Spotlighting ugly reasons and realities surrounding federal gun sentences

Tana Ganeva has this effective Reason piece giving attention to federal gun sentences.  The full headline highlights its themes:  “743 Years and 3 Months. 117 Years. 51 Years. Why Are These Men’s Sentences So Long?  For possessing a gun while committing a crime — even when no one is killed — too many defendants are slammed with sentences decades or even centuries longer than justice demands.”  Here are excerpts:

The federal statute 924(c) imposes mandatory minimum sentences in offenses involving a firearm. Federal law requires that the lengthy sentences for possessing a gun while committing a crime be served back-to-back instead of concurrently, even though state laws tend to be much more lax: In Indiana, where [Charles] Scott was caught, robbery is punishable by one to six years in state prison, with a recommended time of three years. Scott’s original offense, the robberies, account for a little more than six years of his sentence — the other 45 years were from the 924(c) charges. Scott’s draconian sentence is actually lighter than others snagged under the same statute — there are people sentenced to centuries in prison because of 924(c) even if their underlying crimes would have earned them far less time than multiple human life spans.

As of 2016, 14.9 percent of the federal prison population — or 24,905 people — was incarcerated due to a firearm offense carrying a mandatory minimum penalty, according to the Federal Sentencing Commission. Criminal justice reform advocates believe the law wrongly conflates gun violence and crimes where the perpetrator carries, or even just owns, a gun.

“Mandatory minimums around firearms are some of the most frustrating cases,” says Kevin Ring, the executive director of Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM), a criminal justice reform organization. “In a country with 340 million firearms, the idea that someone is not going to happen to be in possession of a gun if they commit a crime … the law does not distinguish between someone who uses a gun to commit a crime, and someone who happens to be a gun owner. It’s a frustrating, stupid law.”…

Although Scott and his family hope for federal clemency, his case isn’t a neat fit for today’s political climate. Democratic lawmakers brand themselves as advocates for gun control, and so don’t have a lot to gain from showing mercy to people who break gun laws. Most Republicans still tend to campaign on tough-on-crime platforms that don’t leave a lot of room for second chances.

“For Democrats, mandatory minimums for guns can be a plan B for gun control,” says Ring. “And for Republicans, for too long, people resisted the idea that people who own guns … some of those people sell drugs. To fend off gun control, they like to hammer people who have a gun when they commit a crime.”