The Party of Family Values is set to vote on gun silencers this week

Scal, are you against tough mandatory minimums for people in illegal possession of a firearm? If not, why not? 

in my experience in criminal law, minimum mandatory sentences are probably the second worst thing about our criminal justice system and should be abolished for every crime.  they, among other problems, are the typical misguided big government response to a problem that just serve to give the government/prosecutors more power and more leverage.  i didn't like them as a prosecutor and i like them even less now that i'm on the good side fighting the government.

they are obviously the worst for drug crimes but since so many gun cases are such gray areas, they are almost equally bad for gun cases. 

Seems pretty simple. You're either in legal possession of a firearm or in illegal possession of a firearm. What's the gray area? 

possession cases are often pretty gray as cases get.  they find the gun here and you're there but maybe you're close enough or they find it in a car with several people or they find it in an apartment with multiple people or there's a self defense issue which are almost always gray so you might have a right to have a gun when you otherwise wouldn't. 

or maybe it is simple and you have it in your pocket but some dude just threatened your life or you were shot in a home invasion last year and you want to protect your family so there is mitigation but because there is a minimum mandatory sentence, the judge can't consider all of the circumstances.  just about every case has issues.

minimum mandatory penalties often nullify those issues and/or give the government a hammer to force people to plead guilty when they otherwise wouldn't.

i'll give you just one example that happened to one of my people a couple of years ago.

this guy lived in a somewhat middle class but somewhat rough neighborhood.  he had a wife who had MS and other issues so he took care of her all of the time.  they go walk the dog in the neighborhood as they usually do.  he brings his gun on the walk because some neighbors have pit bulls that he's afraid of and that's what people do in the south anyway.  so his dog goes on the "victim"s yard or possibly on the next door neighbor's property but in any case the victim gets pissed and starts yelling at my client and his wife about the dog.  they get into an argument so the "victim" grabs a bat and starts running at my client and his wife who has no ability to defend herself.  my client thinks this guy is going to hit him or his wife with the bat so he pulls out his gun.  the "victim" drops his bat and my guy drops his gun and they kind of get in a fight but it's really just my guy pinning the victim on the ground.  his gun is nearby.  a neighbor and friend of the victim calls the cops and says my guy is threatening the "victim" with a gun.  the cops show up, see my guy pinning the victim and the gun next to him. both the victim and the neighbor (who allegedly never saw the part with the bat) say my guy threatened the "victim" with the gun.  my guy and his wife say the "victim" threatened them with the ba and my guy defended himself and his wife.

the cop arrests my guy for aggravated assault with a firearm.  that carries a three year minimum mandatory sentence.

this case sucks for the government.  some idiot and his neighbor's word against my guy and his wife's word.  my guy has no prior record and is a pretty decent guy.  the "victim" and neighbor are white trash. 

i'd love to fight this but if my guy gets convicted, he goes to prison for at least 3 years. he's in his 60's and his wife needs him to care for her every day.  he cannot afford to go to jail.  the prosecutor uses that 3 years as a hammer to force him to plead guilty to a serious felony and all sorts of condition on probation to avoid jail time.

anyway, this is a fairly common situation. so many of these kinds of cases and possession cases are gray areas, although this one seemed like a pretty clear self defense case.   but who knows what 12 people off the street will say and my guy couldn't risk it.  the state's was able to use a minimum mandatory to strong arm a guilty pleas and it happens all of the time.

i'll give you two other examples. 

another older guy who got some bullshit felony conviction in his 20's so can't have a gun.  if he's caught with a gun, there's a 3 year mandatory minimum penalty.  he has several antique rifles that he keeps locked in a gun case.  antique rifles are one of the few exceptions to the felony gun possession law but they have to meet certain specific criteria.  the police search his house for whatever reason, find the guns and charge him with multiple counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.  so he's facing serious mandatory minimum prison time.  everyone agreed his guns hadn't been fired in who knows how long and probably could never be fired.  but the guns didn't technically meet the definition of antique due to some technicality. 

i forgot how this one ended.  i think he came out pretty well but he still had to plead to some bullshit because stats matter to the government.  but, he was technically guilty and if the state wanted to be person, he could have died in prison over this crap. 


another guy in his 30's or 40's with a felony conviction.  he's married.  his wife has no conviction and she keeps a gun in her bedside table.  cops search the house, she isn;t there, they find the gun, he is in the room so they charge him with the 3 year mandatory minimum crime.  sure he and his wife can testify that the gun is hers but if he's that close to it, arguably it's still constructive possession for him under the law.  who knows what a jury would do.  does he want to risk doing 3 years in prison, lose his job, etc for this or try to cut a deal.  or maybe the prosecutor is a person and won't offer anything better than 3 years in prison.  the prosecutor was an fool here and wanted the guy to do time.  we had to go to the top to get a better result, but some people in these situations aren't so fortunate. 

pit bulls should be banned to begin with.....  sorry to hear about your client 

he'll live.  he had to do a couple of years on probation, lost his gun rights and some other garbage.  but he didn't have to go to jail. 

i'm sure he could have done something to avoid the situation, maybe by just walking away in the beginning, but he does have a right to self defense and should never be threatened with three years in prison for that. 

