I'm okay with violent felons owning guns after they serve their sentence...

[gejohnston]

39. part two

first I must warn that these will piss off people of both parties and different interest groups of both parties. You know what? I really don't give a shit because AFAIC, ideology is like organized religion, short on reason and long on dogma.

---First, end the drug war. Take away the money, take away the guns. Repeal the federal prohibition on at least pot. Addiction should be treated as a medical issue, not a criminal one.
---Change welfare rules that don't force fathers out of the house when times are bad. A hand up, not a hand out. While you are giving that hand up, you don't let go when the helpee is only half way up. IOW, remove disincentives to find a job or do something constructive like cutting food stamps when they go back to school.
---Get cities to repeal stupid zoning ordinances that make neighborhoods unwalkable. One thing I noticed living in Japan and Korea, local business mixed residences created a real community. Makes jobs close by and makes people less dependent on motor vehicles.
---Urban farming in greenhouses, if a farmer can do it for profit by selling in local markets year round, why not? Just look at all the empty lots in places like Detroit.
---Provide microloans available to create these small businesses. First priority should be the 20 worst.
---End incentives for companies to offshore manufacturing jobs and create new companies here in urban areas, not industrial parks at the edge of town.
---Fix education. I don't care about ideology, I care about results. School districts in places like Chicago spend a lot per student but half the graduates are functionally illiterate, something is wrong.
---Community policing. Most residents in these places want sub stations. I don't mean cops who live someplace else and drive around in their patrol cars. Yeah they can be there. I'm talking about men and women who live in the area and walk beats and ride horseback. One horse back cop told me in Tampa that he gets the best intelligence by riding a horse through the projects. Kids love horses and rat out the asshole uncle while petting the horse. Trust between the Man and the people in the area is a must.
---Deglamorize criminal misuse of guns. I want those kids to associate guns with the nerdy kid in Rifle Club, Harvard shooting team, and the ISSF World Cup, not using it to be King Bad Ass of the block.
---When local cops bust out of state traffickers, hand them over to the feds for violating the GCA, interstate gun sales without a license, instead of letting local DAs drop the gun crime charges like they usually do.
---Change the sentencing guidelines for straw buyers for known felons. If caught, they usually get probation.
---An EO that instructs US attorneys to accept and prosecute for felon in possession charges local police hand to them. I was disappointed that wasn't part of Obama's earlier EAs.
---Oh, end gun free zones. I agree with the then INTERPOL head after the mall attack in Nairobi.