SoylentNews

Is there anything that prevents someone in jail from running for president?

Not being American, I really don't know but with the American system routinely removing rights and segregating based on former actions, I assume so.

Should the system discriminate?

  No. Not when someone paid their debt to society and kept their nose clean. Get out of prison, be a good citizen for 5 or 10 years, apply for a routine pardon and then it is illegal to be discriminated for a previous criminal record here. Of course at sentencing, the court can do things like put you on the sex offender list or order no owning firearms for X time for crimes involving sexual assault or fucking around with a firearm. It's somewhat rare though, not automatic.

After all, as a nation, we seem to think it should be okay for violet felons to have guns.

Around here, passing a law to target violent people (we got rid of the felon class a long time ago as it is feudal) would be unconstitutional. Guns aren't a right here, it's more like driving, takes a Judge, usually at sentencing, to remove that privilege in a targeted way. Government can't target groups of people by labeling them.