Republican-NRA-led drug war, mandatory minimum sentences, and handguns

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 * Share links: Guns - sentencing - minimum - NRA - nra. 
 * See: Drug war causes high U.S. incarceration rate. Also: Race, ethnicity, and the drug war. Also: The U.S. Drug War. Republicans lead. Sheep follow. Everybody pays.

See main sections below:
 * NRA demonization of drug users.
 * NRA CrimeStrike campaign for mandatory minimums.

Obama helping turn around the Reagan-Bush War on Cannabis, mandatory minimums, mass incarceration:
 * Holder's Legacy: Steering Away From the Drug War and Mass Incarceration..
 * U.S.: Attorney General Eric Holder Ends Incentive For Law Enforcement To Seize Property.
 * Obama on marijuana legalization. . "My suspicion is that you’re gonna see other states start looking at this". The Washington Post. Jan. 22, 2015. Obama also said: "Last year you had the first time in 40 years where the crime rate and the incarceration rate went down at the same time."

Life for pot
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 * See main article: USA. Life for pot. See also: Number of marijuana prisoners in the USA.

Papa Bush doubles down on the War on Drugs
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 * USA. Drug offenders constitute half of federal prisoners. See chart. See articles:.
 * ''See: The U.S. Drug War. Republicans lead.

People in prisons and jails for drug-related crime
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 * See main article: People in prisons and jails in the USA for drug-related crime.
 * And: Number of marijuana prisoners in the USA.
 * And: Drug war causes high U.S. incarceration rate.
 * And: The U.S. Drug War. Republicans lead.

American exceptionalism versus Canada
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Canada. Many Americans are clueless
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Danny Zuker. His Twitter feed. Canada has a much lower rate of handgun ownership than the USA. See chart. Much lower incarceration and murder rates too.

New York Times: "Rises and falls in Canada's crime rate have closely paralleled America's for 40 years," Mr. Tonry wrote last year. "But its  imprisonment rate has remained stable." . April 22, 2008.

Youtube video. Pot and Politics: Chris Bennett at Occupy Vancouver (15 Oct 2011). The Harperization of the Drug War in Canada (one minute into video). Speech discusses Prime Minister Stephen Harper's attempts at slavish imitation of the U.S. drug war and mandatory minimum sentencing.



Finland's open prisons
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Listen to the audio too. "By the end of this period of 'decarceration,' Finland had one of the lowest rates of imprisonment on the continent. Lappi-Seppälä says crime didn’t increase as a result. 'The lesson from Finland was that it was perfectly possible to drop the use of imprisonment [by two-thirds,]' he says, 'and that did not disturb the crime trend development in Finland.' What did work was a gradual reintroduction into normal life, the kind that the open prisons offer. About a third of Finnish inmates are housed in open prison, and Finland’s Criminal Sanctions Agency says inmates who go through open prisons are less likely to be arrested again. The reoffending rate drops almost 20 percent. Open prisons also cost less."
 * In Finland's 'open prisons,' inmates have the keys. April 15, 2015. Reporter Rae Ellen Bichell. Public Radio International. From the article:

George Orwell, rifles, and tyranny
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George Orwell: "The totalitarian states can do great things, but there is one thing they cannot do: they cannot give the factory-worker a rifle and tell him to take it home and keep it in his bedroom. That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourer's cottage, is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there." -- January 8, 1941 in an article for the London Evening Standard. See source.

The Republican Party (GOP) and the NRA are responsible for mass incarceration, and removing rifles and voting rights from millions of drug users and non-violent felons across the United States. See: Can Convicted Felon Purchase or Possess a Firearm?.

'''Handguns don't defend against tyranny. That is laughable. Rifles defend against tyranny.''' And the country of Orwell, the UK, bans handgun ownership for the most part. See Gun politics in the United Kingdom. All handguns do is greatly increase the murder rate.



