Earlier this week, a 34-year old new mom went for an afternoon walk with her in-laws, with her 13-day old baby in a sling across her chest. Sounds pretty idyllic, right? And it might have been too, until 50 year old Mark Mullan came driving by in his pick-up truck and killed the grand-parents, and left the new mom and her 13-day old baby in comas from which they might not wake up.
A tragedy, yes...but a tragedy that should NOT have happened, because the filthy animal driving the truck had FIVE previous DUI's arrests...3 of them back in the 1990's, and two of them in the last half of 2012.
Holy crap. So...that is 5 previous times when he could have killed someone and didn't, and now, because our legal system is broken, he finally did, potentially wiping out a whole family.
I just don't get it. Back in January, prosecutors said since Mullan's had not been charged with a DUI since the 90's, they had to treat him like a first time offender. The fact that he had been arrested two weeks earlier in Snohomish County was not admissible...because he hadn't actually been found guilty yet. So...dude is arrested for DUI in October, doesn't go to court until January...but the fact that he was arrested on Christmas Day for driving his truck into a HOTEL...TWICE! can't be used against him?
Yes...please, take my semi-automatic guns...they are certainly the problem.
The problem? Government changed what police do from trying to hold a reasonable line to simply making money on DUIs. As such, it behooves them to allow, nay encourage, repeat offenders. The government has also exacerbated this problem by becoming a police state, making the jails too full to hold what they bag, so having to choose who even goes to jail as well.
ReplyDeleteDon't expect the government to help on these things by giving them the power to make more laws when they can't even uphold the laws they put on the books.
What is the answer? I can only say we aren't on the path to it. Democrats aren't, and never have been, interested. Republicans want business to become the government. Libertarians don't know what they want, as a whole, chaos? All I know for sure is more laws aren't the thing. Fewer laws, more sure justice, more strict punishment (say lashings or a public pillory and fines for lesser things as an option) and a involved citizenry would be my call. But I'm not even sure that is possible. Too many are getting their own little set-asides to take closing loopholes and swift and real justice too seriously.