Difference in sentences justifiable?

[Tiassa]

Am I reading you incorrectly, or ...?

Really? The presumption of innocence is on my side, and when we split hairs that far, the jury just cannot know what is happening in my head at that moment. It will be harder to prove that I intended to kill the other three than the bank guard I shot twice in the head, so to speak.

If we divide the law that way, the court can no longer look at the robbery process as a whole and say that four people died as a result of my actions; in the abstract, do you accept such a division of the acts? That the robbery is independent of the murder of the guard and the death of the mother and her two children who happened to be in the way?

Of course, crime and punishment is a gray area a thousand miles wide for me.

 

[James R]

<i>But why do outcomes matter? How does it improve society?</i>

In your gun example, it hopefully leads to people taking greater care with their hanling of guns, since they know what the consequences will be for them if they do not. More importantly, it protects innocent people, such as the person in the upstairs bedroom, making their lives safer.

<i>I think a justice system should ignore society’s desire for revenge.</i>

I'd say that revenge is one of the aims of any justice system. People want wrongs righted in some way. If the justice system doesn't give them some satisfaction, they are likely to take the law into their own hands with vigilante acts. That would lead to a lawless society.

 

[jps]

Re: JPS

Originally posted by tiassa
Generally speaking, I agree. But if we split judicial hairs, yes, people's anger is dangerous. We have sentencing protocols in homicide laws which set guidelines for crimes of passion. Angry people threaten bombs and shootings. And things get paranoid if you believe it all--my partner announced a few weeks ago, in genuine rage, that she wanted to kill me, for instance--and we end up with things like the "Alligator Alley" incident in which people's paranoia violates other people. In my youth we said things about blowing up the outside world, but the number of people who followed through on those sentiments was considerably less.To work a little out of order, I would ask why we bother to prosecute these crimes at all until someone's dead or injured, or until your Mercedes is lodged in someone's fireplace.

Yeah, anger is dangerous, but using the original example, getting angry is more akin to being generally careless with a loaded gun, than to actually shooting a hole in the ceiling.
Generally speaking, I don't think we should punish people for things like drunk driving, unless it leads to a problem. Its not really a fair system the way its set up now. I'm sure there are people who can drive fine with a high BAC and others who be all over the road while still not having a high enough BAC to be doing anything illegal. There was actually a case in VT where a cop pulled a guy over, and the guy admitted he had been smoking pot, he then succesfully passed a sobriety test. He was subsequently charged with DUI, which he succesfully had dismissed, as even though he was high, having passed the sobriety test he was not still fine to drive. I think the rule for these types of things should be that if you're driving ok, it doesn't matter what state you're in. Again, I think driving drunk is more analagous to being generally careless with a gun then actually shooting it through the ceiling.

Originally posted by tiassa
But neither the explosives nor the molotov were undertaken with any safety precautions. We could have easily damaged someone's house or even killed someone. And speeding? I'm lucky. I've only ever killed a rabbit.

And it is a hard question. Perhaps I'm missing something about how you're dividing up the issue. The phrase that confuses me is: "if circumstances outside of your control and knowledge had been slightly different."

I think speeding is basically the same as drunk driving. If while speeding you run a red light, or pass someone in the right lane, or whatever, you could be punished for that, as its a concrete occurance, but again, there are people who can safely drive substantially over the speed limit fine and others who can't drive safely going below the limit.
If the molotov cocktail or explosives killed someone, assuming they weren't meant to, then, as in the initial example, you should not be charged with the persons death, but only whatever law you broke by carelessly playing with explosives. The same would be true if no one was killed.
Do you think society would have benefited if you'd served 2 or 3 years in prison at that time in your life?

Originally posted by tiassa
I suppose I need to ask what those circumstances are outside of my control. A crowded area? Shouldn't I account for that before exploding a model airplane or throwing a Molotov?

