2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
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I saw this little piece inside of an article about the 5 million dollars wasted on the Maryland bullet finger printing program that finally ended….it highlighted the problem with the gun laws passed by anti gun extremists…
Maryland “gun fingerprint” database shut down without solving a single case « Hot Air
Addendum: It’s worth noting, as Glenn Reynolds does, that the impact of gun-control laws often have more adverse impacts than just excessive spending:
Cottrol noted that crimes like carrying or owning a pistol without a license are what the law has traditionally termed malum prohibitum — that is, things that are wrong only because they are prohibited. (The contrast is with the other traditional category, malum in se, those things, like rape, robbery, and murder, that are wrong in themselves.)
Traditionally, penalties for malum prohibitum acts were generally light, since the conduct that the laws governed wasn’t wrong in itself. But modern American law often treats even obscure and technical violations of gun laws as felonies and —Cottrol noted — prosecutors often go out of their way to prosecute these crimes more vigorously even than traditional crimes like rape or murder.
Cottrol discussed a number of such cases, including that of Melroy Cort, a double-amputee Iraq veteran who in 2006 was traveling to Walter Reed Army Hospital for treatment from Ohio. He was charged with possession of a pistol not registered in the District of Columbia (though he said he had a permit in Ohio), a felony that would not only have sent him to prison, but would have cost him his veterans’ benefits. Although, as Cottrol notes, prosecutors in the DC Attorney General’s office had discretion to drop the charges; they instead threw the book at him. …
Want to reduce crime? Punish criminals. Don’t lock up peaceable citizens on a technicality.
Maryland “gun fingerprint” database shut down without solving a single case « Hot Air
Addendum: It’s worth noting, as Glenn Reynolds does, that the impact of gun-control laws often have more adverse impacts than just excessive spending:
Cottrol noted that crimes like carrying or owning a pistol without a license are what the law has traditionally termed malum prohibitum — that is, things that are wrong only because they are prohibited. (The contrast is with the other traditional category, malum in se, those things, like rape, robbery, and murder, that are wrong in themselves.)
Traditionally, penalties for malum prohibitum acts were generally light, since the conduct that the laws governed wasn’t wrong in itself. But modern American law often treats even obscure and technical violations of gun laws as felonies and —Cottrol noted — prosecutors often go out of their way to prosecute these crimes more vigorously even than traditional crimes like rape or murder.
Cottrol discussed a number of such cases, including that of Melroy Cort, a double-amputee Iraq veteran who in 2006 was traveling to Walter Reed Army Hospital for treatment from Ohio. He was charged with possession of a pistol not registered in the District of Columbia (though he said he had a permit in Ohio), a felony that would not only have sent him to prison, but would have cost him his veterans’ benefits. Although, as Cottrol notes, prosecutors in the DC Attorney General’s office had discretion to drop the charges; they instead threw the book at him. …
Want to reduce crime? Punish criminals. Don’t lock up peaceable citizens on a technicality.