NRA demonization of drug users
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The National Rifle Association (NRA) has often demonized drugs as a way to distract clueless Americans from restricting handgun ownership as Canada does. For example:


 * NRA Ad Envisions War Between Defenseless Middle Class And Drug Cartels With High-Capacity Magazines. By Aviva Shen on Feb 15, 2013. ThinkProgress.


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 * Backed by NRA CrimeStrike, the nation's first "Three Strikes and You're Out" law was enacted by ballot initiative in Washington state in 1993, sending a shock-wave reverberating through legislatures in 21 states and the U.S. Congress over the next two years. ...

In California, however, the Three Strikes language was  very broad  -- with  any of 500 felonies  counting as a possible third strike to trigger a 25-to-life sentence -- plus it included a doubling of the prison term for a second strike.
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Above quote (emphasis added) from: Getting Tough on Crime: The History and Political Context of Sentencing Reform Developments Leading to the Passage of the 1994 Crime Act. Published in Sentencing and Society: International Perspectives. Edited by Cyrus Tata and Neil Hutton. Ashgate Publishing Limited, Hampshire, England, 2002.

The laws at the federal level, and in many states, apply to marijuana possession above a certain amount, or growing above a certain number of plants. See earlier mandatory minimum charts. For more charts of all federal mandatory minimums (not just for marijuana and other drug offenses), see these pages.

The "truth-in-sentencing" (mandatory minimum sentencing) and "Two and Three Strikes" laws apply to many nonviolent criminals. At both the federal and state level. See history farther down of the NRA's state-by-state CrimeStrike campaign. With help from ALEC and Corrections Corporation of America.


 * Federal Judge Quits, Calls Judicial System Unjust. June 25, 2003. Associated Press (AP) story, National Public Radio interview, and Judge John S. Martin's statement. "The result, he said, is a slew of lengthy prison sentences for low-level drug dealers 'who society failed at every step.' ... While many judges have criticized sentencing guidelines, it is unusual for a judge to publicly cite the frustrations of the job in stepping down." See also: Let Judges Do Their Jobs. By Hon. John S. Martin Jr..

Dissenting Opinions of Judges, Federal Drug Sentencing, Mandatory Minimum Sentences. A list of many articles by judges. At November Coalition site.

Shoulda Robbed a Bank
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Number of marijuana prisoners
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Disenfranchised from voting, college, and jobs
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This racist drug war is triply hard. People convicted of misdemeanor cannabis offenses, and other drug offenses, are blocked from getting much college financial aid. Drug convictions of all kinds can block job opportunities. And worst of all felons can be blocked permanently from voting. It is the epitome of Nixon's drug war racism and the "Southern strategy". See Felony disenfranchisement. See map of U.S. felony disenfranchisement laws by state. See news.

News
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 * See Google News: mandatory minimum. And sorted by date.


 * Holder's Legacy: Steering Away From the Drug War and Mass Incarceration. 25 Sept 2014. Huffington Post..
 * The head of the DEA is still quite fond of mandatory minimum sentences. 19 Sept 2014. Vox. Useful charts, too.
 * DEA Chief Michele Leonhart Struggles To Explain Position On Drug Sentencing Reform. 18 Sept 2014. Huffington Post.
 * Federal Agency Approves Early Release Of Some 46,000 Drug Prisoners. 18 July 2014. ThinkProgress. More info:.
 * Drug Offenders Constitute Half of Federal Prisoners: A Chart. 11 March 2014. By FAMM..
 * Attorney General Eric Holder Slams U.S. Mass Incarceration At Security Ministers Conference in Medellín, Colombia. 22 Nov 2013. Drug Policy Alliance.
 * How Eric Holder Bypassed Congress To Reform America's Draconian Drug Sentencing. By Erin Fuchs. 12 August 2013. Business Insider.
 * Special Series: The Legacy And Future Of Mass Incarceration. February 2013. NPR, National Public Radio. Working with Prison Time: 40 years of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, a service of NCPR: North Country Public Radio.
 * GUEST OPINION: Elderly prisoners pose little risk, big cost - Fall River, MA - The Herald News. By Vanita Gupta. 15 June 2012.

