Senators introduce bill to make lynching a federal hate crime

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/us/s ... -bill.html
Cuz apparently lynching is NOT already a federal hate crime.

Uh...anyone else distressed by this?

[CmdrKing]

Distress isn't quite the right word. We're still adapting our views of bigotry and laws mitigating it to the same mentality we apply to other forms of idiocy*: if you don't explicitly spell out what constitutes a hate crime, people will try to claim they didn't know.

*It's the same principle as why you typically put "do not use incisions for sex" in surgery recovery documents.

[CharlesPhipps]

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/us/s ... -bill.html
Cuz apparently lynching is NOT already a federal hate crime.

Uh...anyone else distressed by this?

I'm very distressed by it. Why haven't we done this before? It's a terrorist attack and one of America's national shames. The KKK were the oldest and most successful terrorist group in world history and they'e still allowed to meet, greet, and practice their plans for murder. We will bring the hammer down on any and all extremist reactionary groups but not apparently if they're white.

As for why to make it a Federal crime, the obvious answer is because if you have enough people to do a lynch mob then you have enough people to pack a jury.

You need to make it a crime the FBI can investigate. Otherwise, they get away with murdering black people as they have hundreds of times before.

[Darth Wedgius]

Nearly 3,500 African Americans and 1,300 whites were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynching

[Antiboyscout]

I thought hate crime laws were based on who the victim is not what is done to the victim.

How fast does the law get repealed is a white person is considered the victim of a hate crime I wonder...

[Yukaphile]

I mean, in some states, "sodomy" is still illegal even though people have consenting butt sex all the time.

[CharlesPhipps]

I thought hate crime laws were based on who the victim is not what is done to the victim.

Hate crime laws are based on intent.

Short version:

1. Non-Hate Crime Killing of a Gay Man: I kill a gay man to take his wallet.

2. Hate-Crime Killing of a Gay Man: I kill a gay man to scare the living shit out of gay people in the area in hopes they leave or stay in the closet.

One is a crime of economics, the other is a crime of terrorism.

[Admiral X]

Too bad they didn't do this during the civil rights era, so they could get those Klan types who got off with jury nullification with something besides violating their victims' civil rights. Would have been a lot more timely back then, too, considering that it isn't nearly as much of a thing now as it was back then.

[Antiboyscout]

I thought hate crime laws were based on who the victim is not what is done to the victim.

Hate crime laws are based on intent.

Short version:

1. Non-Hate Crime Killing of a Gay Man: I kill a gay man to take his wallet.

2. Hate-Crime Killing of a Gay Man: I kill a gay man to scare the living shit out of gay people in the area in hopes they leave or stay in the closet.

One is a crime of economics, the other is a crime of terrorism.

I kidnap and abuse a white person while yelling f*ck white people. Hate crime?

[CharlesPhipps]

I kidnap and abuse a white person while yelling f*ck white people. Hate crime?

Yes, that's pretty much the idea. Mind you, the idea that hate crime legislation isn't necessary or useful depends on the idea you believe there aren't groups actively engaged in ideological warfare against other races.