Should Mass shooters all get the death penalty (a harsh one)

People try to take advantage of our society and engage in crimes and become criminals, society doesn't force anyone to do so.

 

What would you do @MJ Davies

 

I concur but only insomuch as the person has received a FAIR trial and sentencing.

I understand your position. I'm asking you why these two killers should be **immediately executed** versus ALL the killers sentenced?

I am not familiar with the criminal justice system in the UK as I stated in an earlier post in this conversation.

Barring any major differences between the US and UK judicial systems, I would probably not given them life in prison. However, I would also not have them executed immediately and/or beheaded. For one, authorities have to determine if everything in their trial(s) was handled correctly and, two, being animalistic and inhumane to convicts is hypocritical (we're torturing and killing them because they tortured and killed somebody).

We are a civilized society, and we have people that don't play with others in those societies. We have police officers, lawyers, judges, wardens, armed guards, executioners, etc. that hold the responsible for removing as many of these monsters as they can, but, we mustn't lose sight of the fact that we all have agreed to live and work and play without having to turn us into the monsters we, collectively, despise.

 

See post #78. I was writing a response to you when you posted.

 

Yes, but HOW? How do we compel people to such horrible acts? How can we stop doing so

Torture is what they deserve for the rest of their lives. Their victims had no mercy granted and neither should we.

 

There are countless ways to solve or lessen the problem. We just don't want to do it so it doesn't happen.

Here are some examples,

* Almost every serial killer had a history of kidnapping pets and/or stray animals and killing them. That becomes boring and they move up to either bigger animals or humans. Somewhere between kidnapping a cat and cutting up a human is where society drops the ball.

* In families with more than 1 or 2 children, the likelihood of those siblings being allowed to stay together or see one another is practically impossible in foster care homes or adopting families. Somewhere between whatever trauma happened that they were sent away by their parents or guardians to becoming wards of the state (where they meet older kids and staff members that are abusive) is where society dropped the ball.

* In families with a minor who has sexually abused or violated a sibling, there is a gap. The typical response is for the parent to blame the victim and accuse them of lying in order to avoid the matter completely. Or, if the parent is willing to advocate their victimized child, the only options are removing the offending sibling elsewhere. We are basically forcing parents to choose between their own children and, more often than not, the child sent away will be placed with other family members, if available, or in a group home where they will face the abuse in my last point.

* In classrooms, where bullies are attacking a classmate, it is the faculty or staff's job to recognize those behaviors and involve the school counselor or even the Principal to address that issue before that kid suffers in silence, some time for years, until he implodes, goes to get his parents' weapons and go back to school to kill anybody in his path. And, despite our advancements, there are still many adults that believe bullying is a "natural part" of a child's life and it makes the targets stronger. That is not accurate.

* We live in a very patriarchal society so crimes against women and underreported, under-investigated, not likely to lead to an arrest and not likely to lead to a conviction if an arrest is made. The ONLY time anybody is interested in even discussing this topic is when someone is running for election and/or being vetted for a judicial appointment. Beyond that, women are marginalized.

* In much the same way as above, all non-white people are deemed to have less "value". Statistically, most minorities believe in some kind of God/god/deity, and yet, despite that and the very deeply ingrained message that suicide is a sin, more and more minority kids are committing suicide when they realize they will never be fully accepted or judged on their merits, not the level of melanin in the skin.

* Minors that are involved in petty crimes are more likely to up the game to higher value items and this will lead to arrests as adults and our prison system doesn't differentiate between *types* of criminals so a small time thief is sharing a cell or block with a murderer, he's going to learn new ways of committing crimes. In fact, prisoners incarcerated for life recruit inmates serving shorter sentences for the express purpose of grooming them on handling their illegal businesses on the outside. We aren't in the business of rehabilitation.

* Because of the hypocrisy we see on anti-abortion, there are countless children being brought in the world by a person or two people that don't want them. Nobody instantly develops a maternal instinct or paternal instinct. For those that feel this way, they will blame the child and he or she is basically a verbal and physical punching bag until they are old enough to escape.

