The only reason that people don't follow the law is because there is everything to gain and nothing to lose from not following it. Give them a good incentive to follow the law - such as long prison sentences - and they will have one more good reason to give up their criminal ways. If we want to make a complaint about the already corrupt prison system with long sentences for petty drug possession crimes, well, I'll venture a guess that there are more people incarcerated for drug crimes than would be for illegal arms possession. So it won't really make a difference if that is true.
Another digression: it wouldn't help the issue of crime in general to increase prison times vs. rehabilitating criminals. Of course it's unsustainable to keep people in jails (unless you could pull a profit) so somewhere along the lines people will realize that and decide to attack the problem of crime at its roots. But I'm just responding to your claim that most people will not obey the law. It's more or less a valid observation, but I don't think you should take that for granted.
You've been using that claim a lot up and down this thread, but it's only an assumption. Another assumption/generalization that you use - you treat criminals as if it's this one-dimensional personality profile that some people have and other people don't. Characterizing "criminals" as such only assumes an us vs. them attitude that stifles the ability for us to see change in their behaviour as possible. I don't want to sound too leftist with all this attitudes and labelling talk, but my point is that criminality is a behaviour, not something that defines a person inherently. And before anybody gets up on this, yes crime is more than just individual behaviour, it also involves cultural values and social dynamics for example. I mean to describe it as behaviour and not as a definition of someone's personality to emphasize that it /can/ be changed and we should consider that whenever we make a debate about strengthening gun laws, because that is basically what laws do. Laws guide behaviour. Simply saying that certain people just won't obey the law first of all throws the very point of laws out of the window, and secondly turns a question of more or less into yes or no, which is both an unrealistic portrayal of the world, as well as a discussion-killing rhetorical device.
It /is/ possible to make criminals obey the law more - or to state it differently - make laws that encourage less people to become criminals, whatever makes you happy.
Another digression: it wouldn't help the issue of crime in general to increase prison times vs. rehabilitating criminals. Of course it's unsustainable to keep people in jails (unless you could pull a profit) so somewhere along the lines people will realize that and decide to attack the problem of crime at its roots. But I'm just responding to your claim that most people will not obey the law. It's more or less a valid observation, but I don't think you should take that for granted.
You've been using that claim a lot up and down this thread, but it's only an assumption. Another assumption/generalization that you use - you treat criminals as if it's this one-dimensional personality profile that some people have and other people don't. Characterizing "criminals" as such only assumes an us vs. them attitude that stifles the ability for us to see change in their behaviour as possible. I don't want to sound too leftist with all this attitudes and labelling talk, but my point is that criminality is a behaviour, not something that defines a person inherently. And before anybody gets up on this, yes crime is more than just individual behaviour, it also involves cultural values and social dynamics for example. I mean to describe it as behaviour and not as a definition of someone's personality to emphasize that it /can/ be changed and we should consider that whenever we make a debate about strengthening gun laws, because that is basically what laws do. Laws guide behaviour. Simply saying that certain people just won't obey the law first of all throws the very point of laws out of the window, and secondly turns a question of more or less into yes or no, which is both an unrealistic portrayal of the world, as well as a discussion-killing rhetorical device.
It /is/ possible to make criminals obey the law more - or to state it differently - make laws that encourage less people to become criminals, whatever makes you happy.