Gun control is for civilians, not criminals. The criminal justice system should view criminals as victims. These are the guiding lights of Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon.
On the same day that an 81-year-old woman was shot to death in a home invasion robbery, Gascon sent out a fundraising email decrying the use of sentencing enhancements. Enhancements add prison time for violent crimes for a number of reasons, from gang affiliation to the use of guns.
But Gascon thinks we shouldn’t be too hard on criminals. Gascon did not add a sentence enhancement to the charges against the woman’s killer, a man who, of course, had an extensive criminal history and was recently released on parole in September. The enhancement would add 25 years to his sentence.
Gascon said that this is because sentence enhancements are disproportionately used against minorities. It’s a dubious claim at best, but it ignores the real question: Does this individual, a repeat criminal who tried to rob another house after shooting a woman to death, deserve a sentencing enhancement that would keep him behind bars?
It would seem like a pretty simple decision for a Democrat in charge of the criminal justice system as Gascon is in Los Angeles to take a hard-line stance on crimes committed with a gun. Democrats are the party of gun control, and Gascon is a proponent of it as well. But, like other liberal district attorneys, he is convinced his primary goal should be to keep criminals out of jail rather than have them face justice. That magical word “equity” is the goal, not safety.
It shouldn’t take a murder to lock up an unrepentant, repeat criminal. It should be obvious that such predators belong behind bars, sentencing enhancement and all, especially if you’re someone who has decided to lecture people about gun control. But, when your biggest goal is fighting “mass incarceration,” criminals are actually victims, while the real victims “do not have enough education to keep their mouth shut.”
In a normal world, people such as Gascon would be nowhere near the district attorney’s office. But Los Angeles chose to support this by electing him in the first place, just as San Francisco did with Chesa Boudin and Philadelphia did with Larry Krasner. “Social justice” is what prevails in cities dominated by Democrats. If you want real justice, you will have to look elsewhere.
