Idiot Politician of the Day - Virginia Democratic State Delegate Joseph Morrissey

This idiot, Democratic Delegate Joseph Morrissey, thought it would be great to pull out a rifle in the Virginia Legislature. As the picture below shows, he fails gun safety 101 by having a finger, his thumb, on the trigger of his rifle. All this stunt does is prove that he should not be in possession of a rifle.

However, like many good Democrat stunts, this one too backfires, in that it now seems that all Democrat Delegate Morrissey managed to do was highlight his criminal past.

A Virginia lawmaker who drew gasps from his colleagues when he brandished a borrowed AK-47 during an anti-gun speech Thursday was found guilty in 2002 of committing a vicious 1999 assault, was sanctioned for legal misconduct while prosecuting a rape case, spent six months in jail for contempt of a federal court, and saw his law license revoked in 2003. - Daily Caller

He represents an area just north of Richmond including a part of the city. He is a perfect example of part of the problem the US has with its Government. We have too many people who have no business being in politics representing us. How did such a person get to be a state delegate? Perhaps it is because he was not good at anything else.

Delegate Morrissey's stunt was part of an attempt to push gun control in Virginia. If anything, Virginia needs to ensure that the names of all persons who are ineligible to obtain a firearm are in the FBI background check database as well as ensuring that criminals (using guns or not) are sent to jail for their 'fair share' of prison time. Virginia executed the DC sniper. Maryland could not even bring itself to try the DC sniper with a possibility of him facing the death penalty. This despite their plea to try the sniper first that they would push for the death penalty. A promise that was later proven to be a lie.

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This is why we should be Executing Convicted Terrorists

Keep in mind that this concerns a man whose only reason for still being around is due to the fact that he failed in his quest to blow himself, everyone traveling to the US with him and the plane they were all on to pieces.

Reid was arrested in 2001 for attempting to blow up American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami with 197 passengers and crew on board. Why had Attorney General Eric Holder decided not to renew his security measures, kept in place since 2002?

According to court documents filed in a 2007 civil lawsuit against the government, Reid claimed that SAMs violated his First Amendment right of free speech and free exercise of religion. In a hand-written complaint, he asserted that he was being illegally prevented from performing daily “group prayers in a manner prescribed by my religion.” Yet the list of Reid’s potential fellow congregants at ADX Florence reads like a Who’s Who of al Qaeda’s most dangerous members: Ramzi Yousef and his three co-conspirators in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing; 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui; “Millennium bomber” Ahmed Ressam; “Dirty bomber” Jose Padilla; Wadih el-Hage, Osama Bin Laden’s personal secretary, convicted in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombing that killed 247 people. - WSJ

This is an idiotic situation that that the Government has put itself in. Richard Reid should have faced the death penalty for what he had planned to do, especially given that it was only blind luck (and dare I say an Act of God) that prevented him from being successful.

Surely, he would have been eligible for the death penalty had he killed anyone during his act of terrorism. Unfortunately, his plans were to die in the process. Despite being stopped, he should have been tried according to his intent, not the final result. He should have been executed and as a side benefit we would not have to be dealing with how to confine him in prison or worry about who he might talk to or who he might drive to the cause of terrorism, not to mention worry about whether the Government is violating his rights or not. Instead we get to worry about all those things as well as a surely have to deal with a growing group of supporters within the population who will eventually call for his release because he has reformed himself while in prison.

Better to put him and all the others in a box. They do not deserve to live. Keeping them alive just invites trouble.

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Stupid Double-Standard for Minor Children - Abortion and Death Penalty

How is it possible that children are no longer eligible for the death penalty in cases of murder simply because they are under the age of 18 and therefore not completely responsible for their actions, and yet they are somehow responsible enough to purchase 'abortion pills', not only without permission of the parents, but even without having to see a doctor?

The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday it would accept, not appeal, a federal judge's order that lifts Bush administration restrictions limiting over-the-counter sales of "Plan B" to women 18 and older. U.S. District Judge Edward Korman ruled last month in a lawsuit filed in New York that President George W. Bush's appointees let politics, not science, drive their decision to restrict over-the-counter access.

Women's groups said the FDA's action was long overdue, since the agency's own medical reviewers had initially recommended that the contraceptive be made available without any age restrictions.

Korman ordered the FDA to let 17-year-olds get the birth control pills. He also directed the agency to evaluate clinical data to determine whether all age restrictions should be lifted. - Breitbart

This is the height of Government, and dare I say Liberal, stupidity and irresponsibility.