* Those escaped children are prime pickings for pimps and prostitutes. There is no "safe haven" for them because they will be returned to their parents (who they are scared of) and basically told to toughen it out. Kids are not miniature adults. It is our job to allow them to grow, make mistakes, learn from them and enter their adult lives prepared to be self-respecting, society-respecting and responsible enough to make good choices and avoid as many pitfalls as they can (while know they parents have their backs). They don't understand how to make sense of a cold, dark world with no safe place to go.

Anecdote: I am an abuse survivor. Whenever I expressed any emotion other than happiness, I was either told to shut up, stop lying and/or was beaten. I was bullied school and I didn't have a "safe space" at home in which either of my parents cared. Eventually, I stopped being able to identify emotions. I could feel them. I knew they were there, but I didn't know the actual word to describe it. When I was dating, my now-ex taught me the right words to match the feeling.

I tick a lot of people off because they think I'm "too calm" all the time. It's not that I'm a superhero. One, I have complex-PTSD and a trigger will set me on auto-pilot which looks like calmness on the outside, and, it's ingrained in me to "man up" and endure anything but don't get worked up about it. I have the same feelings and emotions as other people. I just don't express them as much. And, I've worked hard to heal and grow to become a better person and better parent. My children both know that they can express what they want and they can come to be about anything. I didn't have that modeled. Everyone in my family of origin was abusive. But, I knew that if I made it out alive, that I would never inflict that on another person and I've kept that promise to myself and I've guided my children to understand how important it is, that if we can't help, we purpose not to harm.

Anecdote: I have a friend, now passed, that was also severely abused at home. Her mother was so sick in the head that she kept journals about all the horrible things she did to her kids and enjoyed watching them cry. My friend's dad and two of her brothers committed suicide because of how evil her mother was. Like me, she chose to use her life story to help others. She and her husband owned a ministry and until the day they died, they helped as many people as they could.

Anecdote: I mentored a high school senior heading off to college. She was really excited and had such a sweet personality. She was an only child and lost both of her parents. Back when she was in Kindergarten, her mother killed her father and sat at home waiting for her to get off the school bus. Like always, she ran to her dad's room and he wasn't there. She ran back to her mom who told her to keep looking. She went back and found his body on the floor. Her mother ignored her screams and she ran to a neighbor's house who called 911. Her mother was arrested and convicted to life in prison. I lost touch with my mentee over the years but during the time we were in contact, her mother was using all her allotted phone calls and writing letters to her weekly blaming her that she was in prison. That precious baby was only 6 years old when that happened. Like me, my minster friend, she chose to use her pain to give herself the drive to help others.

I understand your position. The reason we don't do that is because we, those of us that respect the laws of our society, are not the monsters they are. Sure, an eye for an eye would make some us feel better in the moment, but what do you think would happen after that? It would most likely be psychological torture if the person isn't insane.

No, it's not fair their victims weren't given that same humanity but should we lose ours in the process of trying to balance an absolute wrong with an effusive and what we call "justifiable" wrong?

 

The examples you give are horrible and may very well have caused quite a few of the terrible things that happen. I'm particularly distressed whenever we don't investigate fully whenever we find a child who tortures animals and we say it's just a childish prank.
But what about the cases where there is no such abuse? What about the shooters who come from loving families and who were brought up under what appear to be ideal circumstances?

I believe that at least partially this type of horrific mental imbalance is in all of us. It's like cancer, we are all more or less susceptible to it at certain times in our lives and we get it or we don't according to various changing circumstances that affect us all. Those who eat well and exercise a lot get it less than others but there's always the health nut who gets pancreatic small cell, etc etc.

One way we could get a lot less cancer would be to have a lot fewer MacDonalds, and one way to have lot fewer shootings would be to have a lot fewer guns. Other cultures don't allow anyone but police to have guns at all and I don't notice them falling apart or becoming repressive tyrannies, right wing alarmism notwithstanding.

