# California legislation to reduce gun crime penalties, b/c disproportionate impact on minorities



## Hanafuda (May 9, 2021)

https://www.dailywire.com/news/california-may-soften-gun-crime-laws-citing-impact-on-people-of-color

Little chance it'll get anywhere, but the bill is real. And the State legislature's Public Safety Committee approved it for the next step.

I'm curious to hear what the GBAtemp leftwing reps think about this. 

Is "Essie Justice Group" correct? This is what systemic racism looks like? Is _that _what the statistic says to you? Or does it say something else?

Should we lessen penalties for gun violence??


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## FAST6191 (May 9, 2021)

So systemic racism is a synonym for consequences?
Or are such things omitted, declined to prosecute, not picked up on arrest/investigation... for those without as much melanin, or indeed invented for those with it?


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## Xzi (May 9, 2021)

It depends on the individual circumstances of an arrest.  For example, someone who draws their gun on the police deserves the extra time tacked on to their sentence, no question.  But going to the other extreme, what if a person is arrested at a traffic stop for a prior warrant, then the cops go and find a gun at that person's house and add to the sentence for that?  That I'd say is ridiculous and needs to be stopped.  And somewhere in the middle would be a person who gets pulled over for a simple traffic stop, and immediately informs the police that there's a gun in their vehicle.  In most cases I'd say there should be no charge for that, but all too often people get lit up by the police for it, sight unseen.  Which doesn't exactly encourage others to disclose that information.

With guns being ubiquitous in our society, the last thing we need are police officers who get jumpy at the very mention of them.  Or officers who try to tack on extra crimes because of how "scared" they were during the arrest.


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## Hanafuda (May 10, 2021)

Xzi said:


> It depends on the individual circumstances of an arrest.  For example, someone who draws their gun on the police deserves the extra time tacked on to their sentence, no question.  But going to the other extreme, what if a person is arrested at a traffic stop for a prior warrant, then the cops go and find a gun at that person's house and add to the sentence for that?  That I'd say is ridiculous and needs to be stopped.  And somewhere in the middle would be a person who gets pulled over for a simple traffic stop, and immediately informs the police that there's a gun in their vehicle.  In most cases I'd say there should be no charge for that, but all too often people get lit up by the police for it, sight unseen.  Which doesn't exactly encourage others to disclose that information.
> 
> With guns being ubiquitous in our society, the last thing we need are police officers who get jumpy at the very mention of them.  Or officers who try to tack on extra crimes because of how "scared" they were during the arrest.




None of those scenarios apply here. It only applies to being armed or using a firearm during violent crime, ot providing gun(s) to another for such violent crime. This is copy/paste right from the bill:



> Existing law imposes various sentence enhancements, consisting of additional and consecutive terms of imprisonment, including, among others, enhancements for being armed with a firearm during the commission of a felony, being armed with a firearm during the commission of a street gang crime, as defined, being armed with ammunition designed to penetrate armor during the commission of a felony, furnishing a firearm to another for the purpose of aiding, abetting, or enabling that person to commit a felony,_ and_ using a firearm during the commission of a felony.
> 
> This bill would repeal those enhancements and make conforming changes.
> Existing law imposes a sentence enhancement in the state prison of 10 years for personally using a firearm in the commission of specified felonies, 20 years for personally and intentionally discharging a firearm in the commission of those felonies, and 25 years to life for personally and intentionally discharging a firearm and causing great bodily injury or death to any other person during the commission of those felonies.
> ...




So 10 years' enhancement for using a firearm in the commission of certain violent felonies, 20 if the gun is discharged during the crime, and 25 if great bodily injury or death results ... would be reduced to 1, 2, or 3 years, respectively. 

Keep in mind that with the 'credit for good time' parole system, most prison inmates serve approximately half the length of time to which they're sentenced. If they don't, it's because they fuck up inside.


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## Xzi (May 10, 2021)

Hanafuda said:


> None of those scenarios apply here. It only applies to being armed or using a firearm during violent crime, ot providing gun(s) to another for such violent crime.


In that case you definitely don't need to worry about the bill passing, it won't have enough support from either party.  Just another sensationalist hit piece by the Daily Wire to throw on top of the rest of the manure they've published over the years.


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## deinonychus71 (May 10, 2021)

This is typically a US thing. The emotional response. There's a correlation between X and Y, therefore it is necessarily causation of the worst of evils.
And sadly, this thinking (or there lack of) is spreading out fast to the rest of the world.