This is part of a larger battle where liberals are fighting for the right of minors to get an abortion without parental permission. See my comments on this issue here: Minors, the Death Penalty and Abortion

If 17 year-old 'children' are so responsible, then let's change the law so that you are treated as an adult at age 17 and not 18. Then they can go get abortions without having to tell their parents and can also face the justice system as an adult when they end up on the wrong side of the law. These half-ass measures just makes being a parent more difficult and exposes children to much more dangerous and risky behavior. (Not for anything, but if this pill was available back in the 60's, we might not have the President that we have now, given that his mother got pregnant when she was 17...)

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Somali Pirate in NY - Crush Him

When dealing with pirates, remember fact number one:

PIRATES KILL MERCHANT SEAMEN

I say this as it seems that we are going to be subjected to a flood of sympathy stories about this poor little pirate:

His mother said she was horrified when she saw a photo of him being brought handcuffed into 26 Federal Plaza on Monday, a smile on his face.

"The last time I saw him he was in his school uniform," the mother, Adar Abdirahman Hassan, 40, told the Associated Press from her home in Galkayo.

"He took all his books the day he disappeared, except one, I think, and did not come back."

She said her son should not be held responsible for the Maersk hijacking.

"He was brainwashed. People who are older than him outwitted him, people who are older than him duped him," she said.

"I cried when I saw the picture of him," Hassan said of the arrest photo. "Relatives brought a copy of the picture to me. Surely he is telling himself now, 'My mother's heart is broken.'" - NY Daily News

You know what. This kid has the very same sob story as all the other Somali pirates. It's just that many of the others have gotten ransom money to release the ships they captured and the sailors they terrorized. Now they are living the big live as heros at home. This guy just wasn't that lucky. He was however lucky enough not to be with his pirate buddies when they all got bullets in their heads. As far as I am concerned, this kid should get punished to the point where it is clear that the lucky ones were the pirates who dies at the hands of the snipers.

For starters, don't fall for the talk that these pirates really didn't hurt anyone. How would you like it if your wife/husband was kidnapped on their way home from work and you get a message that you'll never see them again unless you pony up a million dollar ransom. Ransoms are being paid because there is the threat that these sailors will never be seen again unless a ransom is paid. Many sailors have been held for months. Some have apparently been abandoned by the vessel owners and their own country. No telling what will happen to these sailors once the pirates get tired of holding them. As it is, they are slowly starving to death.

So let's treat this pirate right. Convict him of piracy in NY and then take him to the edge of lower Manhattan and hang him at the water's edge in Battery Park near the Merchant Marine Memorial. (Or hang him from a yardarm from one of the sailships at South Street Seaport.) If that is too horrific, how about taking him out to Execution Rocks in Long Island Sound.

There one other way to handle this pirate. How about holding him and demanding the release of all the merchant ships and seamen currently held by pirates off Somalia. If the Somalis are so concerned about this 'kid', they can show it by letting all their hostages go. They should have to do that just to keep him from the death penalty. As for getting him back. I do not think so.

Note: There is some dispute over whether this pirate is under 18 or not. I think it makes no difference. At least not since the point that he picked up a rifle.

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Here's Your Crime Problem - Triple Murderer Escapes Death Penalty

Anti death penalty advocates have been pushing to eliminate the death penalty claiming that it does not deter crime. This is a load of bull. The real problem is that nobody is willing to give the death penalty a chance so there is little chance of a criminal getting the death penalty. This is clearly illustrated in the huge gap between the number of murders committed each year and the total number of executions carried out since the Supreme Court brought back the death penalty as a possible consequence for serious crimes.

Take the case of triple murderer/rapist Brian Nichols:

Nichols, 37, was convicted last month of 54 counts for a deadly shooting rampage that began March 11, 2005, in the same courthouse where he stood trial.

Nichols, who was being tried for rape, shot three people to death as he escaped from the downtown courthouse that day and a federal agent the next day in Atlanta's Buckhead district before being captured in neighboring Gwinnett County. - CNN

If there was ever a person who deserved to get the death penalty, it was this guy. Yet, three of the nine jurors thought that this murderer deserved to continue living. This is especially selfish of them because he has already shown a willingness to do anything, including murder, in order to escape. And now with a life sentence with no possibility of parole he was every reason to try and escape again and there is nothing the Government can do in terms of threats to stop him if given the opportunity.

Jurors told Bodiford on Friday night that they were deadlocked, with nine in favor of death and three in favor of life without parole.

Under Georgia law, the jurors must reach a unanimous decision in order to impose a death sentence. In the absence of a unanimous jury verdict, the decision fell in the hands of Bodiford.

Defense lawyers said Nichols, who confessed to the killings, suffers from a mental disorder.

