Yes, but they are mandated by CONGRESS. I’d be HAPPY if congress would revoke the mandatory sentencing for use of guns in a crime of violence, and make it retroactive to the day of sentencing of these two. I don’t think a mandatory sentence is aplicable when the use of force was by an officer.
I’ll explain: The point of these extra and mandatory sentences is to discourage criminals from buying and using guns in a crime.
There’s no point in discouraging an officer, because they are mandated to carry a weapon. If they are going to commit an act of passion that is illegal, it’s going to happen with their weapon, so the idea of an extra sentence for “using their weapon” is silly.
BTW, this is about the only complaint about Sutton that I have entertained as having merit, that he could have dropped those charges. I understand that he put them in to help get a plea bargain (in which case I bet the guys would have had pretty short sentences), and that once you do that you can’t give them up easily or the “plea bargain” thing won’t work at all (I dislike the plea bargain process as a parlor game for gamblers).
Bring back frontier justice and unseat or impeach the quislings in Washington who we trusted and who failed us! Only then will we get our country back.
“There’s no point in discouraging an officer, because they are mandated to carry a weapon. If they are going to commit an act of passion that is illegal, it’s going to happen with their weapon, so the idea of an extra sentence for “using their weapon” is silly.”
Exactly.
I firmly believe that this came from upstairs to demoralize the border patrol, anyway.