As of today’s date, there have been 102 mass shootings in the United States just this year, and it’s only March.  The recent horrific mass shootings in both Atlanta and Boulder have again brought up the discussion advocating for gun reforms.  A once in a century pandemic cannot be the only thing that slows mass shootings in this country.  In many ways, our lives are starting to feel normal again after a long, difficult year filled with so much loss.  Sadly, the return to mass shootings is also a sign of a return to “normal” in the United States.

Can voters bring guns into polling places?  In most states, the answer is: it depends.  Only about a dozen states—including California, Arizona, Florida and Georgia—explicitly ban open and/or concealed carry in voting sites.  In much of the country, voters may bring firearms into polling places, as long as the buildings and churches do.  Those rules vary at the state and local level.

Benjamin Franklin once said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”  But what would Franklin have given up to secure a lot of permanent safety—stopping a sometimes lethal microbe that has already killed thousands of Americans?  Like so much else in our world during these trying times, his maxim now faces a harsh test from COVID-19.

Try to talk to someone about how a court of law has engineered your financial ruin and, in so doing, has utterly ignored statutory and constitutional imperatives, and it is likely that you will be met with a blank, glazed stare.  After all, America has a good legal system, right?  Say what you will about America’s behavior in the Middle East and that nasty little torture racket at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and goodness knows where else—America’s legal system is…well….it is the best system there is.

Right?

History

In the United States, habitual offender laws, commonly referred to as "three-strikes laws" were first implemented on March 7, 1994, and are part of the Department of Justice Anti-Violence Strategy.  These laws require two previous convictions in order to be applicable and sometimes make life in prison mandatory.  Twenty-eight states have some form of a three-strikes law.  Its purpose is to drastically increase the punishment of those convicted of more than two felonies, but, in some instances, convictions of more than just one criminal offense, not necessarily a felony, will still result in harsher penalties as it does in Washington, D.C.

Warped Incentives

“Prosecutors have more power than anyone, in many respects, over the lives of the average person,” said Daniel Medwed, professor at the Northeastern University School of Law. “But there is almost no accountability, no transparency, and the public isn’t paying attention—that is a very, very combustible concoction.

Senator Rand Paul took a lot of heat from establishment Conservatives and some in the media for his unwavering stand against the Patriot Act.  The party line that emerged said that we are now vulnerable to terrorist attack.  Even Senator Paul, himself, said he was being accused of damaging America’s defenses against such attacks.