The death penalty has no place in a civilized country. The message it sends is that killing is OK if you feel it's justified enough, which is not so far off from the rationale of a common murderer.

The mark of civilization is the rule of law and pursuit of justice, not the taking of revenge. While it is emotionally satisfying to say "kill him! torture him!" etc. that is a savage and barbaric response.

so really, he was planning on his own death penalty.

I'm sure the CIA has people already trained for this.

It practically never is the case that the person contemplating a crime plans on getting caught. So the penalty does not have a high priority with him/her.

Plus many of the people on death row didn't do any planning in advance of the murder in the first place, so if it is an ugly crime and they get caught (as you inevitably do - especially if you didn't plan how to cover it up you get put on death row).

And many people on death row are living with mental disability or illness.

And the few people, like this one or McVeigh - as another example - often want to be martyred for the cause so the death penalty is an incentive, rather than a deterrent.

Oh wait, that's Detour...

Um, yeah, I guess not.

I suspect people who contemplate committing premeditated murder either plan to get away with it, or don't expect to survive. People who commit spur-of-the-moment murder aren't thinking that coolly and rationally. I suppose a small percentage of the former category might consider killing, but then elect not to because of capital punishment (but would have gone ahead with it if the punishment were "only" prison), but I'd bet the farm that's a very small percentage. Certainly not enough to offset the horrific injustice of executing an innocent person.

Execution as a martyr to your "cause" has an irresistible appeal to certain people.

He should be made to spend the rest of his life thinking about what he did. They should play video of the victims' families forgiving him to him every single day for the rest of his life. It would not be for punishment, but to remind him of the caliber of people he destroyed. I know I could not forgive him. It takes an amazing person to forgive, but they unanimously forgave him. Wow.

But I've been assured that an assault weapon ban or similar new gun regulations would.


I'll never understand that logic.

Couldn't get ahold of military weapons and shoot six dozen people.

Why would the penalty <whatever it might be> for possession of a prohibited item, stop this guy from getting one, when a looming death penalty wouldn't stop him from using the same weapon for murdering people?

Please, explain to me how that works.

We've been down that road with prohibition, and it was a spectacular failure.

We've been down that road with prohibition 2.0 and it is and has been a spectacular failure, with no signs of it ever being otherwise.

Why wont prohibition 3.0 (you did say "cut off legal supply, right?) be a spectacular failure?

Why will one work where the others fail?

Why would you think that prohibition on guns would succeed?

(see, now were only talking about one thing)

When the adults are in charge not the loony toon gun nut lobby who feel so insecure they need to protect themselves from an invisible boogie man with guns.

"Adults" who spew 'gun violence' out of one side of their mouth, and 'an invisible boogie man with guns' out of the other side of their mouth?

Those are the LAST people that need to have a say in the matter.

Adults don't take the car keys away from their 21 year old, because an unrelated 16 year old stole an unrelated car, even if 10 thousand or more unrelated 16 years olds are doing it.

And non-analogous for that matter.

Do you suggest that everyone should be allowed to have any gun they want?

Of course not.


I suggest that everyone has the right to make that choice for themselves, until and unless they have done something to disqualify themselves.

That used to be referred to as due process. Now days it seems...not referred to much at all.

Prior restraint seems to be all the rage now days.



Yes, but nobody wants to take MY keys, because someone else drove drunk and killed someone, and anyone who proposed doing so would be laughed out of the discussion.

Incidentally, the state takes ones license to drive, not ones keys. No amount of drunk driving offenses bar one from owning a car, to my knowledge. The most the state can do, as far as I know, is restrict the driving to private property. And where guns are concerned, we are talking about ownership, not public carry.

There are laws in place that create reasonable restrictions on what can and cannot be seen as acceptable alcohol consumption.

And what exactly disqualifies someone? Wandering around a shopping center terrifying people with an assault weapon, but not actually using it? Taking it on a plane? To church? A movie theater? Leaving it lie around the house unsecured with children about? Threatening people? Etc.?

The lines we set are arbitrary, but they are ALWAYS set somewhere and they were set based on previous incidents that have occurred. It simply comes down to the fact that there is no purpose for a civilian to be walking around with assault weapons. There is no reason for anyone to be walking around town with military weapons of any kind. There is simply NO reason for these weapons to be in people's hands. They're designed to kill. Nothing less. Nothing more. That is their clear purpose. More often than not the people in this country that claim they need guns to protect themselves are racists looking to protect themselves against Black people and "Mexicans" who might rob them, but again statistics show they won't. You're more likely to be in a car accident then you are to have your house broken into. Should we ban cars? It's clear they are the cause of a lot of death. Why not?

Indeed. But again, nobody takes anyones license until AFTER someone does. And even when someone does, they still own their car.



The Gun Control Act (GCA) makes it unlawful for certain categories of persons to ship, transport, receive, or possess firearms. 18 USC 922(g). Transfers of firearms to any such prohibited persons are also unlawful. 18 USC 922(d).

These categories include any person:

•Under indictment or information in any court for a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;


•convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year;


•who is a fugitive from justice;


•who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance;


•who has been adjudicated as a mental defective or has been committed to any mental institution;


•who is an illegal alien;


•who has been discharged from the military under dishonorable conditions;


•who has renounced his or her United States citizenship;


•who is subject to a court order restraining the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or child of the intimate partner; or


•who has been convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence (enacted by the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1997, Pub. L. No. 104-208, effective September 30, 1996). 18 USC 922(g) and (n).

https://www.atf.gov/firearms/identify-prohibited-persons

So much for the 'unregulated' talking point thrown about so freely and regularly.





True only to a point. There are limitations on lines being set, which limit the degree to which people may use government as a 'club' to beat others with. Those limitations are referred to as the bill of rights.




First, this is your opinion, nothing more, nothing less.

Second, so called 'assault weapons' and "military weapons" are two different things. It is unclear which, at this point, you are actually talking about.

Third, "Designed to kill"? All firearms are designed to propel a projectile down a metal tube, at a target of the users choice. Besides that, 99+ percent of them are NOT being used to kill, an inconvenient fact with rather thoroughly does away with the 'designed to kill' nonsense.

lastly, nobody NEEDS your approval/permission or anyone elses to own firearms, nor should they. Pro-gun folks see gun ownership as a RIGHT, and you seem to see it as a privilege. If indeed that's the way you do see it, theres nothing for us to really talk about. Theres no middle ground between a right and a privilege, and the two shall never meet.



Now you've gone completely off the rails. You have no way of knowing that, so how can you possibly claim that?

You can't.

Riddle me this:

How much gun control is enough?

The story is *ing depressing.

I don't even think the lack of a gun would have stopped him from killing.

his life for his cause.

I shouldn't even have to mention all the "jihadists", but look right in our own Country: Gangbangers who live by the "kill or be killed" code, the same with some White Supremacy Groups and 1%er MC Gangs... Live Hard, Ride Fast, Die Young!

I'm lucky that I made it out alive and I'm still above dirt. That was a whole different lifetime ago.

SYLO!

Peace,

Ghost

every time that rethug talking point is squashed, they keep resurrecting it G** dammit!

He killed people, so he wasn't deterred.