The Laws Are Already There, Quit Ignoring Them

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“We need more common sense gun laws” cries President Obama, quite literally in fact.  “We need laws designed to keep guns out of the hands of bad people” scream the gun control proponents.  “We need new laws to save just one life” they say.

“Astronomical Lies and Hogwash”, I say, because I am not allowed to use profanity here…

I have said this a number of times in the few short years that I have been writing.  The laws needed to solve the “gun violence problem” (it is not a gun violence problem, it is a violent criminal problem) already exist.  They are already on the books!  We cops arrest the very criminals committing all the “gun violence” all the time.  The problem is that the rest of the criminal justice system is routinely dropping the ball, and those laws are not being enforced!

The District Attorneys Offices are not prosecuting some cases, or they plea bargain away the gun charges in order to cut a deal on some other charge.  The sentencing phase is a joke, and even worse is the punishment phase.  Jails and prisons are “overcrowded” so convicted criminals serve only a fraction of their sentence, and then are set free on probation or parole.  For those of you who think probation or parole are still part of the punishment phase, you don’t understand how broken the system is.  The only benefit either of those have is it makes it easier to lock that person up the next time they commit a crime.  The down side to both probation and parole, the likelihood that the district attorney will drop the current case in lieu of a probation or parole violation skyrockets.  Why waste money on a trial when you can have a 20 minute hearing and lock them up again for a year, or in the case of my state, as little as 10 days.

The system is inexcusably broken.  The system is constantly letting those who are committing all of the “gun violence” go free.  The problem is not the lack of laws.  The problem is not the guns.  The problem is the criminal, who gets a pass time after time after time.

I will offer a few anecdotal cases in a moment, cases in which I was personally involved, but nothing exemplifies the dysfunctional state of the system better than this case, right here:

“For the third time in 15 months, a Brockton man with gang ties is facing gun charges after being arrested for leading officers on a car chase in the city Friday afternoon, police said.”

Yes, you read that right, three times in 15 months, the same man, a convicted criminal, a known gang member, was arrested on weapons charges.

WHY WAS HE EVEN ON THE STREETS?!?!?!?  He should have been locked up!

And now for some anecdotal evidence to support my earlier statements…

Early in my law enforcement career, before I became the jaded a-hole I am now, I was working an off-duty job (in full uniform in a marked patrol car) at a shopping center in a less than desirable neighborhood.  As I drove through the parking lot, I heard gunfire in the distance.  I started driving toward the area I thought it came from, when the dispatcher voiced a drive by shooting that had just occurred, and she provided a suspect vehicle description.  As I neared the area, I spotted the suspect vehicle, followed it, and eventually stopped it, detaining the four black male juveniles from inside it, who all coincidentally were wearing the same color clothing (one of those things we cops call a hint).  A search of the car was conducted and a stolen S&W 7-shot .357 magnum revolver (model 986 – identical to the one below) was located, and it contained seven spent shell casings.  All four juveniles were arrested on a number of charges and taken the juvenile hall, the car was towed, the gun recovered and booked.  The report was taken and the witnesses identified the car.

986

Three days later, the district attorney dropped all charges against all four suspects because, and I quote, “none of them would admit possession of the gun.”  That was the first nail in the coffin of life as a jaded cop.

Side Note:  About two months later, two of my buddies working patrol got into a pursuit of the same car, with the same juvenile driver, who again had another stolen gun in the car.

Flash forward more than a decade later, after I pretty much stopped caring what happened to my cases after I made the initial arrest, I was working in another of our less than desirable areas (where I liked working because it was busy and had “real crime” to fight), I was driving down a long, very straight road that is littered with crappy, ghetto apartment complexes.  Off in the distance, I saw what I initially perceived as a yellow flashing strobe light off a highway work truck.  Seconds later, a car came screaming down the road at me.  I followed the car and began calling it out on the radio.  The dispatcher informed me they were just now getting calls from an apartment complex where I saw what I thought were yellow strobe lights, but had in fact been the muzzle flashes, of a drive by shooting that had just occurred.

I followed the suspect vehicle until other units caught up to me.  We stopped the car, detained the three occupants, who were surprisingly all wearing the same colored clothing (you might be noticing a trend here), and searched the car.  Inside the car, we found a 9mm Ruger pistol.  This one was not stolen, but instead was registered to one of the occupants of the car who, even though he was listed as a “gang affiliate,” he had no convictions that would prevent him from legally purchasing the gun, which he had done just a couple weeks prior.  Also inside the car was about 2 pounds of processed marijuana (yet another trend).  GSR kits (gunshot residue) were done on all three occupants.

Side Note:  This is one of only 2 cases I was involved with in my entire career in which a legal gun owner used their gun to commit a crime.

Back at the scene of the shooting, shell casings were recovered as were some slugs that were pulled out of the wall of an apartment.  Thankfully no one had been hit, because the mental midget criminals were shooting at the wrong building, and were shooting into the room of two young children.

Two weeks later, I got the letter from the District Attorney’s office informing me that no charges had been filed in this case.  Despite all the evidence, including my eye witness account of the incident, the DA dropped the case because they could not determine which of the three occupants in the car had fired the gun…

 

dontray-mills-meme

A meme (above) has been circulating now for a number of months, one in which the case of a man named Dontray Mills is discussed.  The information contained in the meme has been fact checked by Snopes and Truth or Fiction and has been verified, although Snopes decided to fact check something that was not even part of the meme so that they could give it a “mixed” rating (not shocking considering their very left lean).

Seriously people, you cannot make this stuff up!  The problem is not the lack of laws.  The problem is not the gun, or the NRA, or lawful gun owners.  The problem is not the cops not doing their jobs.  The problem is a broken criminal justice system that only cares about conviction rates and nothing else!

Do NOT buy the BS the gun grabbers are selling!  We DO NOT NEED MORE LAWS!  We need energetic, dedicated enforcement of the laws already on the books!

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