Re: We need gunlaws like in the US to fight crime
And to an extent you're also right that the solution to crime is preventing it, not retrospective punishment for the minority of offenders who are caught.
Prevention is better than cure, but the cure for crime is a deterrant level term. All assaults should guarantee prison, even if its a first offence and you plead guilty. Scrap early release, then start with say a minimum 3 year term and double down for aggravating factors - race/gang component as perceived by the victim it doubles, involved a weapon it doubles again, used the weapon on the victim, double it again. Stabbings then, would consist of a minimum term of 12 years served, 24 if part of a gang attack. Criminals are dumb as a box of frogs - they not only committed a crime serious enough for the victim to report AND the police to investigate, but they got caught; however, even those dumb frog boxes will eventually realise that violent crime isn't the answer to any perceived slight to their precious little egos.
First of all, government need to legalise all recreational drugs
Agreed completely. The war on drugs was lost at the first battle.
If poverty or unemployment are a separate cause
They're not. I grew up in a poor area with high unemployment. None of my family are criminals, none of my friends are, nor their families. Its a convenient excuse to commit the crime you were going to commit anyway, and nothing more.
Locking people up certainly keeps them out of circulation, but that's all it does - the reoffending rates are appalling.
People reoffend because the punishment first time around was trivial to them. Violent criminals in jail cannot be out and about attacking innocent people. Prison works. Its just that letting people out of prison after 5 minutes under lock and key teaches them nothing. 20 years for kicking the shit out of someone with your group of mates ensures that for 20 years you don't reoffend, for 20 years you choose no more victims, and for the rest of your days when you get out, you won't be doing that again. Prison isn't supposed to reform, it is supposed to punish - the criminal is to reform themselves while being punished, or upon release. It's not societys job - behave or stay in jail.
Places such as Singapore with very long jail terms for most crime have virtually zero rates of offending and all but zero rates of reoffending.
Criminals are universally self selecting - the only problem is victims aren't.
Existing approaches have failed, arming ourselves to the teeth won't work
Unfortunately though, it does. Many criminals are armed anyway, and all are cowards. They're betting that their victim won't be armed and when they find out they're wrong, they rethink their ideas.
I've been very seriously assaulted 3 times in my life. The first time the offender got a slap on the wrist and was free of the CJS before my bones had healed. He went on to have a long reoffending rate. The second time was a gang assault, and my injuries never healed; again they got a slap on the wrist and carried right on offending as though nothing had happened. The third time, well, the third time was a bit different (and no I don't carry a weapon and no I didn't go over the top)....
I hate fighting and I'm really not very good at it. Fortunately, most criminals aren't either - they just have first mover advantage, a little more practice, and a total disregard for the health of their victim. You can train for that - it only takes a year to become physically & mentally capable, and to be trained to a level that can work if you study the right systems. I don't know about my 3rd assailant - maybe he reformed, maybe he didn't, but I do know that when I woke up in the morning, I felt that justice had been done, and that when he woke up in the morning, he understood what it was like to be one of his victims. His injuries, quite honestly, are really not my problem and I don't lose any sleep over it.