Of course you should, and if you had taken every precaution then I don't think you should be subject to any penalty, but if it could be demonstrated that you threw it without any precautions or that somoene was killed, then you could be charged with some sort of negligence, but not murder. Admittedly, its hard to prove either way.

Originally posted by tiassa
And let's look at it from the perspective of a government's (e.g. the American) obligation to the common welfare of its citizens. And let's go ahead and accept for argument what you and I might recognize: if I thought we might have problems, we wouldn't have blown stuff up. So if we go ahead and presume that it was alright for me to perform those acts, what happens to those who split hairs in their own defense when malice is indeed the motive?

As a juror, if I was splitting certain hairs in what seemed an otherwise clear-cut murder case, yes, I would have to acquit on the reasonable doubt that, despite the finger on the trigger, the hammer pulled, and the round in the chamber, the shooter "didn't actually mean to fire the weapon".

Well, we have the same problem now. If the guy didn't mean for the gun to go off then its manslaughter, if he did its murder. There's already a very wide gap in sentences there. I'm just proposing increasing it even more.
I think it would be hard to convince a jury that you pointed a loaded gun at someone you were angry with and pulled the trigger accidentally.

Originally posted by tiassa
And frankly, such issues are a big reason people think of me as dangerous in my leftism; I can't figure out what aside from rape, murder, arson, and theft we should jail people for. Well, assault, but you see the trend developing here. And perhaps that is the answer. Get the potheads out of the system, get the drunk drivers out of the system, get the gun runners who are busted for selling and not shooting guns out of prison.

So, in the original example, as far as your concerned, if the guy didn't kill the girl, he shouldn't be jailed?

Originally posted by tiassa
Let's try one for you, just theoretical, and built slightly off a story about the same guy whose loaded rifle discharged while locked in its display case. Sitting near the rifle case was a large desk arranged for assembling ammunition. It was the first time I'd seen a hunter build his own bullets, and yes, I was impressed at the time. And he pointed to another patch in the ceiling that came from an occasion on which he did something wrong and caused a round he was constructing to discharge. The shot went through the ceiling, and nobody was in the room upstairs. No blood, no foul. Things happen. However, if that bullet had struck one of his daughters (whose room was upstairs), would we question the wisdom of setting the assembly station where it was? (The house was such that the gun case was actually under an exposed part of the first floor insofar as there was only the roofline to go through. The heavily and badly-modified house bore rooms above the workbench; a whole wall sat exposed to the face of the house that had no rooms above it, but the workbench couldn't go there because it would obscure the bearskin hanging on the only wall large enough to accommodate it.)

And, yes, technically that discharge of a round violated city law, but the police chuckled and overlooked it on the no-blood-no-foul theory since it was a general city limits discharge law. But here we can look to the result: would the accidental discharge of a round being assembled be any different if it had wounded or killed some day?

I think if what I'm proposing were accepted he would have to be punished as he would be if his daughter had been killed, which would be for negligent handling of firearms.

Originally posted by tiassa
Lastly, as people are arriving and the circle draws together (up from the earth and through the trees ....) it's worth acknowledging that some of it might be cultural, generational, or even individualized.

A big portion of it for me is that I grew up thinking that there were no acceptable excuses. That was the way of my father, of my teachers, and so on. When I look to the reasons/excuses (a difference in legitimacy by that childhood standard), there were no good reasons for negligence and only poor excuses. I know a couple of people who don't find that idea strange, but they grew up very nearby, in the same economic stratum, watching the same TV, learning from the same teachers. Like I said, it could be something about generation or other classification of distinctive thought trends.

Its not as if I'm advocating letting people off for these things. Personally I think penalties for acts that could have resulted in death should reflect that, but certainly not as extreme as 2-3 years or whatever people get for manslaughter. I think, "No harm, no foul" is more of an excuse then giving people a consistent punishment for the same act.
I really don't think you can make a code of laws that will take into account every possible circumstance. The way I see it, thats what jurys are for. Without a human element there's going to be problems. I have a real problem with the present tendency for judges to tell juries that, for example they have to either convict someone of murder one or acquit him completely, and if they convict him they can choose only between capital punishment and life without parole, or, do you want to sentence this guy who got caught smoking a joint to 5 or 6 years in prison?
I think jurys should really have very few restrictions on what they can do.
If a jury was able to say, "yeah, this guys guilty of smoking pot, but he didn't do any harm so there's no punishment" it would be a lot harder to keep ridiculous unpopular laws on the books.

 

[James R]

<i>I don't think we should punish people for things like drunk driving, unless it leads to a problem.</i>

But it <b>does</b> lead to problems.

Just because somebody gets away with it once, and doesn't kill anybody or damage any property, is no guarantee that the same thing will happen next time. Same with the gun example.

Part of the reason for criminal law is deterrence. The law, by punishing people, aims to deter them from repeating dangerous and/or foolish acts. The law does not merely react - law enforcement is also pro-active.

 

[jps]

Originally posted by James R

But it <b>does</b> lead to problems.

Just because somebody gets away with it once, and doesn't kill anybody or damage any property, is no guarantee that the same thing will happen next time. Same with the gun example.

I certainly agree that people should not drink and drive. Perhaps an education campaign around the dangers of it is appropriate, but what about the differences in driving abilities, or ability to deal with certain BACs? And what if someone's just a bad driver? Just because a bad driver makes it home one night doesn't mean they will the next. Should they be jailed?

Originally posted by James R
Part of the reason for criminal law is deterrence. The law, by punishing people, aims to deter them from repeating dangerous and/or foolish acts. The law does not merely react - law enforcement is also pro-active.

Well, then why not punish people for getting angry as Tiassa mentioned?

 

[James R]

jps:

<i>certainly agree that people should not drink and drive. Perhaps an education campaign around the dangers of it is appropriate, but what about the differences in driving abilities, or ability to deal with certain BACs? And what if someone's just a bad driver? Just because a bad driver makes it home one night doesn't mean they will the next. Should they be jailed?</i>

Ideally, the law would be adjusted for particular personal characteristics. If you're a one-pot screamer who is under the table after a single beer, then you shouldn't be driving, even if you're under the 0.05 limit (or whatever).

But nobody has the kind of detailed information required for this. Instead, the laws set limits based on averages and safety. It presumes that under 0.05 is generally safe, whilst over 0.05 starts to lead to problems. Why not set the BAC at zero? Wouldn't that be even safer? Well, yes, but there would be a community outcry about it. The law must also reflect the wishes of the majority in a democracy.

It used to be up to the police on the scene to determine if a driver was drunk - hence on-the-spot tests such as touching your nose with a finger and walking a straight line. But those tests weren't very good indicators. A person could still be a danger to other people on the road yet pass the tests. Also, it was deemed better to take away individual discretion from the police in this case, and set a reasonable BAC limit, derived using statistics in consultation with community values.

This is how much of the criminal law comes about.

Why not punish people for getting angry? Simple: people don't think people should be punished for that.

 

[jps]

Originally posted by James R

Ideally, the law would be adjusted for particular personal characteristics. If you're a one-pot screamer who is under the table after a single beer, then you shouldn't be driving, even if you're under the 0.05 limit (or whatever).

Originally posted by James R
But nobody has the kind of detailed information required for this. Instead, the laws set limits based on averages and safety. It presumes that under 0.05 is generally safe, whilst over 0.05 starts to lead to problems. Why not set the BAC at zero? Wouldn't that be even safer? Well, yes, but there would be a community outcry about it. The law must also reflect the wishes of the majority in a democracy.

Personally, I'd rather see a few criminals get off without punishment then get them all and a few innocent people as well, which is, in effect what the law does.

Originally posted by James R
It used to be up to the police on the scene to determine if a driver was drunk - hence on-the-spot tests such as touching your nose with a finger and walking a straight line. But those tests weren't very good indicators. A person could still be a danger to other people on the road yet pass the tests. Also, it was deemed better to take away individual discretion from the police in this case, and set a reasonable BAC limit, derived using statistics in consultation with community values.