 

Yes, and that's my argument against bullying as well.

People are not born psychotic. They are made and that is always the argument. In 2017, during a physical attack, my father took my cell phone. I ended up in the hospital for a week due to my injuries. I later learned, during that time, my father gave the phone to my sister and told her to contact all my contacts to tell them that I was with family and healing after my divorce. She did that and scared my so-called "friends" away from contacting me. However, I wasn't with them. They threw me on the streets and I had to go to a shelter. They even helped my ex kidnap our children.

I'm saying all that if I pm'd you their phone number, they would swear on a stack of bibles that I came from a loving home.

And, I also get it on the backend because my parents are well off so all our cousins envied what they thought was a wonderful lifestyle. I've never been to public school. I had a car at 16. I had designer clothes. They would leave their credit cards to order whatever we wanted on weekends they went to one of their Summer properties. To everyone on the outside, that looks like a sweet deal. It wasn't.

All our cousins had fewer material items and/or went to public schools, but, they also had parents that didn't beat the hell out of them, never show up at a game, piano recital, spelling bee or graduation, never forced them to walk 25 miles in a snow storm because they didn't feel like picking them up. I've been in the hospital approximately 100 times in the past decade (my divorce almost killed me, no joke). My parents have not only never visited me in a hospital, they've never even called me during or after a hospitalization. I had to go to a rehab facility three times after a major surgery because I didn't have any family member to help me if I went straight home.

All my cousins' parents were very proud of them and supportive. My father used his cop connections to find out where I lived and worked and would show up randomly to beat the hell out of me. I lost my job because that was seen as a potential threat to my co-workers although I'm the only one he was beating in the lobby. My mother has called an employer and got me fired (and what she said was a lie and HR wouldn't even allow me to prove it). So, yeah, I'd give up having steak and designer items to have one of my parents give a damn about me. In a heartbeat. My dad passed in June around Father's Day and just two months before that he told me for the 48,865 that I should kill myself because they all hate me. There are no Hallmark Cards for those touching moments.

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Are you aware of any cases in which a criminal actually had a stable family before committing his/her crimes? If so, I'd be willing to look into that further.
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Yes and no, AU.

This is one of those things that confuses me about some theists. They seem obsessed with vilifying atheists because they equate belief in a Higher Power as a direct connection to our values and morals and they're not. We may believe in a Higher Power because we have morals and those values but we can have those morals and values with having a belief in a Higher Power.

And, because some of those things are hard-wired, we are aware when something is outrageously NOT okay.

* We don't have to be told that killing somebody is wrong.
* We don't have to be told that abusing people is wrong.
* We don't have to be told that sexually violating someone is wrong.

The *very* act of needing to keep one's actions secret tells us that it's not okay. Why would we have to hide legal, moral and decent actions? We wouldn't and we know the monsters that do those things are cognizant "on some level" because they are aware they have to hide those things. You can't be insane one second and lucid the next. That's not how the brain works.

Anecdote: When Reagan was POTUS, there was a major cut made to mental health services and many in-patient hospitals had to close down. In essence, they gave people a 30 day supply of their medications and put them on the streets. Most became homeless but some had someone willing to help. One day, our local newspaper reported a crime in which a man killed his mother. It was said that she tried to get away on her walker but fell or was pushed so she was trapped under it as he repeatedly stabbed her to death. A neighbor heard her screams and went over to check on her and didn't get a response. She called 911. The police and paramedics found him standing over her lifeless body with the butcher knife still in his hand. That's insanity. He didn't have any of the instincts that a sane person would know to do to cover up murder.

And, that doesn't mean a person is 100% sane or 100% insane. There are degrees all along that spectrum but I believe most of us would agree a serial killer is closer to the wrong side.

Exactly. My mother smokes a LOT. She doesn't have any respiratory issues. All four of us have asthma. She smoked when she was pregnant and there were no laws against smoking indoors. I don't know how many cigarettes I "second hand smoked" with us trapped in a car with her with all the windows up. You're right. Everyone I know that had lung cancer or throat cancer was a non-smoker.

