1999 Sen. Obama Wouldn't Support Tougher Prosecutions for School Shooters

In 1999, Sen. Obama refused to support tougher prosecution for school shooters. He had an opportunity to have school shooters, age 15 and up, tried as adults. He refused. He did that vote 'present' thing that he liked to do ... and in the mean time, Chicago has some of the highest crime rates in the country and the public schools are some of the most dangerous in the country as well.

Obama Wouldn't Support Tougher Prosecution for School Shooters

In the past, he has supported race based discipline policies in which non white children would be disciplined less harshly than white children.

So ... in Obama's world ... he wants to make it harder for law abiding citizens to have handguns to protect themselves, but he makes it easier (less bad) for city kids to shoot each other in Chicago. How very ODD.

See, why in the heck doesn't some reporter out there have the balls to bring this stuff up? Someone needs to just ask him, why now, why not then?

Frustrating.

Originally posted by chiefsmom
See, why in the heck doesn't some reporter out there have the balls to bring this stuff up?

Because if you dare question Obama, in any way shape or form, you are called 'racist'.
That would be my guess.

Fact .. Obama had a chance to support tougher prosecutions for school shooters in crime ravaged Chicago. Instead of hitting criminals up with tougher jail time and helping to deter crime, he voted 'present'.

Also Fact .. now he is using his power to try to make it tougher for law abiding citizens to protect themselves.

So in Obama-land ... it is correct to feel sorry for the school shooters in Chicago and let them threaten and shoot children in the schools without threat of stiff jail time AND it is also correct to demonize law abiding American citizens who want to protect themselves from those same criminal elements .. criminal elements like the Chicago city school shooters who Obama wanted to let off with light penalties.

reply to post by FlyersFan


I know I'm going to regret getting involved in this argument.

It's debatable whether harsher penalties for criminals create much of a deterrent, especially in cases like this. People who commit school shootings are rarely fully rational, are rarely looking beyond just this shooting. It seems like the majority of school shootings culminate in a suicide; the criminals in these cases are not thinking about the future at all.

And as a recent teenager myself, I can almost guarantee that harsher penalties for 15 - 18 year olds is not going to make a single lick of difference. Teenagers hardly think of the future EVER. Especially, again, once they've decided to commit a mass murder. That is a decision that is guaranteed to be the culmination of their lives. They have no concept of the future -- they're going to die in this shooting or get life in prison, and that's basically what they know.

I'm not capable of arguing for the reduction of availability of guns; I simply don't know enough about the subject, and don't care to. It's not especially in my field of interest. But I do know that the two methods of deterrent are not at all comparable.

There is no legislative/punitive deterrent. Nobody commits a crime thinking they will get caught. Except maybe two-bit thugs looking for street cred and in that situation there is still no deterring effect.

I would go so far as to say there isnt even a deterrent in the threat of lost life in these situations.

The best anyone can hope to do physically stop the shooter as quickly as possible.

reply to post by FlyersFan


Great job there "Scoop" FF!

Nice find!

It just illustrates the lack of character, values, principles and shows him to be an agenda-driven narcissist!

Originally posted by FlyersFan
In 1999, Sen. Obama refused to support tougher prosecution for school shooters. He had an opportunity to have school shooters, age 15 and up, tried as adults. He refused. He did that vote 'present' thing that he liked to do ... and in the mean time, Chicago has some of the highest crime rates in the country and the public schools are some of the most dangerous in the country as well.

Obama Wouldn't Support Tougher Prosecution for School Shooters

In the past, he has supported race based discipline policies in which non white children would be disciplined less harshly than white children.

So ... in Obama's world ... he wants to make it harder for law abiding citizens to have handguns to protect themselves, but he makes it easier (less bad) for city kids to shoot each other in Chicago. How very ODD.

Not odd to me the current POTUS is more racist than the founding fathers IMO.

He sees blacks as noble victims and whites as privileged oppressors - period.

It is a view shared by many in America today because of the 40 years of indoctrination in the media that portray it thus.

Eric Rush wrote an excellent book about the phenomena - Negrophillia.

Excellent book written by a black man, which means it was only marginalized and ignored by the rather than vilified as it would have been had a white man stated the same facts.

reply to post by FlyersFan


Hows a come this story DOES NOT surprise me in the least? Oh because a hippocrit is a hippocrit is a hippocrit, no matter what time of their life they are currently in!

His ties to other (how should I put it?) shady......Organizations in his past also hit home with me when I read about some on ATS.....

reply to post by thisguyrighthere

Harsher penalties may or may not be a deterrent (a good debate!!) , but at the very least, the harsher penalties would get thugs and bottom dwellers away from innocent people. Everyone would be safer with harsher penalties. Obama voted 'present' to harsher penalties which would have gotten the city thugs away from innocent people for a much longer period of time.

reply to post by FlyersFan


That is true that locking people up will prevent recidivism for at least as long as they are locked up.

I guess I just cant connect voting against sentencing kids as adults with attacking a law abiding majority for the actions of the few.

Obama is just a politician so he has to play the game. When Chicago has so many juvenile offenders voting for sentencing them as adults would have upset a lot of Obama's supporters since half their children are criminally involved somehow.

