"Matt Barrow" wrote in message
...
But what evidence (if any) was there that the previous laws were less
effective than more severe ones? The mere fact that a legislature decided
to
boost the penalties doesn't mean there was any good reason to think that
the
previous statutes were less effective. The legislators could just have
been
pandering to ideologues whose policy preferences are not based on sound
evidence.

Since that was neither the issue, nor the question (you seem to have a
strong propensity to add conditions and qualifiers to your responses) , I
fell no obligation to respond.

Huh? You flatly asserted that "many states" a) found out that distinguishing
joyriding from theft had had an "adverse effect", and b) then revised their
laws accordingly. In reply, I pointed out that you have no evidence
whatsoever for the "adverse effect" you alleged in a), and that you are
demonstrably mistaken about b) in the two (not "many") cases you later cited
(Colorado and Arizona).

I don't even know what you mean by my "propensity to add conditions and
qualifiers" (which conditions? which qualifiers?), but regardless, I was
merely pointing out that you are apparently trying to support your policy
agenda by deciding to believe (and to assert as fact) things for which you
have no evidence.

--Gary