As far as I'm concerned removing the human element from the law, as I said before, is as bad idea. Granted the on the spot tests could be easily abused by the police, but there would be plenty of people who don't pass a breatholizer, who would pass a spot test and would be driving safely. The issue of police abuse has to be dealt with seperately.

Originally posted by James R
Why not punish people for getting angry? Simple: people don't think people should be punished for that.

Well, people's views change. This may be why we don't do it, but its not an argument for not doing it.

 

[one_raven]

I think this discussion illustrates why it is so difficult to design a working justice system.

I don't think it is as cut and dry as either side seems to be trying to paint it.

If you take one side of the argument (and want to remain consistent) then you would also have to agree that the punishment for not coming to a complete stop at a Stop sign should carry the same punsihment as vehicular manslaughter.
I think that is absurd.

However, it is no more absurd than the opposite extreme...

If you want to prescribe punishment based solely on the outcome of an action then I should be able to race my car as fast as I want, through a residential school zone, ignoring Stop signs and traffic lights, swerving around the semi-retired woman holding the Stop sign and telling the kids it is safe to cross.
As long as I don't hurt anyone in the process, no one should be able to say shit to me about it.

How do you design a justice system that has clear guidelines AND takes reason and common sense into account?

Problem is, who do we trust to dispense punishment with fair reason and wisdom?
Cops?
Lawyers?
Judges?
The twelve unlucky suckers that couldn't come up with a good enough excuse to get out of jury duty?

You also have to clearly define the purpose of the justice system.

The American justice system is, at best, a misnomer in design, and at worst, a disgusting travesty in practice.

A misnomer because it has very little to do with justice.
It is not designed to dispense fair and equal punishment and reward.
It is designed to keep the peace.
It is a placebo for the masses to try and assuage the tensions of living together and interacting in a community.
It is a tool for the state to keep the people from rioting when they feel they are getting the wrong end of the stick (regardless of which end of the stick is "right".

A travesty because it is far too easy to manipulate and take advantage of for personal gain.
It has laws that are very strict and linear and are supposed to allow for a minimum amount of judgement on the part of the system.
That minimum amount of judgement (in part) is supposed to allow the system to account for unforseen situations and circumstances.
However, these laws, for that very reason, have countless loopholes and, with the right money you can hire someone with the right savvy to use those loopholes to your advantage.

You can't allow for too much human interpretation because you can't trust people.
You can't compleetely remove it because the laws become too linear and unfair.

Where's the balance?

 

[Tiassa]

I do believe ....

Various

So, in the original example, as far as your concerned, if the guy didn't kill the girl, he shouldn't be jailed?

I do believe, insofar as I can tell what I'm arguing, that is correct.

If he's really unlucky and hits a water pipe and causes some damage ... well ... there's a new gray area. $1,500 damage? $2,500? $10,000? Accidentally explodes your car? At some point, society would have to put its foot down, or arson becomes a no-blood-no-foul offense.

And what if someone's just a bad driver?

An interesting question.

On the one hand, if you get a number of speeding tickets or land in a certain number of collisions, your insurance company will eventually dump you. And states do revoke driving privileges for more than just DUI.

Which puts the gun issue in a certain interesting light. At what point does society get to say, "Alright ... no more guns for you"? Felony conviction? Great, but ... that seems a little late, in principle, for prevention.

I think this discussion illustrates why it is so difficult to design a working justice system.

I'll raise a pipe to that.

I amuse myself sometimes when I stop and realize just how easy I expect society to be. It's not so much naivete these days, but rather a love-hate relationship with principles, morals, call them what you like.

I'm listening these days to a friend justify her need to own a gun. In the abstract, these are all acceptable ideas, but she refuses certain statistical realities while essentially justifying her need for the gun by listing its usefulness in a number of situations she simply does not encounter. Great, it will protect you walking through a dark alley at night in downtown Seattle or something, but really ... when is that going to happen? Seriously, she doesn't like to go out on the town alone anyway. And it's not like she ever goes anywhere she can take the gun. Literally, she wants her gun for thirty seconds that she's not going to ever undertake to experience.

It's her individual right. And she's basing her individual right, and a portion of her individuality, on behavior she will never undertake. There are certain dangerous situations that she would simply not place herself in, but that's why she needs the gun.

And so I'm left to wonder about individualism. Part of the problem is that people have their individualism so invested in odd places that it's nigh impossible to design a functional version of a vague idea like Justice.

Think of the number of people around the world who seem to believe that Justice requires Vengeance. I disagree with them, but some days I think I'm in a severe minority. For some, such as certain religious organizations in Oregon and Colorado during the 1990s, Justice was only reflected when their ideology was codified as law specifically against other ideologies. In principle, I disagree with this sense of supremacy, but as a human being I'm quite sure I haven't erased it from my own worldview.

I don't think anyone really knows what Justice is. Sure we have the Classics, and sure we have legendary philosophers and mighty minds in history, but something so simple and easy to figure out is a threat to diverse individuality.

Cooperative society is a threat to diverse individuality. It's all a matter of what people are willing to give, and where they choose to invest their individuality.

 

[zanket]

Originally posted by tiassa The outcomes matter because we're not supposed to nail each other for potential, otherwise we'd have to arrest you for being angry at someone.

Anger isn’t much of a risk to society (high blood pressure for the “victim”?) compared to a bullet whizzing through an apartment building.

Which allows a tie-in back to the topic: The ideal solution would be to raise incidental unnecessary gunfire to the level of a serious felony.

Possibly. Factor in the risk the shooter took. If it happens while hunting, then a smaller punishment may be warranted than if it happens within an apartment building.

Would it bother you that a friend was serving several years in prison for accidentally shooting out his neighbor's porchlight?

Not if it would eliminate disparities in prison sentences for the same act.

Justice is supposed to be blind. These are the reasons why Justice is not supposed to measure the act and sentence you as if someone was really hit by the bullet, and it's why Justice is not supposed to measure the act and sentence as if nobody was in the way.

To me, “blind” means color blind, wealth blind, etc. Not blind to logic. If someone shoots into a crowd, then logically they are the same risk to society whether or not they missed someone’s aorta by a millimeter.

In high school, I blew up a model airplane, threw a Molotov cocktail, and carried a bomb into an airport for a history project.

Depending on the details, these could have been very risky for society. Your age would be factored into sentencing. You should get the same sentence as other juveniles for the same risk taken, whether or not someone got hurt. Notice that when it comes to airports & terrorism, society has been forced to consider risk to a much larger degree than for other crimes.

Based on the potential risk of my prior actions, we might also say that I'm the last person on the face of the earth who should be raising a child.

Most people would be in the same boat, likely resulting in fairer sentencing. Rather than focus on revenge, people might look more within themselves to see what risks they themselves have taken. For example, rather than sentence someone to 25 years for drunkenly driving into a crowd, people might ask themselves if they every drove drunk or otherwise while not in complete control (Bush would have to answer yes). Did they themselves take the same risk and just got lucky? Then perhaps a better solution is to have alcohol sellers be required to impound car keys until the customer takes a breath test (or something more reasonable than punish someone because they did what many people have done but were not lucky).

 

[zanket]

Originally posted by James R
In your gun example, it hopefully leads to people taking greater care with their hanling of guns, since they know what the consequences will be for them if they do not. More importantly, it protects innocent people, such as the person in the upstairs bedroom, making their lives safer.

I can see how a sentence leads to those benefits, but not how a difference in sentences depending on outcome does that. As it is today, people don’t know what the consequences will be for them if they handle their guns carelessly, because the consequences depend on the outcome.

I'd say that revenge is one of the aims of any justice system. People want wrongs righted in some way. If the justice system doesn't give them some satisfaction, they are likely to take the law into their own hands with vigilante acts. That would lead to a lawless society.

If people were more logical then I think they would get greater satisfaction out of righting wrongs based on risk rather than outcome. They should get the same satisfaction out of deterring someone from mishandling guns where someone could have been killed as when someone is killed, for example. If anything they’ll get the satisfaction of knowing that they themselves will be sentenced based on their actions rather than an unknowable outcome.

 

[zanket]

Originally posted by jps
I think jurys should really have very few restrictions on what they can do.
If a jury was able to say, "yeah, this guys guilty of smoking pot, but he didn't do any harm so there's no punishment" it would be a lot harder to keep ridiculous unpopular laws on the books.

You’d also get a whole range of sentences for similar acts, depending on the makeup of the jury. Juries (each of which is a tiny minority of the population) are not supposed to make law; that’s the job of the majority’s representatives (Congress). Juries are only supposed to decide whether the defendant is guilty of the crime charged by the prosecutor. The prosecutor is supposed to choose the charge that has the highest odds of yielding a guilty verdict.

If I were on a jury deciding whether to send someone to prison for 5 years for smoking pot, I wouldn’t be able to resist making law by acquitting even when I thought the person was guilty. I’d justify doing that because I think the majority of people who made such a law did so out of spite or ignorance. But I’d also realize that if every juror felt free to make law then society would be worse off.

So I support jury restrictions, except for me

 

[zanket]

Originally posted by one_raven
If you take one side of the argument (and want to remain consistent) then you would also have to agree that the punishment for not coming to a complete stop at a Stop sign should carry the same punsihment as vehicular manslaughter.
I think that is absurd.

I don’t see the absurdity. If you didn’t completely stop but did slow down enough to verify whether the way is clear while leaving enough time to stop completely if needed, then it should not carry the same punishment as vehicular manslaughter. But if you blew through the intersection or otherwise took a risk that could reasonably have led to a deadly accident, then yes it should carry the same punishment.

Take the example to an extreme. A person runs a red light. Should the sentence differ depending upon whether another car appeared, or whether that car contained kids? I think not. The risk to society taken is the same regardless of the outcome. Today we have a difference in sentences of zero years vs. 10 years for the same act of running a red light. And a significant chunk of the driving population has run a red light. Only the least lucky ones get the 10 years.

Problem is, who do we trust to dispense punishment with fair reason and wisdom?

Good question. We should trust ourselves a generation after voters make schools adopt critical thinking as a core part of every grade level’s curriculum. In large part we have this huge flaw in our justice system because nobody is ever asked why we have a justice system. A justice system is important enough to society that kids ought to tear it apart in class to look for ways to improve it. As voters, cops, lawyers, judges, or jurors, these kids might demand that sentences be based on a measurement of risk to society rather than that of revenge.

 

[Tiassa]

Zanket: Leggo my eggo; I need to waffle some more

Zanket

Anger isn’t much of a risk to society (high blood pressure for the “victim”?) compared to a bullet whizzing through an apartment building.

To a certain extent, I agree, but ....

1. Heat of Passion Upon Reasonable Provocation

Heat of passion includes the states of mind of passion, anger, fear, fright and nervous excitement.

Reasonable provocation is provocation of the type which would be likely to produce in a reasonable person such a state of passion, anger, fear, fright or nervous excitement as would overcome his capacity for reflection or restraint and did actually produce such a state of mind in the defendant. The provocation must be such that a reasonable person would have become sufficiently provoked and would not have cooled off by the time of the killing, and that the defendant was so provoked and did not cool off at the time of the killing. In addition, there must be a causal connection between the provocation, the state of heat of passion and the killing. The killing must follow the provocation before there is sufficient time for the emotion to cool and must be the result of the state of mind induced by the provocation rather than a preexisting intent to kill or injure. (SocialLaw.com, "Model Jury Instructions on Homicide: Felony Murder")

The above comes from Massachusetts, and there's an academic link somewhere that I have used before but can't find right now that discusses Heat of Passion in terms of sentencing.