The jurors unanimously found the necessary aggravating circumstances in the four murders, but they were split over the death penalty. - CNN

Surely this guy's story started will before he was charged with rape. How many other breaks was he given only to commit more crimes? As it turns out, Many:

Berks County records show that Nichols had been arrested at least three times during his short stay at the university.. In 1990, he was charged with terroristic threats, simple assault, disorderly conduct and harassment, stemming from an incident in a university dining hall, according to court documents. He pleaded guilty to the two lesser charges and the others were dropped.

The next year, Nichols was arrested twice in a month for criminal trespassing, misdemeanor criminal mischief and disorderly conduct. Those charges were later dropped. After his brief stay at Kutztown, Nichols went to Newberry College from 1992 to 1993, and played football there. Athletic spokesman Ryan Gross said that during that time Nichols was kicked off the football team for stealing from a dorm room.

After dropping out of school, Nichols moved to Georgia in 1995. He worked for Hewlett-Packard for eight years, as a UNIX systems engineer. Nichols last employment was working as a computer engineer for a logistics subsidiary of Atlanta-based shipping giant UPS. Company spokesman Norm Black says Nichols joined the unit in March 2004 and left in September 2004, which was when he was arrested in the rape case. According to his brother, Nichols earned a six-figure income and regularly attended church.

He was arrested after being charged with the brutal assault of his former girlfriend of 8 years after their break up. After discovering that she was dating Chris Rowell, a minister from their church, Nichols forced his way into her home, bound her with duct tape at gun point and raped her. He was charged with rape, aggravated assault with intent to rape, aggravated sodomy, burglary, false imprisonment and possession of a firearm during commission of a crime. The first case had ended in a mistrial with a hung jury. Nichols had told people in the courthouse "I'm not going to go lying down" when he learned that he would be retried. Nichols’ friends warned the DA’s office he might try to escape and one friend told prosecutors that Nichols planned to escape and asked him to leave a credit card in the pocket of the suit jacket he would wear to court. Nichols mother also emailed the Fulton County Sheriff's Office to tell them she believed her son may try to take an officers weapon. The retrial began the next week and the tension heightened even further 2 days before the crime spree when deputies escorting Nichols from the courthouse to his jail cell noticed something in his shoes. They found two sharp "shanks," common jailhouse weapons fashioned out of metal which possibly came from a door hinge. Nichols also taunted Assistant District Attorney Gayle Abramson and Assistant District Attorney Ash Joshi during the retrial by saying "you're doing a much better job this time" and he was apparently aware that his case was going poorly. The actions prompted Judge Barnes to have a meeting the day before the escape with counsel and he asked for extra security during Nichols scheduled testimony that Friday since the prosecution in the rape case had planned to call its last witness that day and jury deliberations were upon him. Nichols would have faced life in prison if convicted. - Wikipedia

Looking at the history of this guy he kept getting the benefit of other's misguided compassion. EVEN WHEN HIS OWN FRIENDS AND FAMILY WARNED THE AUTHORITIES THAT HE WAS A DANGEROUS PERSON AND MIGHT ATTEMPT A VIOLENT ESCAPE FROM COURT.

The US will never solve its crime problem until people like this are given the punishment they deserve. The US still has the death penalty; it should find the will to start using it. Hell, courts are not even charging people with attempted murder diluting the possible penalties before criminals even get into the courtroom (See: Attempted Murder Headline = "Armed woman arrested after entering police HQ")

When the number of executions starts to approach the number of people convicted of murder each year, I guarantee that you'll see a sharp decline in the number of both, especially a decline in the number of repeat offenders. As I wrote back in 2006:

I know that many people have problems with the death penalty. I think the main problems are that it is not used enough. The 1,000th execution milestone was just pasted a short while back. It took about 30 years to execute 1,000 murderers. In 2004 there were 16,137 murders. 62% of those murders resulted in arrests. So if the death penalty was being used for the crime, there should be thousands of death penalty sentences carried out each year. Instead, we have people being sentenced to life in prison, or less. So when people claim that the death penalty is not a deterrent to crime, I wonder how they know, because it is not being used except as an exception. I suspect that if your chances of facing the death penalty were certain, that would be something for criminals to think about. - FFI

And as I said before, "Just remember, there are 6 billion apples on this planet. Too many people are too concerned about the rotten apples. Rotten apples should be thrown away. Do what you can to keep them fresh, but if they insist on turning rotten, then there should be no guilt in throwing away garbage. Can we please reform our death penalty laws and turn it into a useful tool against crime."

Otherwise we deserve the crime problem that we have.

Previous:
Finnish Triple-Murderer Freed From Prison - 26 Feb 08
Attempted Murder Headline = "Armed woman arrested after entering police HQ" - 24 Feb 08
Strong Argument for the Death Penalty - 12 Sept 06
Maryland Backs Away from Death Penalty for Sniper - 6 March 06
Minors, the Death Penalty and Abortion - 29 Nov 05

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