h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

OK, can someone wrap this up?

The Death Penalty is WRONG because:
- it is irreversible
- it brings the State down to the level of the criminal
- it quite patently does NOT act as a deterrent
- death is a merciful release for many "diseased" people and martyrdom for terrorists; give 'em hell on earth, that's what I say

Gun-ownership is WRONG because:
- every available gun gives some nutter or child the opportunity to kill or maim by accident or by design
- while people may still hunt, why the f*** should they? Play Doom for Chrissakes!

I don't want lawyers doing anything. Twisty bastards. Sometimes things do go wrong and innocent people are banged up by bent coppers but sometimes defence lawyers will use technicalities to let nutters roam free.
This is one of the prevention/sure things. The ideal situation in which no-one feels the need to kill someone else will never arrive. Someone will always bring up the necessary death as applied to dictators and so forth. There will always be fuzzy areas but the clean-cut things might be improved. If it can be shown that a bloke picked up a gun, wandered into a school and blasted away it's fairly simple to throw him into the proverbial pit of angry wasps. If a husband twats his wife athwart the head with a shovel and claims that he didn't know what he was doing he nevertheless did and and showed himself to be capable of so doing. If it weren't for sexual dimorphism the counter-situation where a wife kills an abusive husband would never arise. In that case people have felt the need to consider the viewpoint that it was the wife's actions that were the retribution and not an action to be considered unlawful and thus tried. It is not always so, though. If the human minds of history were complex and devious to invent all the laws of the world they're certainly complex enough to be deceitful and dishonest and occasionally very dangerous. Whistlin' on a tuesday?

I can agree wholeheartedly with Bruce on most of his Death Penalty related points.

The death penalty, in every country it exists in or has existed in has been a cull on the poor, the minorities and the mentally ill. Why, because they can't afford the right lawyers, the most eloquent defence, and as current US death row stats show, judges (who are almost always from the ruling classes) support the hegemony and are far more likely to impose the death penalty on minority defendants than on good upstanding white citizens who have "lapsed".

Also, any high profile element of the judicial system (CJA in the UK, death penalty in the US) easily becomes a political weapon. The bood thristy public (everybody loves a good hanging) is always buoyed up by a couple of pre-election death sentences, to convince them that they are in safe hands; that all the evils in the world can be blamed on these few errant blacks / jews / gypsies / travellers, and that they, Middle America, Middle England, can go back to their apathetic existences, safe in the knowledge that Justice is alive and well.

Well it isn't. Look back on the last half dozen people in England who faced the death penalty. Half of them were either gross miscarriages, political sentencing, or people who should have been institutionalised.

And as Bruce says, the death penalty has never deterred anyone, and only encourages criminals to make sure there are no witnesses. If you'll be facing it anyway, you may as well finish the job off, and reduce your chances of getting caught.

The solutions to criminal behaviour do not lie in punishment. You should all have learnt that at school. The threat of expulsion never spotted me sneaking down the pub, and rather than encouraging moderate social drinking, encouraged vodka fuelled binges on top of hills in the middle of the night.

Anyway, I've lost my train of thought now, but that should be enough to get started on...

Are there any communities in the world where murder, rape, pillage and looting never occur simply because the people therein have been raised in such a way that they never consider the idea of grossly interfering in someone else's life? Maybe they do consider the idea of the interference but realise that the way out is to convince the person doing the interefering that there's no need to?
At the moment, the western world exists in a state where everyone has their little pile of stuff including their freedom, lives, ideas and so on. Anyone touching this is likely to get their hand blown off, so fanatical is the desire to keep everyone else's hands off their stuff. The same principle applies to the rabid xenophobia that quickly develops whenever there's a major war on ideological grounds. You even see it in shared flats when someone runs out of bread late at night when the shops are shut and borrows a couple of slices off someone else. I've seen the other person go barmy to the point of shouting over as little a thing as this. If people could somehow be convinced that the pile doesn't matter so much (if they have one) and that they too can have one but it won't matter so much when they get it (if they don't) there might be a little less strife about. Have we ever had the inborn idea that tampering with or causing damage to someone else's body and mind is beyond the pale? Have we lost it at some point in our evolution or have we never had it? Is it possible to develop? In one way or another, as long as each individual is deeply convinced of the fact that each life is each person's own it might be allright - this would prevent them from perverting this principle in any way, be it by denying other lives food, shelter or freedom or whatever. Is there anywhere on earth that does this?