From Pennsylvania:

§ 2503. Voluntary manslaughter.

(a) General rule.-A person who kills an individual without lawful justification commits voluntary manslaughter if at the time of the killing he is acting under a sudden and intense passion resulting from serious provocation by:

1. the individual killed; or
2. another whom the actor endeavors to kill, but to negligently or accidently causes the death of the individual killed.

(b) Unreasonable belief killing justifiable.-A person who intentionally or knowingly kills an individual commits voluntary manslaughter if at the time of the killing he believes the circumstances to be such that, if they existed, would justify the killing under Chapter 5 of this title (relating to general principles of justification), but his belief is unreasonable. ("Criminal Homicide")

Practically speaking, anger is dangerous enough that we have criminal laws designed to address the harm of anger.

Possibly. Factor in the risk the shooter took. If it happens while hunting, then a smaller punishment may be warranted than if it happens within an apartment building.

The risk of the shooter or the target? I think of that videotape from a couple years ago when a kid shot his dad in the face on his first hunting trip; hey, Dad got in the firing line. If I recall, the only error was to be standing up and presenting a larger target; the kid, in his inexperience, followed his target on an unexpected course. Either way, though, I think the result we're discussing is the same; take some mercy on the hunter.

Paranoid question: Will we have people left to suffer and die in the woods while his buddies sober up so they don't get sent to prison for shooting while intoxicated? Oh, wait ... I don't think that's illegal, but hopefully you get what I mean.

To me, “blind” means color blind, wealth blind, etc. Not blind to logic. If someone shoots into a crowd, then logically they are the same risk to society whether or not they missed someone’s aorta by a millimeter.

Like I said, this is a gray area a thousand miles wide for me. Part of what disturbs me here is that this is similar to what passed for logic during the Crack Wars. In this case, your argument is much more sound. It is, truly, a matter of degrees.

But the way I look at it is that you either have one crime with separate results (e.g. "unlawful discharge of firearm" either breaking the porchlight or killing Mrs. Jones) or else two separate crimes (breaking the porchlight or killing Mrs. Jones).

So it seems the thing to do is to stack the charges.

- Unlawful discharge
- Vandalism/manslaughter

We do it in other cases. For instance, Jack gets high, robs a bank, and shoots a cop. He's charged with

- Possession of a controlled substance
- Possession of a firearm
- Illegal discharge of a firearm
- Larceny
- Attempted murder

And also any reckless driving, public endangerment, or speeding he commits along the getaway, and if that's not enough, the DA can always slap him with DUI.

A child porn producer will be charged with a number of offenses as well. "Child Porn" isn't enough to cover it. Based on the content, you can hit him with several sex charges without risking double-jeopardy, and furthermore even if you only get indecent liberties, you still get transmission of child pornography and perhaps some federal charges as well.

If we charge the accidental shooter with both the illegal discharge of the weapon and also the results of that discharge, we arrive back at another vein of this debate, arresting people for potential when no damage occurs, which brings us abstractly back toward the discussion of punishing anger.

Beyond that, it's hard to say. I have an abstract ideal, of course, but I'm well aware that most people won't tolerate it because peace and harmony are too boring for them. Which is sad because the Universe is a fascinating place.

I mean, after all, I ask the same thing of any gun owner that I ask the one who happens to be the psychologically unstable woman living in this house: "Why do you need a gun?"

She gives me all sorts of reasons that have nothing to do with reality, but I hope my daughter or I don't have to die before she realizes that having a gun when you don't have any need for one is a bad idea.

In this case, my unreasonable abstract ideal says to get rid of the gun. But that's too much of a threat to her individuality, and though I say she's psychologically unstable, I can't say she's unique in identifying her individuality in tandem with her freaking gun.

Or so goes my current two cents about guns in general. I'll get off the soapbox now.