NRA CrimeStrike campaign for mandatory minimums
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The NRA must not be proud of their original CrimeStrike program. At the time of this writing, the NRA website (nra.org) does not mention their original CrimeStrike program. See this search of their website for "CrimeStrike". It only finds a television program.

Fortunately, Google finds the history of CrimeStrike elsewhere:
 * Google Books: "CrimeStrike".
 * Google Scholar: "CrimeStrike".

Getting Tough on Crime: The History and Political Context of Sentencing Reform Developments Leading to the Passage of the 1994 Crime Act. Published in Sentencing and Society: International Perspectives. Edited by Cyrus Tata and Neil Hutton. Ashgate Publishing Limited, Hampshire, England, 2002. Quote (emphasis added):
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 * At the start of the Clinton administration in 1993 (and in the face of Clinton's strong expressions of support for gun control) the National Rifle Association announced it would launch a national campaign to get tough on criminals (Balz 1993). This was seen by many as a ploy to divert support away from Democratic gun control initiatives. NRA CrimeStrike -- a division of the National Rifle Association which had been founded in 1991 to "focus on the failures of America's criminal justice system" was then headed by Steve Twist, a close associate of Bob Corbin, the former Arizona Attorney General who had served as President of the NRA. According to its internet advertisements, NRA CrimeStrike has worked to pass "truth in sentencing" laws in Arizona, Mississippi, and Virginia; and "Three Strikes and You're Out" laws in Washington, California, Delaware, Georgia, North Carolina, Vermont, and Pennsylvania. ...

Backed by NRA CrimeStrike, the nation's first "Three Strikes and You're Out" law was enacted by ballot initiative in Washington state in 1993, sending a shock-wave reverberating through legislatures in 21 states and the U.S. Congress over the next two years. ...

In California, however, the Three Strikes language was  very broad  -- with  any of 500 felonies  counting as a possible third strike to trigger a 25-to-life sentence -- plus it included a doubling of the prison term for a second strike.
 * }

The book chapter discussed above mentions this NRA report from the early 1990s: CrimeStrike Special Report: Elements for an Effective Criminal Justice System. Author: CrimeStrike, A Division of the NRA. Showing Holes. By Peter H. Stone. Mother Jones. January/February 1994 Issue. Quote from article (emphasis added):
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 * The NRA also made the major blunder of taking on Joseph McNamara, the well-known former head of the San Jose, California, police department. The NRA ran an ad, headlined " So You Want Legalized Drugs in America? ", that distorted McNamara's beliefs and angered many law enforcement officials.

