Monday, May 12, 2008

Guns and killing

Do guns kill, or do people kill people (with guns)?

Or, perhaps, does the US justice system kill people by failing to lock up criminals caught with guns until they do finally kill someone?

Howard Cain was the trigger man in the Liczbinski murder. You can see his fifteen page criminal record here. Let’s look at all the violations of the Pennsylvania Uniform Firearms Act that Cain has been arrested for. Keep in mind we’re only looking at gun charges, since that is what this blog concentrates on. Over Cain’s criminal career he had thirteen arrests for unlawfully carrying a firearm, that were listed “Nolle Prossed,” meaning the prosecutor chose not to bring charges. In a further eleven arrests for violations of Pennsylvania’s firearms laws, the charges were either withdrawn or dismissed. In only three cases was he prosecuted and either plead guilty or was found guilty. On weapons charges alone, he could have done 12 years in prison, in which case he would not have been on the streets to kill a police officer.


Via.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Note that in this part of the same state -- the conservative part -- we convicted a guy who had committed a series of robberies with a toy gun to over 200 years in prison.

They tolerate criminals. We do not.

Peter Risdon said...

Interesting - I didn't realise there were differences in policy within States. Is it on the county level?

Good thing too, by the way - the more atomic the better.