grampajack
AR Junkie
- Joined
- Mar 31, 2016
- Messages
- 1,714
Losing his rights is part of paying for his debt to society. It is part of his sentence. It is meant to deter, not punish. Obviously, most felons don't care if they lose their rights because they choose to break the law. Why is this so hard to understand? Yes, not all felonies are the same in severity but changing the existing law is the only way to change this. We should advocate an appeal process for the rights to be returned in certain cases. As it stands, if you commit a felony, you lose your rights.... it's part of your sentence.[/QUOTE][QUOTE="9MMare, post: 10561157, member: 104162"]If a criminal pays their debt to society, IMO they should get their right to vote and own a firearm back, just like they get their freedom back.
Loss of rights isn't a deterrent. They didn't vote before they broke the law, so why should they suddenly want to vote after the fact. They illegally carried a gun before going to jail, so why would illegally carrying a gun after they get out be any different?
The fact is that these laws aren't doing anything to protect anyone, or deter anyone for that matter. 3 out of 4 felons say they would think nothing of getting a gun if they wanted one, and the 1 who answered no thought it was a trick question.
But you have those few exceptions who serve their time, turn their lives around, and become productive members of society, and all these laws serve to do is unnecessarily punish those people, as well as people who by all rights never should have been charged in the first place.
I also like to think we're a God fearing nation, founded on Judeo-Christian values, and the Lord says vengeance belongs to him. The goal of our criminal justice system is not to punish the wicked so to speak, but only to do that which is necessary to protect the innocent. That's why we don't torture criminals like you see in countries founded on secular principles, like China and North Korea. That means executing the ones who can't ever be trusted again, locking away the suspect until they show themselves not to be a danger, and providing deterrents where possible (such as financial loss, i.e. a speeding ticket). If a punishment does not serve to deter or protect the public then it's by definition vengeance for the sake of vengeance, and that's a dangerous road to go down. After all, if you kick a dog long enough it will eventually bite you, and that's what our justice system seems to be doing to small time criminals who otherwise might have been saved.