How do you “prevent” people from violating laws? You can’t –there is no “pre-crime” division.
Firearms Policy @gunpolicy
Tweeted on June 18, 2015
[I have tried to say the same thing over the years but this expresses it so much better.
You know The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is nonsensical simply by it’s name.—Joe]
Of course one can argue that there is a preventative component (deterrence) to an efficient justice system, but of course deterrence and justice are two very different concepts.
Here, once again and as always, we run into a mindset that does not see, can not see, refuses to see and will not understand First Principles.
Our government’s job was never to prevent crime. The job of the police was never to prevent crime.
This government was originally for the purpose of securing liberty and justice for all. Note that it says nothing about safety or about preventing crime. The only references to safety or security in the founding documents were referring to security against tyranny, i.e. the safety and security of your rights.
Law and law enforcement was never for the purpose of preventing crime, and anyone who thinks so is missing the point entirely.
The only proper role, or purpose, is justice.
To the extent that a proper, fair and efficient justice system deters crime, so be it. That is not its purpose, any more than profits are the primary moral impetus behind capitalism.
The role of Progressivism on the other hand is to cause us to forget and abandon first principles, and to become distracted by second and third tier “principles”.
To argue that the people’s right to keep and bear arms must be curtailed in order to achieve a safer community is to say; “Forget about taking care of the damned cows, Stupid, we just want the milk!”
Of course it’s a ruse, as anyone knows that if your rights are not secure, your physical safety is certainly not secure. If you don’t feed the cow, you don’t get the milk. First principle, second principle.
Quite right. The purpose of police, prosecutors, judges, and every other part of the justice system is to catch, charge, try, sentence, and punish those who violate laws.
By definition, this all happens after the fact, and does next-to-nothing to prevent criminal behavior.
There is a deterrent effect, but in my experience it only applies to malum prohibitum laws — prohibitions that don’t increase safety on their own and are only illegal because the law says so. Strictly law-abiding folks will follow them because they’re law-abiding folks, practical-minded people recognize they’re useless but will follow them nonetheless to avoid the associated punishments (which I’m guessing is where most of us fall), and criminals will follow them to avoid notice while doing other things.
In contrast, no person intent on committing a rape/murder/assault/drug-peddling (i.e. malum in se prohibitions) stops just because there’s a law against it, and no person inclined against such heinous actions needs a law to tell him/her they’re heinous actions that shouldn’t be committed. There is no “justice system” deterrent against malum in se laws like there is for malum prohibitum laws.
You should drop the “drug dealing” from that short list. It doesn’t fit with the bad things list. Far from it, in fact. Yes, there are some end results connected to it that are bad, but the basic behaviour is simply commerce/capitalism. Some, or most, of the unwanted side effects are simply the result of the desire of the folks who want to control the population. If you compare the actual bad drug effects to the legal drug trade, you may not be so sure about your stance.
Exactly. Selling intoxicants is a malum prohibitum. It’s trivial to see this, from the fact that which, if any, are prohibited varies wildly across countries, cultures, and times. When mala per se are concerned, there tends to be wide consensus. For example, you’d be hard pressed to find a place where murder is legal, and at least in the past century or so, only a few small barbaric outposts still permit slavery.
The sale of alcohol was permitted for eons, then forbidden for a decade or so, then once again permitted. The sale of opium was permitted for eons, then forbidden around the time the sale of alcohol was legalized again. Cynics might argue that this was done to ensure continued employment of the federal enforcers who had become rich and comfortable enforcing the previous malum prohibitum. And it is very well established that the prohibition of marihuana, like many of the prohibitions of gun ownership, was driven by racism.
“How do you “prevent” people from violating laws?”
Progressives won’t have a problem with that question. The Soviets, for instance, had a perfectly workable answer; “You kill them. You keep killing people until the problem goes away or until there’s no one left to remember what the problem was.”
Orwell presented common progressive solutions.
“We have always been at war with Aastasia.”
In other words, lie, move the goal posts, and redefine the problem and the troublemakers ad hoc as needed.
You know The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence is nonsensical simply by it’s name.
Right.
As Spider Robinson once pointed out, one should avoid an organization whose very name is an oxymoron. They are telling you up front that they intent to drive on square wheels. (I disagree with Mr. Robinson on plenty of things, but he’s right sometimes, and when he is, he expresses it well.)
That’s why I like to steer clear of academic fields whose names contain the word “science” — because none of them in fact are a science.
Anything with “studies”, too. It’s become painfully obvious they are learning emotionally-charged talking points and doing very little studying.
True, but you’re giving them too much credit. The vast majority of “studies” serve only one purpose: to provide a paycheck to the academic doing the studying (and, in consequence, help that chair warmer get tenure).