Yes. But a huge part of that system is the part where we select 12 jurors. We attempt to find each one without bias, but we don’t investigate their backgrounds…we rely on their self-reported biases during voir dire.
And the reason is that we have twelve jurors, so that bias by any single juror – or any three – is not enough to sink either the prosecution or the defense. By requiring unanimity, we avoid any single unreasonable juror’s bias from sinking the ship.
Given that, your reliance on three jurors being unconvinced is not itself reasonable.
Not as much as it hurts seeing other people refusing to do so. Protections for the accused in court are a vital part of the system that protects everyone, including the vast majority of us who are innocent, and I am kinda disgusted that so many people want to throw them away.
So, if the jurors fail in their duty to deliver a unanimous verdict, why should the defendant be the one who suffers? Generally, they are protected against such things. Or at least, should be.
The jurors don’t have a duty to deliver a unanimous verdict. Each juror has an independent duty to deliberate with the others and render his best judgement as to the verdict.
We, as a society, have decided that a failure of unanimity for acquittal means he’s not acquitted and a failure of unanimity for conviction means he’s not convicted, and in either case the prosecution is free to try again.
That’s a fair point. It’s something that a lot of people believe, people of many different views.
My point of view isn’t specifically a pro gun rights point of view, it’s a pro self defence rights point of view, but I do believe that if there’s a chance you’ll be attacked by someone with a gun, then you should have the right to defend yourself with one. I live somewhere with very few guns and weak self defence laws, and it’s only the latter I’d wish to change. The problem is that in America you won’t stop criminals having access to guns, so it’s stupid to deny their victims the right to defend themselves.
I would settle for reducing the number of guns in the hands of criminals, the mentally unstable and the irresponsible, through comprehensive background checks and closing the gun show loophole. The perfect should not be the enemy of the good.
Those are things that would make it harder for ordinary people to get guns, not criminals, unless you have some way to take the hundreds of millions of guns in circulation out of the equation. If people want something badly enough, and there’s a ready supply of it, they’ll get hold of it. Unless you think guns are going to be different to alcohol or drugs in that regard.
That, to me, seems to be the big differences between America and the UK or Australia. Not just that there’s far more guns per capita in the first place, but that a vast amount of people really, really want them.
If your plan would actually take guns away from criminals successfully, I might be more inclined to support it, not that I think that one should have to have a comprehensive background check to buy something that is a guaranteed legal right to own. Really, you need to change your culture and Constitution rather than try to suppress one and ignore the other.
If your Constitution didn’t (appear to) make owning a gun a fundamental right, some of the arguments would disappear. I find it odd and disturbing that many of the same people here who are in favour of background checks for firearm ownership are so against identity checks for voting, for example. Both are rights that your Constitution guarantees in the same way.
It’s also rather sad that you only replied to my aside and not the main point of my post, but that’s been an ongoing theme in this thread…
I would too - except that cannot possibly happen. We will never get to a point where we can be sure criminals, let alone the rest, aren’t likely to have guns. I support both those policies, but they won’t make us a weapon-free paradise.
Just so this doesn’t get lost… Link, please, to me saying it was ok for anti-abortion groups to claim they had never talked to and never had anything to do with murderers, when in fact they did, because liberals like yourself might think badly of them if they told the truth, or, indeed, for any other reason. You may have confused me with another poster, or you just made it up…right?
I have no illusion that is is a perfect solution. If it reduces access by criminals, the mentally unstable and the irresponsible, it is worth it. It doesn’t have to take all guns out of the hands of undesirables. That is a specious argument.
Yes, it does have to take all the guns out of the hands of undesireables IF it is accompanied by strict limits on gun possession by the rest of us. But you didn’t propose that.
Just clarifying that your position isn’t enough to solve the problem. I don’t know if it applies to your position, since you didn’t offer an opinion about whether you want to restrict gun access to law-abiding people. I gave you the benefit of the doubt on that.
Because you’ve won. You have successfully lawyered this argument into such a convoluted mess I can’t even remember what it is you think I’ve “doubled-down” on.
All I know is I’m not going for day 2 of "Why did you say ‘microscopic.’ when you really meant “highly unlikely.'” You can die on that hill if you want to; I’m not going to.