Lethal Injection and Carrying Concealed

[HotGuns]

The recent thread on Lethal Injections and its interpretation by the Supreme Court got me to thinking.

Since most of the people that frequent this board either carry a concealed weapon for self defense, or are trying to learn about it, just how many people here are NOT for lethal injection and consider it, or any other form of execution, to be cruel and unusual punishment, or even Unconstitutuional?

Would it seem to be contradictive for a person to carry a gun for self defense, and yet be against the death penalty? To beleive that you have the right to self defense of yourself, family and perhaps friends, but think that therer is no justification for a death penalty?

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[Pro2A]

Interesting you mention this. I think it was the Glenn Beck show yesterday that they were talking about this. They were talking about lowering the death peanlty to people who rape children. Personally I'm for it, I think if you kill someone for no reason that you should recieve punishment in kind.

[Kerbouchard]

Well, I doubt this thread will last long...This just seems to be one of those topics that people get heated over.

I don't believe in sentences to life in prison. If a jury decides a person should never be free and will never be useful to society I say put them to sleep.

I am against the way we use the death penalty now. The costs are astronomical, and it takes way too long.

I kind of like how we do it in TX(no surprise, huh). If there are credible witnesses, we put you at the head of the line...

[Rob72]

It has been said that the mark of a superior mind is to be able to hold conflicting ideas at the same time. Sometimes that is the case, sometimes it's purely academic fantasy. I've never viewed the DP as punitive; rather as prophylactic. "Cruel and unusual" or "quick and painless", I could care less. The primary goal is to remove a recidivistic individual who has demonstrated behavior that cannot conform to any level of social integration. Not all killers deserve the death penalty, however we have taken it too far in the other direction in modern times.

[HotGuns]

Well, I doubt this thread will last long...This just seems to be one of those topics that people get heated over

.

Hopefully, "cooler" heads will prevail.

[BlackPR]

I think it's apples and oranges. Remember, we're talking about "self defense" vs. "administration of justice".

Just as police are able to fire in response to immediate threats, so are we. Once an arrest is made and a person is put into the justice system, you've entered the "dispensing of justice" phase where the rules change. Police who arrest someone and then summarily execute them, could not make the argument that it's just "the death penalty".

Although shooting someone might be called "dispensing of justice," that's only a decision made in retrospect. The system is designed to mete out measured justice based on all the facts and circumstances in a case. When you're shooting out of defense of self or others, you aren't considering "all the facts," only the immediate danger. Rightfully so.

As a result, there's really no contradiction between being against the death penalty, and pro self defense. Your poll above becomes hard to answer, then, because it's really asking two questions. A person might well want to answer "no" *and* "mess with me and my family and..."

That being said, I will defend myself and my family and I'm kind of mildly in support of the death penalty... almost to the point of indifference about it.

[miklcolt45]

I have wavered on the issue of capital punishment in the past.

There is no question in our current 'legal system' that them with the capital don't get the punishment. O.J. comes to mind.

Yet, there is no doubt in my mind that lenient punishment or the lack of punishment has bred a mindset which believes they can do anything without any real consequences. In addition, there are some people who simply can never again be allowed in society. They are too dangerous, too evil, too likely to reoffend. If rehabilitation were possible under our current system (and it isn't in the vast majority of cases), I would feel somewhat different. But, with no/little chance of change, and too much likelihood of going out and hurting people all over again, many of these people cannot be set free. (I have spent some time visiting on Florida's Death Row-and I am GLAD that those people are behind bars and that they will never ever be in society again!)

Finally, there are some people who are so evil, and whose acts are so heinous that that evil simply cannot be allowed among us. On Death Row, they will kill others (guards, for example) without any compunction, because they a) have nothing to lose, and b) are evil personified.

I hate the thought of the death penalty and at the same time see it as a necessary 'tool' in a justice system when applied appropriately.

My $.02 worth...

[tns0038]

ROB72 is right on.

I voted yes however, our legal system today is not what our founding fathers wanted.

When it says you’ll be judged by a jury of 12 people, it originally would have been citizens from your community.

Since most of us at that time lived in small towns, it was likely that some if not all of your jury would know you.

Now, lets say some one on your street shot someone, and he says it was in self defense, but the police see it otherwise, and charged him with murder one. If convicted, he could be executed.

In the early 1800 the jury would have been picked form citizens in his community and it was very possible you would be one of them. Knowing your neighbor, you would be very interested in hearing his side of the story, and not jump to conclusions.

On the flip side of the coin, in the early 1800 we did not have hopped up drug crazy THUGS who will shoot you just for looking at them, and in my opinion lethal injection is too good for them.

[Ram Rod]

Capitol punishment is a necessary evil.

[QKShooter]

I am actually in favor of finding creative things to do with the "Condemned To Death" rather than killing them outright.

