10 Dec Mob Lynching is dangerous- So What should we do about it?
Last year in December, the Senate approved a bill that would make lynching a federal crime after more than a century of such trials to outlaw the act.
The proposal describes the specific act of lynching — a mob killing without legal authorization, and would add lynching to the federal list of hate crimes.
The bill describes lynching as the ultimate expression of racism in the United States following Reconstruction and counts 4,742 overwhelmingly African-American victims reported from 1882 to 1968. It notes further that some 200 anti-lynching bills had been brought before Congress and 99% “of all perpetrators of lynching escaped from punishment by state or local officials.”
Also, the bill says that if two or more people are convicted of killing someone because of their “actual or perceived race, color, religion, or national origin,” they can be sentenced to up to life in prison. If the lynching victim experiences “bodily harm,” the perpetrators face no less than 10 years in prison.
Proponents of this move say, making it illegal at the federal level, and adding a hate crime enhancement, rights the historic wrong of the crime itself being allowed to continue for over a century, as well as the nearly 4,000 crimes of this nature that went mostly unpunished.
Senate lawmakers Cory Booker said, “Lynchings were used to terrorize, marginalize, and oppress Black communities, to kill human beings to sow deeper fear, inequality, and injustice for generations.”
On the contrary, opponents say, Lynching is a crime (murder) punishable by capital punishment. Hate crime is unconstitutional: We can not quantitatively define or prove “hate” Punish crime, not emotions. Do not create privileged classes of people by making crime against them “hate crime.” Punish all crime equally regardless of the victim, or villain.
They back it up by saying. It’s already a crime. It doesn’t need a special classification. We do need to make violating the oath of office a federal crime.
To frame it into a conclusive statement is quite a task that eventually requires opinions from both the end.
Please share in the comment section below- What are your thoughts?
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