[helene_t]

bid_em_up, on Apr 22 2007, 10:11 PM, said:

Helene, you state that you find it is strange that the guy was released on bail.[.....]

Now, there are several cases in my location of the country, where certain gang members have been arrested and charged with murder, when they were already out on bail for other charges (drug possession, robbery, etc.), only to bail out again on the murder charge and be subsequently arrested and charged with further crimes......only to be bonded out again. This, imo, is ridiculous, but the courts allow it to happen for a variety of reasons.  [....]

The hoodlums know the prisons are overcrowded and it is unlikely they will be given much punishment for anything other than the most serious offenses.[...]

This mentality is hard to perceive, especially if you have never witnessed it (maybe you have, I do not know). [....]

It's quite similar over here. We don't have bails, though. But it's possible that the guy in question would have been released before he came to serve his sentence, either because the judge found that the trial took too long or because the prison was full so he was put on a waiting list.

I'm surprised to hear that you have similar problems in the U.S. As I understand it, U.S prison population is several times that of Europe, while crime rates (the high murder rates nothwithstanding) are generally similar to the European ones.

What we also have a lot of over here is murder and rape commited by convicted psycopats and other hard-core criminals on "vacation". Some of those culture-relativist Freudians who work as prison psychiatrists got the great idea that they could create extra employment for themselves by allowing prisoners to be released gradually, with the first vacation being after a fraction of the term. It didn't surprise me when I read in "The wisdom of crowds" that one of the few academic professions who have been demonstrated to perform consistently worse than random laypersons asked to do the same job, were prison psychiatrists.

Phil said:

For those that are in favor of handgun control, are you just against handguns in general, or are you OK with handguns, as long as they can't be concealed?

As a European I may not have a qualified opinion about this American issue. It's possible that gun control would be unfeasible in the U.S. Btw, due to the opening of our Eastern borders, gun control is becoming more and more of an illusion over here as well.

Those pragmatic issues asside, I'd like to get rid of all firearms except those used by special police forces with a very strong training in their usage. Toy guns should not be allowed to look too realistic. Kitchen knives should either be non-pointed or limited to some say 10 cm blade length. Knives made a ceramic materials (which does not appear on X-ray scans) should be illegal.

As for capsicum sprays, I'm somewhat ambivalent. I can see they have merrits. I think they should be registered, though. As for a ban on cricket bats, I can see it would be impopular in the U.K. and maybe also a bad move since cricket promotes less violence than a certain other popular sport.