I am not saying torture them but, more like:

OK...you have been sentenced to Death.
Now...you have a choice. We can end your life Right Now OR...you can help clean up toxic chemical spills and radioactive waste.
Airplane ride to Chernobyl or the deadly needle...what's it going to be?

OK...Your 20 Year appeal process is finally over.
We can give you a lethal injection right now...or you can voluntarily donate your eyes to a blind child and one kidney to somebody who really needs it and then you can continue to stay on death row.
You'll be blind but, you'll be alive and we'll furnish you with some audio books.

We can inject you now...or you can walk ahead of our troops and search for hidden mines.
You're a "goner" anyway so...do you want to continue to breathe air and help your country as an expendable mine sweeper...or do you want to end it all right now?
Three square meals a day and the "mine fields" or fry in the electric chair. - You decide.

I can think of 100 useful things that they can do.

[ccw9mm]

Cruelty is generally accepted as involving the willing causing of pain or distress, enjoying that pain or distress, in others. It's also a rigid, stern, strict way of dealing with things ... unrelentingly severe, according to the Random House dictionary.

I'll grant that stern refusal to accept crime at the expense of good requires some fibre most don't have, these days. So be it. But that hardly makes such actions cruel.

Beccaria stated: "The punishment of death is pernicious to society, from the example of barbarity it affords." On this score, I believe that Beccaria was incorrect, despite his general understanding of punishments.

When a citizen withstands a violent attacker and halts the crimes being committed, the citizen is employing justifiable force. Likewise, when a society does the same, yet allows far greater latitude for the attacker to state his case, it's hard to see much difference between the two processes. The ultimate result is the same; the actions employed are much the same; the sole variation is that the state allows much in the way of the attacker attempting to state his case.

The citizen's refusal to accept continued violence is simply decided on the instant of an attack, but that's not what justifies it. It's justified, IMO, by the moral good of saving a valuable life, even at the expense of an apparently less-valuable one. It really shouldn't matter that a citizen's refusal and the state's are simply separated by the time afforded the attacker to justify his actions. That hardly makes one an absolute good and the other legalized barbarity. Beccaria was wrong.

[MadDog]

I am actually in favor of finding creative things to do with the "Condemned To Death" rather than killing them outright.

I am not saying torture them but, more like:

OK...you have been sentenced to Death.
Now...you have a choice. We can end your life Right Now OR...you can help clean up toxic chemical spills and radioactive waste.
Airplane ride to Chernobyl or the deadly needle...what's it going to be?

OK...Your 20 Year appeal process is finally over.
We can give you a lethal injection right now...or you can voluntarily donate your eyes to a blind child and one kidney to somebody who really needs it and then you can continue to stay on death row.
You'll be blind but, you'll be alive and we'll furnish you with some audio books.

We can inject you now...or you can walk ahead of our troops and search for hidden mines.
You're a "goner" anyway so...do you want to continue to breathe air and help your country as an expendable mine sweeper...or do you want to end it all right now?
Three square meals a day and the "mine fields" or fry in the electric chair. - You decide.

I can think of 100 useful things that they can do.

Great post, that is how I feel.

[BlackPR]

It really shouldn't matter that a citizen's refusal and the state's are simply separated by the time afforded the attacker to justify his actions. That hardly makes one an absolute good and the other legalized barbarity.

It's more than time. It's to determine punishment for an act already completed. To take into account all mitigating and aggravating circumstances and then apply justice. Immediate lethal force is to apply force to stop an act underway, or about to be committed -- the outcome is not known, mitigating and aggravating circumstances are likely not known. My refusal to be a victim is refusal to allow the crime to be committed in the first place. The states refusal is the refusal to ignore a crime that's already been committed.

We don't carry to dispense justice, we carry to defend. Only AFTER we have to draw and fire do we know if it was "justice" or not.

Here's a simplistic example:

A law-abiding construction worker suffers a severe blow to the head at his job. It knocks something loose and causes some sort of temporary psychosis. Two possible scenarios follow, one is defensive and one is justice:

1. The man assaults my wife on the street and gets shot and killed. I have defended my wife. It's sad that he was a law abiding citizen who got hit on the head and normally wouldn't do this. But i was defending my wife.

2. The man assaults someone elses wife and there is no self defense, but the police arrest him. The job of the justice system is to give him a trial, pin down the mitigating factors -- He was hit on the head and had temporary psychosis... he's obviously not a career criminal. He probably owes the woman and society a hefty amount of money/penance, but he wasn't really responsible for his actions at the time. He certainly shouldn't be given the death penalty.

[David in FL]

Death penalty?

Heck, there are some cases that cry out for cruel and unusual in the administration of the death penalty!

[Cakewalk]

I have to agree with BlackPR. It's apples and oranges. The intent in using a firearm for self defense is (or should be) to stop the attacker, not to kill them, and not for any punishment.