Just looked up some “penalties” in Canada for murdering people with your car.
If you use a car to drive aggressively and cause death, you only get a maximum of 2 years in jail. That’s it. Take a life for maybe up to 2 years in jail.
I don’t doubt that deaths by cars aren’t taken seriously. I doubt that deaths by guns are.
Btw. if you’re willing to prevent deaths in either of these cases, you should actually work on preventive measures instead of penalizing after the killing. As the diagram above clearly shows, even harsh punishments don’t prevent gun crimes, so what makes you think it would work for car crimes?
What you could do instead is:
Separate gun owners/drivers from other people (don’t allow carrying guns through the town/protected bike lanes)
Reduce the number of people who feel the need to own a gun/car (build strong and safe communities/build fast and safe public transit)
you should actually work on preventive measures instead of penalizing after the killing.
100% prevention is the best way to do things. But you also have to make sure that you don’t devalue a victim’s life by giving their killer “up to 2 years” in prison. I don’t know how I’d react if a loved one were killed by a reckless driver, only to get 4 months in jail (or none, as is usually the case).
As a Non-American I seriously wonder which one is which. I don’t have the feeling that either of them is treated with any seriousness in the US.
Just looked up some “penalties” in Canada for murdering people with your car.
If you use a car to drive aggressively and cause death, you only get a maximum of 2 years in jail. That’s it. Take a life for maybe up to 2 years in jail.
It’s not taken seriously at all.
I don’t doubt that deaths by cars aren’t taken seriously. I doubt that deaths by guns are.
Btw. if you’re willing to prevent deaths in either of these cases, you should actually work on preventive measures instead of penalizing after the killing. As the diagram above clearly shows, even harsh punishments don’t prevent gun crimes, so what makes you think it would work for car crimes?
What you could do instead is:
100% prevention is the best way to do things. But you also have to make sure that you don’t devalue a victim’s life by giving their killer “up to 2 years” in prison. I don’t know how I’d react if a loved one were killed by a reckless driver, only to get 4 months in jail (or none, as is usually the case).