Mom wants her kid safe but her kid is a little thug and she certainly doesnt want her kid to be sent up river for 30 years. At least not until he turns 18. Then mom is out in front of cameras crying about what a "good" kid her child is and how he never "meant" to hurt anyone.

It's tough job pandering to idiots.

Originally posted by FlyersFan
reply to post by thisguyrighthere

 

Harsher penalties may or may not be a deterrent (a good debate!!) , but at the very least, the harsher penalties would get thugs and bottom dwellers away from innocent people. Everyone would be safer with harsher penalties. Obama voted 'present' to harsher penalties which would have gotten the city thugs away from innocent people for a much longer period of time.

But again.... How many school shootings do not end in a suicide or the killer being otherwise killed? How would these particular harsher penalties keep anyone safe?

Originally posted by FlyersFan

Originally posted by chiefsmom
See, why in the heck doesn't some reporter out there have the balls to bring this stuff up?

Because if you dare question Obama, in any way shape or form, you are called 'racist'.
That would be my guess.

Fact .. Obama had a chance to support tougher prosecutions for school shooters in crime ravaged Chicago. Instead of hitting criminals up with tougher jail time and helping to deter crime, he voted 'present'.

Also Fact .. now he is using his power to try to make it tougher for law abiding citizens to protect themselves.

So in Obama-land ... it is correct to feel sorry for the school shooters in Chicago and let them threaten and shoot children in the schools without threat of stiff jail time AND it is also correct to demonize law abiding American citizens who want to protect themselves from those same criminal elements .. criminal elements like the Chicago city school shooters who Obama wanted to let off with light penalties.

Great find, I love seeing spotlights on hypocrisy in this (and all) politics worldwide. Not that it seems to change their course though, but it does wake people up!

My opinion on what Obama would say though is that it is not racist.. He would be doing a nice spin, of how times have changed and things are different etc., that in 1999 there were not as many outbreaks of this and guns are to blame. And video games. And *insert blank*.

I don't think this will change the administrations current course of action, but it is a great addition to the Hypocrisy section of Politics. As if there aren't enough nowadays lol. I am still amazed how people continue to go along with all of the theater!

Thanks again for this!

Don't the school shooters usually administer the death penalty on themselves?

Originally posted by Solasis
How would these particular harsher penalties keep anyone safe?

A 17 year old thug brings a gun to school with the intent to shoot someone.
That thug is locked up for the same amount of time an 18 year old would be.
That keeps that thug from getting out and shooting others.

Seems pretty clear to me that the longer you keep a violent thug locked up .. the less trouble he will be and the safer everyone else will be.

LOTS of weapons make it into the inner city high schools.
Those thugs threaten the students and teachers.
Get the thugs out of the schools and out of society for as long as possible.

Originally posted by RandyBragg
Don't the school shooters usually administer the death penalty on themselves?

You are thinking of the 'mass shootings' people who get the headlines.

We are talking about the city schools where the thugs are getting away with being thugs and potential killers simply because people like Obama refused to administer the same penalties on them that they would on thugs who are a year or two older and considered 'adults'.

According to Obama .. a 17 year old bringing a gun into a school with intent to shoot people should not receive the same penalty as an 18 year old who takes a gun into a school with the intent to shoot people.

reply to post by FlyersFan


As much as I dislike obama, I would not sign such a thing either. Charging children as adults is stupid. Either you are a child, or you are an adult, that doesn't change because of any special circumstances. That is my two cents on it.

Perhaps it is time for us to recognize that teens are neither children, nor adults, and perhaps deserve a new classification added. I dunno, maybe that would be too simple, to charge teens as teens.

Originally posted by TKDRL
Charging children as adults is stupid.

16 and 17 year old thugs who are trying to murder people aren't really 'children' as far as I'm concerned. They are thugs and deserve to be treated as such. IMHO

According to Obama;

A shooter at 17 is a child.
A shooter at 18 is an adult.
A person is a child until 26 (according to Obamacare)
yet
He regularly sends 18 year olds to fight and die for America..

????????????????????????????????????????????

I promised myself I wouldn't get involved in any of the millions of "gun control" threads here on ATS, but there are just so many of them and I have to chime in.

Now I'm not supporting Obama's actions OR going against them, but I'd like to bring up the fact that you are citing a point of view that occurred 14 years ago...

I don't know how many people in this thread have changed their minds over the span of 14 years, but I know I have.

Especially when you take into consideration of how the times have changed, it doesn't make me "suspicious" in the least bit to hear that he had a different viewpoint 14 years ago.

Originally posted by FlyersFan
Because if you dare question Obama, in any way shape or form, you are called 'racist'.

c'mon that's not true. People only say it when they hold him to a standard they didn't hold white presidents to(you can't tell me asking for the BC wasn't because of his race), or when they actually say racist things(and I've seen a lot of them).

And really, how can any of you judge this without knowing the details of what it would entail?
What's the punishment before the vote versus after the vote? Is it reasonable? Should we lock up kids for life for bringing a gun to school and having it accidentally go off and not even hit someone?

How are you going to judge his vote before even knowing the details?

Not to mention he didn't vote against it, he voted present.