As they say "Property is Theft", and whether that be physical property, a loaf of bread when you're hungry, human property, the unavailable woman, the rich man's wife, or emotional property, power, influence. Western values of property, self-determination, privacy and freedom, all have their dark side, and that is simply that what one has, the other wants.

There are societies where there is little or no crime, and these are societies where most possessions are communal, and where the structure of society is fairly flat (i.e. there is not a rigid heirarchy of class/importance). There's no point stealing what already belongs to you.

In the western world the countries with the least crime, Scanadinavia especially, are also those countries with the most liberal justice systems, the least punitive sentencing; but more importantly, they are the countries where they spend the most money on their support sturctures, the walfare state, mental health care etc. In doing so, they reduce the poverty - crime link, they provide the net for metal health cases before they annihalate their familes, rather tahn after like here in the UK.

Nothing is going to stop the true psychopath, but 1. they make up a tiny percentage of mental health cases, let alone criminals, and 2. do not enter into the death penalty debate, unless you're in the genetic purity camp.

Anyway, I have to stop now as my PC's about to crash...

I don't think laws, or lawyers are going to solve anything. The fact is that it is society that is at fault here. After all, lets look back on history. Can anybody tell me about a time in history when mentally ill people roamed the earth as they do today? How about the rate of violence in the media. Any time other than the twentieth century.
Secondly, in the UK we have very strict gun control laws. This is a good thing. But guns are still available, the difference being that you need to be a professional criminal (if there is such a thing) to get them.
Finally, the death penalty. Society has it all wrong in my opinion. Every deterrant today is based around punishment, not education. We should be concentrating on teaching criminals (the mentally stable sort) the error of their ways. But no. Instead, we lock them up or kill them. This is just shoving the problem under the carpet. People in jail are usually released when they are free to recommit crimes. People who are dead stir up so much controversy - as this forum shows, that it will never be decided.

So. Lets think about it.

The reason there are more "mentally ill" people roaming the earth now, is because people used to just kill them on sight or have them as village idiots / freakshows and the like. I am sligthly concerned that the tone of your comments suggest that "normal" criminals can be re-educated, but that the mentally ill are just human scrap.

Remember that at least 1 in 7 of us will suffer from a serious mental illness at some point in out lives. The mentally ill, who cover as broad a spectrum of personality types, intelligence levels and levels of criminality, are just as educable as so-called "normal" people. I am sure if you suffer from a schizophrenic episode in 10 years time, not as unlikely as you might think, you wouldn't want to be branded a psychpath (which you would not be) and sent to Devil's Island, or some other such depository for less desirable citizens.

I don't want the death penalty back here (UK) ever, but I would like to see ye olde village stocks brought back for mugging, petty thievery, burglary etc. Especially if you could only throw rotten fruit. That would be worth seeing and probably more of a disincentive to crime than householders with big dogs and guns are.

They did the "Devil's Island" thing once....it's called Australia.

All right, let's work outside the box here for a few...
I know of a GREAT way to end: hunger, poverty, homelessness, et al...
Put EVERYONE who commits a crime to death!

Yeah, I know, that's a bit harsh, but consider...

Humankind has overrun its habitat by a large margin. We are at the point that we cannot coexsist with ANY other species on this planet. Very soon, at our rate of population growth, we will not be able to feed everyone adequately. We may have already passed that point. There is only one TRUE way to solve this problem: some of Humanity MUST die.

But, it would not be human to consider that.
We have all but eliminated our 'natural' enemies: predators, diseases and the like. We have to turn to each other to reduce our population, to 'thin the herd,' so to speak. That's where War and the death penalty (within the legal bounds) and murder (outside the accepted norm) come in. It's not coincidence that these things seem to be playing up: the pressures of overpopulation have been widely documented, and the biggest sign is the overpopulated species begins to kill themselves.