And the sad part is that it helps no one fix the actual problem: Poor neighborhoods, without sufficient help from the state, without the proper infrastructure, without proper healthcare and without access to good education... what do you think happens when everything stacks up against them?

The answer is social reforms, and pulling out the racist card all the time is only delaying necessary reforms.


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## Xzi (May 10, 2021)

deinonychus71 said:


> Poor neighborhoods, without sufficient help from the state, without the proper infrastructure, without proper healthcare and without access to good education... what do you think happens when everything stacks up against them?
> 
> The answer is social reforms, and pulling out the racist card all the time is only delaying necessary reforms.


Lol you say that as if it wasn't systemic racism which segregated people into those neighborhoods in the first place, and as if systemic racism isn't the biggest hurdle to improving things in those neighborhoods today.  Ongoing gentrification goes to show that this is unfortunately a feature of US capitalism, not a bug.


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## deinonychus71 (May 10, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Lol you say that as if it wasn't systemic racism which segregated people into those neighborhoods in the first place, and as if systemic racism isn't the biggest hurdle to improving things in those neighborhoods today.  Ongoing gentrification goes to show that this is unfortunately a feature of US capitalism, not a bug.



What caused it in the past and how we solve it today are two different things. I do think that the biggest hurdle is the fear of socialism/comparison to communism, which is still being brainwashed into the brains of children to this day. This is not to say there is no racism today, as we saw in January. It's just that society, as a whole, as people like "you and me" doesn't want this shit around. We can disagree on how to proceed, but there's very few people actually ROOTING for systemic racism.
And so, it's time to look as how to fix it, through social reforms, now.


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## Xzi (May 10, 2021)

deinonychus71 said:


> but there's very, very few people actually ROOTING for systemic racism.


Man I really wish that was true, but far too many people still fly the confederate flag, and far too many people still vote for politicians based solely on promises that they'll harm the "others," rather than improve the standard of living for everybody.  Half of Republicans and I'm sure even some small percentage of Democrats thought that Chauvin should've walked away from murdering Floyd scot-free.  Systemic racism has plenty of cheerleaders left.


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## deinonychus71 (May 10, 2021)

Xzi said:


> Man I really wish that was true, but far too many people still fly the confederate flag, and far too many people still vote for politicians based solely on promises that they'll harm the "others," rather than improve the standard of living for everybody.  Half of Republicans and I'm sure even some small percentage of Democrats thought that Chauvin should've walked away from murdering Floyd scot-free.  Systemic racism has plenty of cheerleaders left.



That may be true, and maybe I haven't bathed long enough in the US society to realize it fully (I'm an immigrant), but like, the only friend I know irl who voted republican didn't do it because he believed in Trump or republicans ideals in general. It's just fear of losing your job, having your job becoming "obsolete" while the cost of life skyrockets. And well, the left kinda stopped giving a shit about that.
Kinda sad to lose these people to the Republicans if you ask me, especially since they aren't going to make it better for them, but oh well...


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## Xzi (May 10, 2021)

deinonychus71 said:


> It's just fear of losing your job, having your job becoming "obsolete" and the left kinda stopped giving a shit about that.


Only job I know that fits that description is coal miner, and that was always going to become obsolete with the passage of time and improving technology.  Has nothing to do with partisanship, energy is just much cheaper per kilowatt hour when generated by solar and wind, or even other fossil fuels.  I'd advocate for re-training programs with an optional focus on white-collar jobs in the renewable energy industry, or a more familiar blue-collar job in another sector (probably infrastructure).  I've heard similar proposals from some Democrats, but unless they can nut up and end the filibuster, they aren't gonna pass much legislation any time soon.

The actual 'left' would tell you that the workers should own the means of production, so they'd be entitled to the profits of selling the land.  They'd be set for quite a while.


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## Taleweaver (May 10, 2021)

Okay, I'll admit it : I don't have a fucking clue what this law is about. To me, adding extra years of prison time if you commit a crime with a gun seems kind of logic. Same as using swords, knives or other deadly weapons to use as treats.

So where exactly does race come in? If this law was /is only applied to black people, that's racism. If it gets interpreted differently depending on race (of a white man and a black man commit robberies with you guns, for example... Do they get the same sentence), that'd also be racism.

But as it stands, I honestly can't see this being about race. If most armed robberies take place by black people, I don't think it's something you really want to defend ('most robbers are black. Therefore, all laws judging robbers are racist' is, simply put, a flawed logical statement).

So... What context (if any) am I missing here? I'm usually in disagreement with @Hanafuda on his world view, but from what I read in this thread I have to agree with him on this one.


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