate far exceeding that
of any other industrialised nation. A single American city like
Chicago, Houston, or Los angeles records more murders in a
typical year than does the whole of England.

Most other countries severely restrict private handgun
ownership, but there are at least 60 million handguns
in the United States - and weapons of this type are used in
44 per cent of the 19,000 or so murders that occur each year.

Why then does the US permit the widespread access to handguns?
One reason is the persistent belief that, since criminals
have guns, law-abiding people need them for self-protection.

Yet according to studies -
gun-owning households are much more likely to
suffer fatalities from their own weapons than from those
of outsiders.

One study found that only 2 per cent of all slayings in gun-
owning households were for self-protection; the remainder
were suicides, homicides, or accidental deaths, almost all
involving family members, friends or acquaintances.

A second reason for the proliferation of handguns is the
belief, deeply held by many Americans, that gun ownership
is an individual right. For granting this liberty to the
individual, American society pays the price in the
deviance of those who abuse it.

cont'd ...

OTB,

Although blacks constitute about 12 per cent of the
population, they represent 45 per cent of murder
victims - and 94 per cent of these are slain by other
blacks. Whites, in contrast, are killed by whites in
nearly 90 per cent of the cases.

The high involvement of American blacks in homicide results
primarily from the profound social disaster - involving
broken families, drug abuse, poor education, and unemployment
that has afflicted a small segment of black youth in the
ghetto "underclass."

Much of this black-on-black homicide appears random, mindless,
wantonly malign, psychopathetic: the reason offered by the
perpetrators often run along the lines of, "He attacked me."
Murder of this kind is committed by people who feel that, even if
they lose their lives, they are not losing much; who see no
reason to adopt society's values, for society offers them
nothing; who get no nearer to affluence or success than what
they see on their TV set; whose repressed rage and even self-hate erupts against those around them.

My cousin, ended up working with troubled youth prior to his
retirement from the LAPD. We learned a great deal from his
experiences.

OTB,

One more thing.

Kindly show me where I have mislead or trashed law
abiding citizens.

And -

Where I have taken attention away from the good work
that the police are doing.

And -

You criticise me for stating that if people are free
to own guns some will use them to rob and kill each
other and yet in the same post you tell me -
that "No law, no restriction, will prevent an offender who
sets out to break laws."

Is that right? Then what's your problem exactly?