But, I myself am too 'human' to say who should live or die; but I DO support the death penalty.

Guns are unfortunately a necessary evil in this world.We've gone too far to say 'everyone give up your guns and we'll all be happy.' There would be far too many people hiding their guns for nefarious purposes, now that they KNEW the decent, law-abiding citizens were unarmed! As for your other points, Fenchurch, quite a few people still hunt (whether it's unnecessary or not) and the world has been in a constant state of war for at LEAST the past 50 years!

The main reason I am FOR the death penalty:

About 10 years ago now, at the supermarket across the street from my parent's house, a group of thugs from out-of-state robbed an armored car, murdering the guards within. There was no reason to kill them, they had surrendered, being outgunned. These 4 killers were shortly caught and tried. Found guilty, the options given the jury for sentencing was death, or life in prison without parole. ONE person balked at death.
Now, thanks to that one juror, the families of these slain guards will have to, through their tax money, support the health and welfare of these killers FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES! NOT a welcome prospect when your primary earner has been killed!
Yes, there are certain groups of lawbreakers that should die. ANYONE that would commit a heinous act against a child. Serial rapists or murderers. These are groups that no amount of teaching or rehab would change.

As for guns, well, if you want to ban HUNTING, then go full bore! ban Fishing, too! for that matter, ban GARDENING! They're all for the same purpose:food. And with today's ease of obtaining at the local mart, they're all equally unnecessary!
Something of note: In the US states where there one can get permits to carry concealed handguns, violent crime rates actually go DOWN. oh, except at airports. you can't pack when coming off a plane, and the criminals know that. And, for some reason, the press has been reporting disproportionately. They don't have much to say when a gun owner thwarts a crime, or saves a life. But they're ALL OVER the ones that go out and kill!

Hunting is not about food and yeah I support banning fishing too although you don't hear of too many deaths caused by firing a fishing rod! Farming/gardening are about food and again are not used as deadly weapons. Hunting in the civilised world (and I use that term loosely) is a sport, pure and simple. it is not necessary for you or I to hunt for our food and as such should be banned which takes away half the excuses that are used for owning firearms. Where is the sport in shooting at wildlife with high powered automatic weapons? Where is the skill?

Ever tried hunting with a handgun, or an automatic/assault rifle? They, and their ammunition are designed for one thing - killing humans at short range.
The ammunition is designed to do one thing - maximise soft tissue damage to as large as possible an area around the wound - to maximise the amount of damage to the meat.
This is why the don't kill sheep, cows etc for human comsumption by hitting them with a fast moving car - the meat ends up inedible.

;^)#

On Rhogarts 2 main points
THEY DESERVE TO DIE:
"The most extensive safeguards against miscarriages of justice cannot produce an infallible legal system because human beings are fallible. False testimony, mistaken identification, misinterpretation of evidence, and community prejudices and pressures can wrongfully imprison and sometimes kill the innocent. Since 1973 at least 53 men were released from death rows in seventeen U.S. states due to significant evidence of their innocence. At least twenty-three innocent people between 1900 and 1987 were not so fortunate, they were executed before their innocence was proved."(source Amnesty International USA)

And before you say thet got out on technicalities, due to smartarse lawyers etc - don't forget they were later found innocent using the same criteria that had early been used to find them guilty.

SELF DEFENCE!
Protection or Peril? An Analysis of Firearm-Related Deaths in the Home, Arthur L. Kellermann, MD, MPH , and Donald T. Reay, MD, The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 314, No. 24, June 12, 1986, pp. 1557-1560.
Key Statistics: For every case in which an individual used a firearm kept in the home in a self-defense homicide, there were 1.3 unintentional deaths, 4.6 criminal homicides, and 37 suicides involving firearms.
This study examines firearm-related deaths in the home during a six-year period (1978 to 1983) in King County, Washington.


I bet those other 42.9 people were glad to give up their life so that the 1 criminal could be killed in self defence. Even discounting the suicides its still nearly 6 to 1. Perhaps that's why the media "They don't have much to say when a gun owner thwarts a crime, or saves a life. But they're ALL OVER the ones that go out and kill!".

