Soft on crime, short on sense

Jonathan Kay starts his column today with this nonsense:

The biggest problem for opponents of Bill C-10 ... is that criminals and prisoners have no political constituency.

I'm not exactly sure what he means by 'political constituency' but if he means political 'support' Kay is either being ridiculously naive or he's a brazen liar.  Criminals and prisoners have in their corner the entire political left, most of academia especially criminologists and sociologists and a large percentage of nitwit pundits like J. Kay.

Anyway, with that kind of a start you can be sure the rest of the column is a waste of your valuable time.  So let's skip to the end where Mr Kay closes his 'argument':

Stephen Harper and his cabinet ministers bristle when they are accused of inflicting an "ideological" agenda on Canada. So I put the question to them: In the absence of evidence or expertise to back up your policy, what other word would you offer me?

Well, we can be sure that they don't share Kay's ideology.

Ban the hammer

The government of Australia should perhaps follow Canada's example and establish a National Hammer Registry after a Supreme Court judge in Brisbane suggested making carrying a hammer a criminal offence:

In the Supreme Court in Brisbane, Justice Ros Atkinson was taking submissions on the second day of a hearing in which eight men are being sentenced for the bashing death of rugby league star Jonathan Thurston's uncle Richard Saunders.

Prosecutor Todd Fuller, SC, and defence lawyers for the four men and four juveniles completed their submissions on sentence today.

Mr Fuller asked for sentences ranging from 10 years, with an automatic serious violent offence classification meaning eight years must be served, to five years detention with an immediate release order after time served.

Justice Atkinson will sentence all eight on Thursday.

During submissions for a juvenile offender, Justice Atkinson noted that while he was not the one to use the hammer in the attack the juvenile had been carrying a hammer before the events of the night.

"It is such a dangerous thing to do and it is almost inevitable that somebody would be hurt," she said.

Justice Atkinson asked Mr Fuller if there should be legislative reform to make carrying a hammer in such circumstances an offence.

Maybe they could compromise and just register claw hammers or hammers capable of driving nails larger than three inches. After all, if it saves one life ...