Not very bright to be a convicted felon and an antique rifle collector. In fact, it's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard of. 

You seem to be stretching the imagination to provide examples of why mandatory minimums are a bad idea. 

maybe but the point is, he doesn't deserve to go to prison for 3 or more years for it.  that's what mandatory minimum sentences do.  the guy who got a felony weed charge in the 70's who has antique rifles that won't shoot gets a long prison sentence just like the guy with multiple crack dealing felony convictions who carries a handgun around with him all day to protect his turf. 

i'm not stretching anything.  i'm giving you actual cases we have handled to show how bad of an idea minimum mandatory penalties are.  what's better than real life examples.  and there are many more.   

as for whether new or different regulations are a good idea, i guess it depends on the particular regulation.

ok, i have to go and not sure when i'll be back.

i have f*cking jury duty tomorrow. but CDS will do his civic duty just like everyone else. 

i don't know.  i don't really think about it.  figuring out new regulations really have nothing to do with my job.  we just deal with what's already on the books. 

the only somewhat new laws that i can think of was when they enacted the hate crimes when that was popular.  maybe helpful in a very narrow set of circumstances but overall pretty unnecessary and useless as far as i'm concerned but politicians like to pretend like they are accomplishing something. 

but if someone mentions a proposal, i can say whether i think it would affect violence one way or another.  i've seen enough cases of gun violence over the years that i think i have a pretty good handle over how and under what circumstances it usually happens, although people seem to always find new ways to do stupid garbage. 

Silencers are an expensive alternative to earplugs for hearing protection.  Silencers are rightly associated with assassins and mafia ambush because the inventor had these uses in mind when he created them. 

Uncertain whether silencer deregulation can pass through Congress especially in the Senate where 60 votes are necessary.  Unlikely to receive support from at least 8 democrats since they favor gun control more than republicans.

Although Obama is known as among the most anti-gun presidents in US history, Bureau of alcohol, tobacco and firearms didn't regulate devices that allow automatic guns to shoot rapidly like machine guns because they didn't violate gun control act and national firearms act. 

In 2012, democrats introduced legislation to ban such devices.  However effective gun control fails because of lobbying by NRA.  Now democrats are reintroducing similar legislation.

97% of gun crime comes from people in illegal possession of a firearm. It makes sense to me to go after the 97% instead of the 3%. 

where in the world did that stat come from?  that's not even in the ballpark of my experience with gun violence and gun cases.

https://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/oct/05/joe-scarborough/msnbcs-joe-scarborough-tiny-fraction-crimes-commit/

ok, he's saying this:  "Isn't it true that only like 3 percent of murders and crimes are committed with guns from people who actually purchase those guns?"   that can't even be close to true. 

maybe he meant only 3% of guns used in crimes was purchased 1) by the person who committed the crime and 2) in an actual gun store with a background check.  the article goes on to say that nothing even resembling a reasonable study with a proper sample size was done to verify this.  i suppose it's possible that number is very low.  i'm not sure how anyone would know without doing a massive survey of people who have committed gun crimes.  

but regardless, there's a huge difference between saying someone is illegally possessing a firearm versus saying someone didn't buy it at a store or gun show.

for the most part, there's only one type of person who illegally possesses a firearm.  that is someone who is a convicted felon.  there are a few other things about a person that can make it illegal to have a gun but those rarely come up.  the possession of a firearm by a convicted felon charge is not uncommon.

but, people can legally buy guns without going to a gun store or a show- person to person gun sales happen all of the time and are legal as are gifts of firearms, internet sales and pawn shops.  all of those would come within that 97% figure and are perfectly legal ways for people to buy and possess firearms. 

It says in the article what the correct sentence is. That's the one I used, not his quote. 

Take away suicides and homicides in inner cities and guns are barely an issue in America. 

The statistics show that the overwhelming majority of gun crime comes from people in illegal possession of a firearm.

i didn't see anything in that article that even remotely indicated that nor is it anywhere near consistent with the cases i've seen. 



as to your other comment, the fbi recently released murder rate data.  chicago isn't near the top 10 but baltimore is #2.

https://rapidcityjournal.com/news/national/the-cities-with-the-highest-murder-rates-in-the-us/collection_0e7dd367-2f62-5822-b849-97f4e9a43e3d.html#30