CrimeStrike, which combines state lobbying with national advertising and direct-mail blitzes, appears to have been launched partly to woo back the police community. It is also aimed at diverting public attention from gun-control measures and focusing it on NRA-backed campaigns to pass tougher sentencing laws and build more prisons in several states. This past election season, CrimeStrike succeeded in pushing initiatives through in Washington and Texas.
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NRA and Charlton Heston Criticize Safety Valve. DRCNet Activist Guide, Issue: #2, August 1994. Quote (emphasis added):
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 * In a highly dishonest advertisement by the National Rifle Association on CNN last Tuesday, actor Charlton Heston criticized the Crime Bill, claiming that it would  let 10,000 drug dealers back out on the streets .
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The NRA Strikes Back. By Chris Bryson, In These Times, March 17, 1997, pp. 18-19. Click "full page" link for full-size pages. Quote (emphasis added):
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 * the NRA formed CrimeStrike in 1991 as a division of its lobbying arm, the Institute for Legislative Action. ... CrimeStrike logged its first victory in November 1993 when it backed Washington state's "Three Strikes and You're Out" initiative, the nation's first. ... That success was rapidly followed by similar victories in California and Virginia, where NRA lobbyists again provided essential money and manpower to "three strikes" campaigns. In Virginia and Mississippi, according to CrimeStrike state legislative affairs director Susan Misiora, the NRA was "instrumental" in passing truth-in-sentencing measures which lengthened average prison sentences.
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When Misery Means Profit: Immigration Enforcement, the Prison Industry and ALEC. 2011 article by AZ resists ALEC. See  American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Article quote (emphasis added):
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 * In the early 1990s, the NRA, an ALEC member, initiated a campaign called CrimeStrike designed to win passage of ALEC’s “Truth in Sentencing Act” and “Habitual Violent Offender Incarceration Act” in state legislatures. Between 1993 and 1995, truth-in-sentencing laws were adopted by twenty states and by 1998 ALEC could declare victory as truth-in-sentencing bills had become law in 40 states.  In addition, 25 states now have three-strikes laws similar to ALEC’s model legislation.  Of course, the result of this legislation is predictable and well documented: during the 1990s, prison construction boomed, the incarceration rate doubled driven by a prison population expansion of one-half million people and private jailers secured lucrative new contracts to house thousands of inmates from overcrowded public facilities.
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Not for Praise, but for Principle. August 18, 1995. An address to the 17th Annual NRA National Shooting Coaches and Instructors Conference. By Thomas C. Wyld, Director, PR & Communications, National Rifle Association. Institute for Legislative Action. Fairfax, Virginia. Quote (emphasis added):
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 * That's why, in the first six months of this year alone, NRA's Institute for Legislative Action, through its CrimeStrike Division, has worked toward criminal justice reform and victims' rights in fifteen states -- from "Three Strikes You're Out" in Vermont to the "Hard Time for Armed Crime" Initiative in Washington state. Think about that. Criminal justice reform. And victims' rights. In fifteen states. In just six months. By one citizens' group. Yours. The National Rifle Association. NRA is working for -- and passing -- Two and Three Strikes laws to ensure that repeat offenders are kept behind bars for life. NRA is working for -- and passing -- truth-in-sentencing to require violent criminals to serve eighty-five percent of sentences imposed.
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Corporate Con Game. June 21, 2010. By Beau Hodai, In These Times. Quote (emphasis added):


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 * In the early '90s, the ALEC's Criminal Justice Task Force was co-chaired by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the country's largest private prison company. During those years, the National Rifle Association (NRA), another task force member (and the current task force co-chair), initiated a campaign to introduce two pieces of ALEC-inspired legislation at the state and federal level: the so-called "truth-in-sentencing" and "three-strikes-you're-out" laws. Truth-in-sentencing called for all violent offenders to serve 85 percent of their sentences before being eligible for release. Three strikes called for mandatory life imprisonment for a third felony conviction. The NRA campaign, dubbed "CrimeStrike,"...
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10 Myths of Gun Control. March 1996, NRA Institute for Legislative Action. Quote (emphasis added):


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 * NRA is meeting that challenge with its CrimeStrike division, established to advance real solutions to the crime problem while protecting the rights of all honest citizens. Working in states across the nation, CrimeStrike has worked for passage of "truth in sentencing laws" which require that criminals actually serve at least 85% of time sentenced, "Victim's Bill of Rights" constitutional amendments, and "Three Strikes You're Out" laws.
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NRA, handguns, and youth murders in Chicago
Return to top. See chart to right of household possession of firearms and handguns by country.

The NRA refuses to acknowledge that countries with low rates of handgun ownership have much lower murder rates. Only nationwide handgun restriction works well.

The statistics do not show the terror and post-traumatic stress of living in the war zones where many urban high schools in the USA are found. "We spent five months at Harper High School in Chicago, where last year alone 29 current and recent students were shot. We went to get a sense of what it means to live in the midst of all this gun violence, how teens and adults navigate a world of funerals and Homecoming dances."
 * Harper High School, Part One. Feb. 15, 2013. This American Life.
 * Harper High School, Part Two. Feb. 22, 2013. This American Life.

Handguns equal high murder rate
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The U.S. stats for shootings are startling. Above graphic is old. For more recent info: About Gun Violence | Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence:. See Brady Campaign. See table of CDC stats: Gun Death and Injury Stat Sheet 2008 & 2009.