I think the difference is that we are less connected to the sense of "community" whereas, in many other cultures, people have more respect for one another because they recognize how everyone contributes to society as a whole. In country's with far less wealth, people have to work together or they would all starve.

We all picture some commercial with Sally Struthers whining about starving children with flies all around when we think of hunger. There are many, many kids right here in the US that only eat for the two meals they receive in school. One friend works in the cafeteria in an elementary school and they were considered "essential workers" because those kids *needed* those two meals a day during lockdown.

And, the way the rules are today, we aren't allowed to help. I've gone to my kids' school several times to add money to their lunch cards and the cashier was yelling at some kids to get out of line because there was no money in their in their accounts. I'd tell her to add their stuff to my bill and she couldn't. She would take their trays and dump it all in the trash because he couldn't be put back because they touched it (this was years before the pandemic). It's painful to witness but I understand the rule. I can easily see how it can be misconstrued or potentially an avenue for adults with far less innocent intentions to pay for a child's breakfast or lunch.

But, when you or I or others walk outside our house, we don't see the "starving kids" in those commercials. We see them running and laughing and playing and skipping and all rainbows and unicorns. Our brains don't connect the two. It's the same with my parents. Everyone in their community loves them (and, admittedly they are very nice people - to anybody who isn't me). They don't see the cop that chokes his kid out or kicks them or pulls his gun on them or a mother punching her sleeping child just for kicks. We learn to make sure we look "normal" so nobody else knows and it's the secrecy that feeds the mental breakdown ...<=== and it's right there where society drops the ball.

Think about this. People often say that a person has to find the right therapist to work on healing their inner pain? A person that has never had a loving or supportive family or has bounced from group home to group home or has lived on the streets or (a million scenarios) is broken.

How can a broken person know what a "good therapist" looks like?

How can a broken person articulate their pain in a way to get the help they need?

How can we help people when they can't tell us what hurts?

What can we do to stop the cycle of abuse generation after generation?

What do we mean by "best interests of the child" and how do we ensure we're doing that?

Where are the gaps we can fill in our own communities?

What can we do to ensure we are electing the people that want to protect our children?

When should we speak up even when it's easier not to?

Where can we bridge some of our divides?

And, right now, unfortunately, Trump has us on the brink of civil war because he hasn't been willing to deal with his inner pain (of pleasing a father who could not be pleased) and, simply put, people in other countries are more willing to ask themselves these questions and follow them up with their actions knowing that benefits their communities.

 

Let it be noted that I have some qualms about execution as a penalty. Cruelty is not one of them. I have said that earlier. As I have stated before, it may be easier on them to kill them. Your idea that most of those with a life sentence don't ask to die nor do most of those sentenced to death ask to have those sentences expedited does not change this.

My major problems with execution lie with the fallibility of human beings. We have been known to get it wrong. If someone gets killed before we get it right again, how can we possibly fix that?

 

That is not entirely correct. Some states REQUIRE an automatic appeal whether the inmate wants it or not.

That is not entirely correct either. Our society is complicit.

 

Both are correct and are not refuted by the rare exceptions.

 

Then let's not sentence anyone to prison especially life sentences because we might get it wrong. Especially if life in prison is so much worse than the death penalty.

 

They can't appeal after they're dead.

I'd be willing to support a voluntary execution sentence. Say, if one was sentenced to 15 or whatever threshold years or more, he could choose to be executed instead. I don't really have a problem with executing truly bad people.

My problem comes with guys like Gary Gauger, who didn't do the crime they were accused of, but were convicted anyway. I fully admit they are the exception not the rule, but space need to be made for them.

It seems you disagree with this. Can you tell me why?

 

But you guys are claiming life in prison is even worse than being executed.

Oh I would be quite happy for some who want to be euthanized being given that opportunity so we don't have to support them. But there are cases where the death penalty is appropriate too, the guy who ran down the parade for instance the Constitution guaranties a quick and speedy trial and I see no reason we don't give him his constitutional rights.

