cryptoanarchy.wiki

Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!

1997-07-01 - Re: NRA and National Online Records Check bullshit

Header Data

From: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Message Hash: 26b6fac0bc1b71e21884904c01f692a6032cf4fcd6d01bbe749d5088b85e70f1
Message ID: <19970701044410.04530@bywater.songbird.com>
Reply To: <Pine.BSF.3.91.970630165630.24139F-100000@mcfeely.bsfs.org>
UTC Datetime: 1997-07-01 11:58:30 UTC
Raw Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 19:58:30 +0800

Raw message

From: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
Date: Tue, 1 Jul 1997 19:58:30 +0800
To: cypherpunks@Algebra.COM
Subject: Re: NRA and National Online Records Check bullshit
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.91.970630165630.24139F-100000@mcfeely.bsfs.org>
Message-ID: <19970701044410.04530@bywater.songbird.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain



On Mon, Jun 30, 1997 at 06:37:56PM -0700, Lucky Green wrote:
> The idea is that the criminal has received their punishment once released 
> from prison. 

OTOH, there is no necessity at all to think of it that way.  
Prison isn't the only punishment -- there is nothing in the 
Constitution or anywhere else that says that.  (Certainly, not being 
able to own a gun is in no meaningful sense a "cruel or unusual" 
punishment.)  A court that can impose a life sentence can impose a 
lifetime ban on certain activities -- there is nothing at all 
inconsistent here.

Another fallacy is to think that prison is a temporary phenomenon. 
"Been to prison" is a permanent state -- it marks you for life. 
"Convicted Felon" is a permanent legal condition, a title with
permanent social effects.  

You are probaboy thinking that after a person has "paid their debt to
society" things are just like they were before.  It's a nice theory,
but it's false.  It's not like money.  Your "debt to society" is not
paid off by a prison term.

> Any further infringements on the person's rights are 
> unacceptable. That includes the person's Natural Right to acquire 
> fully-automaticweapons, should he so desire.  [BTW, the nature of the crime 
> committed is irrelevant]. 

"Let the punishment fit the crime".  The crime is *always* relevant to
the punishment, the punishment is *always* a function of the crime.  It
is incoherent and unjust to think otherwise.  

A punishment can certainly infringe your "Natural Rights" -- you can
be executed, after all. 

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44  61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html

Thread