[kalimus]

Originally Posted by CamaroSkooter

See, I agree with you on this in theory, but in practice I'm more hesitant. In a perfect world, if a person commits a crime, they are punished accordingly. But there are plenty of cases that go through the system and, even though the person was convicted, they are effectively given just a slap on the wrist (in the relative sense) depending on how good their lawyer is or who the judge was or how lenient the jury was.

How many child molesters are out there that are repeat offenders? They were convicted, registered, and served their time. But then they were let out of prison, supposedly "rehabilitated," and then they commit the same crime (or some variant) again.

So, in this particular instance, until we get criminal punishments standardized here, I have a problem with assuming a person is "rehabilitated" just because they "paid their debt" to society. That's why I think there are some crimes that, even if you serve your time, should completely exclude you from ever owning a firearm for the rest of your life. Granted, it would likely be a short list, but it would still need to exist, at least with the way the current system is setup.

You're right, and like I said the system is broken. That should probably be addressed before anything. But it is still reality that there is no such thing as a person who is too dangerous to have a firearm, but not so dangerous that they should be locked up. That's a classic example of blaming the gun isn't it? They can be free as long as they don't have a gun, because with a gun they will do bad things. Without it, they won't.

That goes for all kinds of crime. And why does being convicted of a crime that had nothing to do with a firearm ban you from owning one? If say I go to prison for touching a child, what sense does it really make for me to not own a gun? I didn't use one. What about drugs? What about assault without a weapon? My brother actually has a felony on his record because he got caught with pot. He can't own a firearm because it's a felony. There are many things broken with this system.