Judge: Cities can not ban registered offenders

[custosnox]

this should be interesting, since my "parental" side is arguing with my "logical, civil rights" side. 

1) Registration plays an extra role by letting us know where the offenders live (if the registration is enforced, which it all to often isn't), which gives us that extra knowledge.  Also, by not allowing to live so close to area's of prey, then the predator has less temptation to do harm to our children.  So while they can still drive to these area's, it would take an extra effort to do so, which means that much less chance that they will actually do so.  While these reductions are small, a reduction of risk to our children justifies it.

2) If all convicted felons out of prison have the same rights as me and my children, then why is it this felon isn't allowed to walk into the local sporting goods store and buy a handgun?

[nathanm]

2) If all convicted felons out of prison have the same rights as me and my children, then why is it this felon isn't allowed to walk into the local sporting goods store and buy a handgun?

I think they should be able to, unless they're convicted of a violent felony. Especially with nearly everything being a felony these days.

I saw in the TW a couple of days ago that some morons put a porn DVD in one of Wal-Mart's dvd players that feeds their in store TVs over in Fort Smith. They were charged not with misdemeanor criminal mischief, but with felony obscenity. I wonder if they'll get the whole sex offender treatment...

Needless to say, even if they are convicted, they don't deserve either sex offender registration or to have their right to bear arms abridged.

And what's with taking away their right to vote? (IMO, people should be able to vote, even while in prison) Maybe letting prisoners vote would knock the prison lobby down a couple of notches and stop the insanity of ever increasing prison terms for nonviolent offenses and dumbness like three strikes laws.

[custosnox]

things do seem to be spiraling out of control.  What gets me are the teens being charged as sex offenders because a girl sends her bf a naughty picture via text.  While the kids should get in trouble, using a law created to protect our kids to convict our kids is an irony that I do not appreciate.

[cannon_fodder]

things do seem to be spiraling out of control.  What gets me are the teens being charged as sex offenders because a girl sends her bf a naughty picture via text.  While the kids should get in trouble, using a law created to protect our kids to convict our kids is an irony that I do not appreciate.

+1.

Guaranteed if I was a teenager with image text messaging I'd be doing all I could to collect naked pictures of hot classmates.  Camera phones, digital pictures/video . . . dear lord I would like to think I would have had a horrible collection of "kiddie porn" when I was a teenager.  One has to imagine most hormone drenched girl obsessed young men are the same way today WITH that technology rampantly available.

[nathanm]

things do seem to be spiraling out of control.  What gets me are the teens being charged as sex offenders because a girl sends her bf a naughty picture via text.  While the kids should get in trouble, using a law created to protect our kids to convict our kids is an irony that I do not appreciate.

It's all a vote-gathering exercise. That, and the prosecutors actually believe their noise that charging kids with the top count like that will deter others from acting similarly. That's worked really well in the file sharing cases.

[custosnox]

It's all a vote-gathering exercise. That, and the prosecutors actually believe their noise that charging kids with the top count like that will deter others from acting similarly. That's worked really well in the file sharing cases.

And, of course, we know all teenagers learn instantly from the life changing mistakes of others.  But I do have to agree with CF, when it comes to the troubles that a teenager can get into, if a teenage boy didn't try to get into this trouble, I would refer him straight to a psycologist.