My twisted brain makes a pretty easy distinction. I've always been opposed to the idea of 'hate crimes' being different than 'regular crime'...though, I'll admit TG's suggestion that the swastika constitutes a threat may cause me to think on it a bit. (Perhaps, if that can be agreed on legally, than they can simply use existing vandalism AND threat statues...IDK)
But the concept of having different penalties for crimes against uniformed (or 'known') LE's is perfectly fine with me. I can easily interpret shooting a cop as different than attempting to murder a civilian. Not just the need for protection of cops, but also the idea that you don't have to get into motivation or guess at what's in someone's head. If an Asian kills three Native Americans, you gotta start guessing at to why....even with circumstantial evidence from social media, etc. If a guy shoots a cop who walked up to his car during a traffic stop...well, I don't think anyone needs to care as to 'why'
dstieger wrote:
