I’d like to talk a bit about this story. You should read the whole thing, but I will summarize the bits I think are important here. The places where I have edited are marked with square brackets.
Computer Glitch Lets Prisoners Out Early: A State audit shows a computer glitch let some Michigan prisoners get out early. [...] The State audit report shows errors in the release dates of 23 prisoners between October 2003 and March 2005. Some were let out early, while others were let out late. [...]
Representative Rick Jones says if you do the crime, you should pay the time. Jones used to work in law enforcement, so he says it caught his attention when he heard some prisoners were let out early. [He said,] “It’s very, very shocking that anybody would be released early from the prison system.”
Now, I wonder if I’m alone in thinking that it’s no better to let people out of prison late, than it is to let them out early. In fact, it’s my sense that late is worse than early, for the following reason: Let’s take it as given that the law stipulates an appropriate sentence for each crime, and that the courts have fairly passed sentence on the people serving those sentences. Keeping a person locked up after they have completed their sentence means we are effectively incarcerating people who, in the eyes of the law, deserve to be considered free and innocent citizens.
Of course, the other side is going to say, “But Michael, those people aren’t innocent. They are serving sentences for crimes they actually committed. And such people might still pose a danger to the community, so of course it makes sense that we should keep them locked up as long as possible.”
Firstly, if a prisoner is actually dangerous, inasmuch as we have good reason to believe (s)he will do criminal harm upon release, how likely is it that releasing that person a bit early is going to make any difference in their level of danger to the community? By that measure, if protection is your primary concern, prisoners should not have any fixed release dates, but should be kept incarcerated until a court ascertains they no longer pose a significant danger to the community at large. On the other hand, if a prisoner is no longer considered dangerous, there is little or no harm in an early release—and great harm in a late one, since we are then abridging the freedom of an individual who has satisfied the obligations of the law.
But then they say, “But Michael, the law is corrupt and broken, and many criminals do not receive the punishment (or even rehabilitation) they deserve.”
Unfortunately, it is true that the law is imperfect; however, in the U.S., it represents the best consensus position we have been able to achieve through a long tradition of representative government. While the laws may not prescribe the best possible sentence for every crime, the solution is not to permit individual whims or “common sense” to override the law. You don’t fix broken sentencing laws by manually adjusting prison terms at the output side—you do it through the legislative and judicial processes that exist to insure some whacko doesn’t get your children sentenced to death for driving without seatbelts on the freeway. To put it more bluntly, think about how you’d feel if you were given three months of community service for turning right on red against a WALK light, and they decided you had to keep doing it for two extra months?
You might be a bit more worried if the early releases were rapists or murderers, but in the Michigan case:
“A flaw in computer programming caused State jails to release 8 prisoners anywhere from 39-161 days early, prisoners who were doing time for everything from embezzlement and drugs to bad check writing.”
Obviously we’re not talking about extremely hazardous people here. You can call me crazy if you want, but it seems unlikely that a person who gets a hundred days off his sentence on writing bad cheques is going to head right out and drive a steamroller over a bunch of school kids. Maybe I’m naïve, but I think that’s a reasonable assumption.
Now, I’d like to talk about this story. That link is from the New York Times, so you will probably need to sign up for an account to read the whole thing—but again, I will summarize the parts I think are most interesting:
Congress Passes New Legal Shield for Gun Industry: [...] Congress delivered a long-sought victory to the gun industry on Thursday when the House voted to shield firearms manufacturers and dealers from liability lawsuits. The bill now goes to President Bush, who has promised to sign it. [...]
The bill, which is identical to one approved in July by the Senate, is aimed at ending a spate of lawsuits by individuals and municipalities, including New York City, seeking to hold gun manufacturers and dealers liable for negligence when their weapons are used in crimes.
While it bars such suits, the measure contains an exception allowing certain cases involving defective weapons or criminal behavior by a gun maker or dealer, such as knowingly selling a weapon to someone who has failed a criminal background check. [...]
Opponents of the bill were quick to denounce it. Some highlights include:
[O]pponents called the bill shameful–”bought and paid for by the N.R.A.,” in the words of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts. Representative Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, whose constituents include victims of the 2002 sniper shootings in Washington and its suburbs, called the measure “a cruel hoax” on victims of gun violence.
“I went to a lot of memorial services during that period of time,” Mr. Van Hollen said. “I’ve met with family members. To tell them that their cases were frivolous is, I think, to add insult to injury.”
Sounds terrible, right? Nobody is going to deny that the victims of violence, including violence that involves firearms, generally deserve our sympathy. But let’s take a step back now and ask ourselves the following question: How can we reasonably argue that manufacturers and dealers of firearms should be held legally responsible for the violence committed with their products? We don’t hold automobile manufacturers or car dealers responsible for the thousands of violent deaths suffered by misuse of their products, unless we can show that the deaths were caused by faults in the automobiles themselves, or deceit on the part of the dealer. And there are a lot more people killed annually by cars than by guns, in the United States.
If somebody purchases a firearm, and it blows up in his face due to shoddy construction, then by all means, he ought to be able to sue the manufacturer or the dealer, as appropriate. But if the firearm functions as designed, is purchased legally, and he uses it to shoot somebody, then the responsibility falls upon the user of the firearm, not the maker.
The typical response to this line of argument seems to go as follows: “Firearms are different from cars, because unlike cars, guns are made primarily for killing people. People don’t generally buy cars in order to run other people over, but people usually buy guns in order to shoot them at other people.”
I agree that both of these statements are basically true,* but I assert that neither is a legitimate argument for passing the responsibility for misuse of firearms onto the dealers and manufacturers of those firearms, unless there is specific negligence. Of course, the attorneys for the victim of a crime involving a firearm have a great deal of incentive to make such a connexion—few individuals have the resources to pay off a large court judgement, so there is not much point in filing suit against the criminal himself. On the other hand, dealers and manufacturers are businesses, and have a lot more revenue, so naturally that’s where the attorneys want to concentrate their fire (so to speak).
“A well-ordered militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Supporting the Second Amendment has become somewhat taboo, in recent history. Yet, despite the highly-emotional rhetoric on the part of those who oppose it, I believe the Second Amendment represents an important and valuable part of the freedom enjoyed by the citizens of the United States, and that it is worthy of being defended as strongly as the other liberties we so cherish.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it guarantee the people the right to a wealthy target for lawsuits, in the event they are wronged. But, despite the fact that I am probably on the opposite side of the street from the majority of the population with respect to this question, think I’m pretty much okay with that.
Filed by Michael at 15:49 under Diatribe, Social 
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