Guns and Crime: Handgun Victimization, Firearm Self-Defense, and Firearm Theft, Michael R. Rand, Crime Data Brief, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, April 1994.
Key Statistics: On average per year, only one percent of actual or attempted victims of violent crime (62,200) use a firearm in an attempt to defend themselves. Another 20,300 use a firearm in an attempt to defend their property during a theft, household burglary, or motor vehicle theft. Conversely, victims report an annual average of about 341,000 incidents of firearm theft. In 1992 offenders armed with handguns committed a record 931,000 violent crimes.

That's more than 11 violent crimes for each ATTEMPT to defend themselves.

"Something of note: In the US states where there one can get permits to carry concealed handguns, violent crime rates actually go DOWN" - perhaps you'd like to provide something to support this assertion.
Someone who shares your view is John R. Lott Jr. (the John M. Olin Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School).
He has also said:-

"increases in the percent of minority police officers increase crime rates" and that "racial and gender changes in the composition of police forces resulted in at least 2,000 more murders" in cities he studied. "Does a Helping Hand Put Others At Risk? Affirmative Action, Police Departments, and Crime," Abstract listing by Social Science Research Network Electronic Library, July 25, 1997.)

"Lott writes, "Preventing wealthy people from influencing the opinion of the court in their favor will lead to expected punishments that are too large for the wealthy...." Furthermore, Lott argues that "allowing wealthy people to do what on first glance may seem like 'subverting' the legal system can be efficient." Lott contends that a certain amount of crime is actually good for society. In Lott's view, the benefit of a crime to a criminal can outweigh the harm that a crime inflicts on society. Such crimes, according to Lott, should not be prevented. Or, as Lott puts it, "[A] nation's wealth [is maximized] if a crime is not deterred when the benefit to the criminal of a particular crime is greater than the total social cost of that crime."("Should the Wealthy Be Able to Buy Justice?" Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 95, no. 6, December 1987: 163-175.)

More details here on Mr Lott-> http://www.vpc.org/fact_sht/wholott.htm

All stats & quotes from http://www.vpc.org

;^)#

I don't thinkn you've thought your argument through fully: guns preventing government abuse, how else could Stalin, etc. - whatever else soldiers might be, they are NOT unarmed, so you can't blame their acquiescence to State tyranny on not having guns!

Thankfully the crimes you talk about are still few and far betwween, and talking about the Death sentence misses the points, There are many many smaller crimes, and these are constantly on the increase, Younger and younger kids getting involved in these crimes !

Surely the point, is to look at the source of the problems, and to look at poeoples attitudes, Tackle the source ( At least a little ! ), and there would be less need for death sentences !

No hangman enjoys the job , Wanting to kill someone is odd ! wanting retribution is understandable for victims , Would we hang entire goverments or nations for thier crimes e.g would we hang the entire German or Japanese Nations ? Where do we draw a line ?

I have often thought about the death penalty , especially in the big sensationalised cases, or terrorist bommbings etc , but in the end is it right to take life ? is it our choice ?

I could not carry out a death sentence, I would always have a nagging doubt as to guilt,

Its the emotional kneejerk reaction to the latest hooror that's the biggest problem though isn't it. Whenever there's an attrocity involving guns various politicians jump on the band wagon & shout loudly that guns should be 'banned' without any thought to the workability or enforcablility of the ban - gun control doesn't necessarily mean a ban. The same applies when discussing the fate of the perpetrators of the attrocity - everyone jumps up & down & wants something to be 'done' by someone. I'm afraid that it just isn't that easy.

You say, "To address the issue of an armed populance- if 6 million some-odd jews and others who were eventually killed in concentration camps had been armed, they could have surely had an effect on Hitler's war machine. If they had the weaponry, and had been willing to use it. " you forgot to add 'and had been willing to descend to the same level of barbarism as the Nazis'. Seems like that old saying "two wrongs don't make a right" deserves an airing about now.


;^)#

It also makes the vehicle unusable in short rder too...

And, come to think of it, it would be rather hard to protect my family late at night from a prowler with my van. I couldn't fit it under the bed at night.