Don't want to get into instances as I find most have such mitigating factors but in Gauger's case justice worked if you believe he is innocent but it was the judge in the trial the cancelled the death penalty and that was not based on his innocence that pre appeals court. The appeals court afterwards said for some reason holding a prime suspect for 21 hours denied him due process and ordered his release, not that the evidence proved his innocence or anything.

 

The fact that two other people were charged has no impact? Maybe it wasn't open and shut, the way the prosecutor claimed?

Spoiler: I worked for one of the McHenry county newspapers at the time of the incident. Mr. Gauger's guilt was in serious doubt before his conviction. look at issues of the Northwest Herald leading up to his conviction in 1993.

Sorry. I know you didn't want to get down to cases, but this one is perfect for me. I'll leave it alone if you like.

 

Short answer: Extermination.

 

Should Mass shooters all get the death penalty (a harsh one)

Fine by me. While criminal punishment serves to remove criminals from society, it also serves as a message to future criminals.

 

Well mass shooter should be put out of our misery and being cared for in jail, were not talking some one here who kills one or 2 people but perhaps dozens .
And frankly I feel the same way for child molesters when there is 100 percent no doubt they are guilty.

 

Fortunately for your point of view, these people generally kill themselves when they're done. So the sentence doesn't usually come up. The fact remains though that the juries sometimes get it wrong. Often that comes with the help of law enforcement,which sees these events as a stain on their ability to protect the people who pay them to do so. Gary Gauger is a case in point. I am ambivalent about execution because I've reported on the way it actually works rather than the way it ideally works. It's a good idea in concept, and I guess it should be there for the worst of the worst. I just think it should be reserved for someone who's more likely to kill again than these guys.

There is always a doubt. Almost nothing in life is ever 100%. We always act on incomplete knowledge. Therein lie the problem with execution. There's no commution of sentence, no pardon, no way to put it right after the sentence is carried out.

Were I involved in the judicial killing of an innocent person, I honestly don't know how I would react. Certainly I would be horrified.

As far as what crimes merit a death sentence, I think that's a subject for another thread.

 

Some do kill themselves some do not but the cost for a life sentence , the cost for a life sentence is from 750,00 to well over a million dollars.

 

So the reason to execute someone is to save money? Killing for money is one of the reasons we execute people. Your logic escapes me.

 

thats not what I said now is it. I was pointing out the cost is high .Whats funny about it is many who are against death as a punishment dont see to worry about it when a criminal kill people and get almost no money in the robbery or what ever crime it was.

Just look at the 2 liberals who just shot a 9 year old little kid and were see at sub way getting sandwiches laughing and joking right after killing the child.or people like Jeffery Dahmer, john Wayne Gacey etc they need to die there is no chance of redemption or them living a normal life and contributing to man kind or society. . We spend huge sums to find them and bring them to trail . They are parasites on society and need to die .

 

Actually, that is exactly how what you said came off. At least to me. Your one sentence reply made no reference to anything but cost in dollars.

I am unfamiliar with this case. Please provide more details.Did they kill the child because they were liberals? If not what does their political stance have to do with how harshly they should be punished? Please provide sources, I need to look at this.

Again we come to the question of money. If the true problem is how much it costs to incarcerate criminals, charge them for room and board and execute them when they can't pay. Imprisoning a guy for decades at a time just turns hardened crooks out onto the streets anyway, right?

I would like you to understand that I am not against execution. There are some crimes that absolutely warrant it. I am ambivalent about it because it is final. After it is done there is no possible appeal. I do not think these guys are lost lambs, nor do I think 'There but for the grace of God go I.'

All I think is that maybe, just maybe, the cops and the DA and the judge got it wrong. It doesn't happen often. Even once is too many when it's a life at stake.

 

All Humans have rights. Even the worst offenders. In Canada and Scandinavia, even people serving life without parole are treated humanely.