Guns Are Not The Problem, Our Courts Are!

Check out the link to this article.... How many chances does our courts give someone who repeatedly uses a gun in assaults?

If the courts would get serious and prosecute criminals that continually carry and use firearms illegally then maybe the thugs would think twice about carrying. I like Sheriff David Clarks approach.... Get caught with a firearm when you're not supposed to have one, get a all expense trip paid to prison for five years, period! :banghead:

http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/122735754.html

And yet we are vilified by the press. We are the crazy ones. The violent ones.

And as a bonus we pay for the asshatery of the courts and penal system. Metaphorically and physically. We law abiding citizens are the ones who will continue to be held accountable for "crime guns" and crime. As the criminals continue to run free...

I disagree w/ Clarke about how to define when someone shouldn't be allowed to have a gun.
He'd say anyone without a permit.
I'd say a prohibited person has to have been convicted of a violent crime, or be under a restraining order for committing violence against someone.

Then there's the front-end problem of police not having enough evidence (or enough admissible evidence) to prove a crime, to stop someone, to search someone, so that no court case can be made, let alone won. BTDT. That's not the fault of the judge.

But I know from personal observation that at least one judge in the MKE county court building doesn't bother to actually know the law, just rules on what she thinks the law says.
F'rinstance, I witnessed several firearms being retained (then destroyed) by LEA when they should have been returned to the owners.
Sometimes because the judge didn't believe the (sworn) testimony about ownership.
Sometimes because the judge invented a crime that there was no proof for.

I heard one man lose a family heirloom because the judge thought that WI law requires absolute sobriety, and the police report said he'd been drinking, so even though there was no BAC test, and no evidence that he was "materially impaired" (which the law requires before possession of a firearm is illegal) the judge ordered his family heirloom destroyed.

(He had an ND, which shouldn't have been possible because, being so old, ammo is practically nonexistant. Of course, he should still have confirmed it was unloaded.)

Then there was the case where she & the city att'y wanted to retain a woman's pistol because she'd had it in her purse inside her home. Luckily, the judge looked up the law & applied it properly, so she got the pistol back. (She'd drawn it, but not pointed it, after being hit & threatened by 2 men.)