PHILADELPHIA – "Governor Edward G. Rendell today joined Pennsylvania House Speaker Dennis O’Brien in announcing their joint support for legislation that would create a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence for anyone who discharges a firearm with the intent to injure, maim or kill a law enforcement officer.
The legislation expands upon House Bill 2467, which passed the House in 2006 establishing a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence for injury to a police officer.
“The need for Speaker O’Brien’s legislation has been tragically demonstrated by the last five weeks in Philadelphia where we have seen three city police officers shot and wounded and one, Charles Cassidy, shot and killed,” Governor Rendell said. “This carnage is overwhelming evidence of the need for swift and sure punishment that acts as a deterrent to armed assault on our police officers.”
“Let the word go out that in Pennsylvania anyone who fires a gun at a police officer is going to jail for at least two decades,” said Speaker O’Brien. “We should, and we must, give maximum protection to those who put their lives on the line protecting us.”
Whoa a sec there, Hoss, you've got is ass backwards. The people who protect us are not drafted to these jobs. They join knowing full well of the dangers involved. Why in the name of all thats holy are there not harsh sentences for anyone shooting anyone without just cause?
A law like this is of course unconstitutional, for the courts have opined that one CAN use deadly force to resist an unlawful arrest, so you can imagine when all else fails that an otherwise innocent person could be sent to prison for 20 years even if his use of a firearm was justified.
This imaginary world where the lives of the police are more important than the lives of the citizens they've SWORN to protect and defend is in one helluva screwed up universe, now isn't it.
The dangerous streets do not appear to stir you to action, Governor, but when someone in a uniform faces "carnage" it is somehow worse?
Boggles.
Whoa a sec there, Hoss, you've got is ass backwards. The people who protect us are not drafted to these jobs. They join knowing full well of the dangers involved. Why in the name of all thats holy are there not harsh sentences for anyone shooting anyone without just cause?
A law like this is of course unconstitutional, for the courts have opined that one CAN use deadly force to resist an unlawful arrest, so you can imagine when all else fails that an otherwise innocent person could be sent to prison for 20 years even if his use of a firearm was justified.
This imaginary world where the lives of the police are more important than the lives of the citizens they've SWORN to protect and defend is in one helluva screwed up universe, now isn't it.
The dangerous streets do not appear to stir you to action, Governor, but when someone in a uniform faces "carnage" it is somehow worse?
Boggles.
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