In 2005 almost 3% of households in Canada possessed handguns, compared to 18% of U.S. households that possessed handguns. See chart. Canada has a  than its neighbor to the south, the USA.

In 2011, 72% of the 8,583 homicides committed using firearms in the United States were committed using handguns. See: Expanded Homicide Data Table 8 - Murder Victims by Weapon, 2007-2011. By the FBI (U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation)

Nearly all of Western Europe bans or severely restricts handguns. Rifles and shotguns are legal to own. The murder rates are much lower than in the USA. See Wikipedia:
 * List of countries by intentional homicide rate.
 * List of countries by firearm-related death rate.
 * Gun politics and Gun politics in Canada.
 * Gun politics in the United States.

% of households by country with handguns and long guns
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 * Self-Reported Gun Ownership in U.S. Is Highest Since 1993. By Lydia Saad. October 26, 2011. Gallup report. "Forty-seven percent of American adults currently report that they have a gun in their home or elsewhere on their property. This is up from 41% a year ago and is the highest Gallup has recorded since 1993, albeit marginally above the 44% and 45% highs seen during that period." ... "The new result comes from Gallup's Oct. 6-9 [2011] Crime poll."


 * Table 18 (below) on page 279 of Criminal Victimisation in International Perspective, by the International Crime Victims Survey.

Table 18 heading: "Ownership of firearms and handguns in countries and main cities (percentages). 1989-2005 ICVS and 2005 EU ICS." From the report intro: "A large portion of the latest data in this report comes from the European Survey on Crime and Safety (EU ICS), organised by a consortium led by Gallup Europe, co-financed by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Research and Technology Development."

The percentages in table 18 below are by household.

High-capacity gun magazines
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In the opinion of some the proliferation of handguns is far more important in causing higher murder rates than high-capacity gun magazines. High-capacity magazines in rifles and shotguns are a tiny problem in gun violence. Getting rid of handguns is what is necessary. Rifles and shotguns do not need to be banned. An "assault rifle" that is legal in the USA is just a semi-automatic rifle. Fully-automatic rifles (machine guns) are no longer legal in the USA for the most part. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution is meant to defend against the threat of tyranny, and that is done better with rifles and shotguns, not handguns. Handguns only increase the murder rate, and are laughable weapons for defending against tyranny. High-capacity magazines for rifles make some sense in making the second amendment more effective. But they are not essential. Getting rid of high-capacity magazines for handguns may be a good start in eventually banning, or severely restricting, handgun ownership in the USA. For more info and points of view:


 * Magazine (firearms). Magazines and clips.
 * David Gregory Held Up A High-Capacity Magazine To See If The Head Of The NRA Would Budge On Anything. By Brett LoGiurato. Dec. 23, 2012. Business Insider.
 * NRA Chief Calls For National Database Of The Mentally Ill And Says: If You Want To Call Me Crazy, Then Call Me Crazy. By Brett LoGiurato. Dec. 23, 2012. Business Insider.
 * Why We Must Ban High-Capacity Gun Magazines. By Sen. Frank Lautenberg and Rep. Carolyn McCarthy. April 6, 2011. Huffington Post.

More cops, more guns, more jails
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 * See: Drug war causes high U.S. incarceration rate.

Whatever good the NRA has done is far outweighed by its part in creating an incarceration nation. See Drug war charts and maps. See Wikipedia: Mandatory minimum sentencing, and Two and Three Strikes laws. On the day of the Mayan apocalypse, Dec. 21, 2012, the NRA marched in: "LaPierre announced that former Rep. Asa Hutchinson [ex-DEA chief], R-Ark., will lead an NRA program that will develop a model security plan for schools that relies on armed volunteers." Many of them trained and indoctrinated by the NRA. NRA Press Conference: Wayne LaPierre Calls For Armed Police Officers At Every School. Huffington Post, Dec. 21, 2012.



More links
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Truth in sentencing:
 * Google search: truth in sentencing.
 * Google search: mandatory minimum.
 * Google search: three strikes laws.
 * Truth in Sentencing Laws | eHow.com.

Categories
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