Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard has a “pretty obvious” solution for addressing gun-related violence, but “nobody wants to go there.”
Ballard believes that if we upped the mandatory minimum sentence for gun crimes society would drastically reduce gun violence.
The mayor told News 8 that based on the city’s tracking of cases, “homicides in 2014 would have been dramatically less, dramatically less,” because many of those arrested had previous arrests for gun crimes.
Ballard would like to see the mandatory minimum raised to 20 years, but said that even 10 years would make a significant difference in the number of homicides year to year.
In addition to strengthening penalties for gun crimes, Ballard said that youth intervention programs can also make a difference.
“You’re not going to turn the tide unless we start at an earlier age — to make sure these young men and women don’t go down the wrong path,” he said.
Given that it would take time, 15 or 20 years, to see the results of such programs, Ballard said that we need to do a better job “of differentiating between people who need help and a hand up — and the people who are truly violent and need to go away for a long, long time.”
The Mayor is correct. If the D.A.’s would enforce existing gun laws instead of allowing criminals to plea bargain down removing or reducing gun charges, gun crimes would drop drastically. Because a criminal can plea bargain down the crime and lose the gun charge, they have no problem using a gun. I worked as a Correctional Officer for (30) thirty years and spoke to inmate after inmate who bragged about taking a plea deal and dropping gun charges for both A.D.W., armed robbery, and attempted murder. If they would just enforce the existing laws, gun crimes would be greatly reduced. California gangs know not to use assault style weapons because of sentence enhancements for using such weapons.
I am sorry, but under age kids with GUNS know exactly what they are doing these days, and they are playing the system for a get out of JAIL card for free. That needs to stop. Convict and mandatory jail, they are thugs and gang members, and will always be.
Again, it is only my opinion and yes their mothers always think they good kids, they always turn a blind eye, but the fact of the matter remains, when kill or maim for the fun of it, they are animals and no matter what color they are still animals. And no community should stand behind them.
Zero tolerance laws cause huge problems and get misused all the time. An overzealous prosecutor can put some guy in jail for having an argument with his wife or girlfrienf in public, while having a gun on him. Hell, the arguement could be about him carrying the firearm. Since it is a crime in many places to have a shouting match in public(it could be that she was shouting and he was trying to defuse the situation), would be all they need. Any anti-gun judge could jail people protecting themselves, or even firing the wrong type of ammo(even if it were safe to do so).
Enhanced sentences are there to get the offender to plea bargain(assuring a conviction and saving the cost of a trial). The poor guy who feels he is innocent is the one that pays the price and then, they double it for good measure.
Sorry, but they are right, and you’re coming off as paranoid.
The argument for stiffer sentences is well defined, whereas your argument is weak and vague, and predicated on a distrust of Govt. as opposed to the well established stats of gun crime.
Hell, just a few years ago the city of Chicago showed that they could predict with relative accuracy who would commit what gun crime in certain areas, because those criminals had already been through their revolving door justice system.
This mayor is right, but the ACLU and others won’t allow the fix.
Lets take this a bit further…. lets make sure it stops. Not slows down, or is reduced, but STOPPED. Nation Wide. Federal Crime.
Its easy…. make it a mandatory death sentence for being convicted of a crime with a firearm. Any crime, be it domestic violence, robbery, assault, drug dealing, rape, murder…. Death Sentence. First offense. Doesn’t require the use of a gun, doesn’t require someone being hurt, doesn’t require a death. Just the USE. Heavy requirements for evidence, you have to be convicted by significant amounts of evidence. You get 1 appeal, and if you loose that, you hang by the neck until you are DEAD DEAD DEAD and done within 6 months of conviction. Remember the Friday Night Fights (boxing in the “old” days)?… lets broadcast the Friday Night Executions on TV. Self Defense will not be a Crime, but you will have to have significant proof of self defense.
Heavy handed, you say? Yep. It will likely require seeing a few people swing, but HOLY COW, what a deterrent. Then watch the use of a firearm in the commission of a crime drop like a rock.
Grumpy…. I agree completely with a minimum of five years even if you are found not guilty of the crime, but still used a firearm. Mandatory 10 years minimum concurrent after the time for the crime has been served. I can’t get in to the death penalty debate, because my belief is that habeaus corpus should be lost when there is video evidence of a shooting. The charge of attempted murder is also erased. Just because you’re awful at shooting doesn’t mitigate the fact that you tried. So I’ll give you that.
Criminals, crimes of passion, or a crime with a firearm when used to save a life (using an unregistered gun) consideration would have to be considered. There are 23 studies that I found in google, (not wiki) that clearly demonstrates that people who murder do not consider the death penalty a deterrent. You are asking us to believe that an irrational act of murder could somehow cause a person to become rational and not murder because of the death penalty. Criminals don’t give consequences consideration when their getting ready for a drive by. It simply does not stop people from killing.
I don’t disagree with your goal, but statistically speaking none of these studies say the death penalty was considered before somebody murders someone else. I believe many states have mandatory sentences for commission of a felony with a firearm. The irony of being convicted for grand larceny and getting 5 years for that, now you get to serve the 10 year stretch for having a gun when you did it. Ouch. Death penalties are great for eliminating recidivism, but not much else. Just sayin’
Okay…but we had better have a plan for fairness and open-mindedness in sentencing and release many who have ludicrous sentences for infractions not worthy. If nobody is counting we are out of room and money to pile on more.
I disagree… well maybe… what type of crimes are we talking about here? If we are talking about real crime like murder, rape, robbery where a gun is used… go for it! If we are talking about possession or shooting in the woods behind your house or something that’s illegal but not necessarily “wrong” that’s where I have problems… I never trust LAWS to do a good job of finding those divides
Sensible, doable plan.
Come to democrat controlled Jackson county Missouri, specifically Kansas City.
Violent criminals, with histories, get probation for murder.
Democrats gain more power from violence against innocent people. They don’t care that kids are killed because of it.
What difference, at this point, does it make? -dems