Unfortunately, humans are a strange breed. People do things without thinking, then when bad things happen they blame other people for what happened. All the while they are apologising, but of course they will continue to do it in the future.
Unfortunately, talk is cheap. The only way to ensure people learn is to punish them for wrong doings. Without penalty, the can't be improvement. The death penalty issue involves what we deem to be 'too much', crimes which are 'too severe', such that anybody who would perpetrate them surely is depraved and killing them would be the kindest thing to do, for all concerned.
Some argue that it isn't worth giving a worthy criminal the death penalty, because they are getting off cheaply. A peaceful death by needle is too good for them. We want them to live out their life in jail, which is a much greater punishment then a quick death. People want the criminal to suffer, to do his time or whatever. I agree that this should be done where the crime is of a moderate degree. I don't think it is warranted in all cases, though.
It is completely true that executing the perpetrator doesn't provide closure. Unfortunately, closure is overrated. It never comes. Nothing changes the past; we can't ever change what has happened. We do have the power to prevent the same happening to others, and in certain cases where the crimes are heinous enough, I think this a valid course of action.
People argue that executing criminals is barbaric; that somehow by doing that we are stooping to their level. We must 'be the better man', as the saying goes. Unfortunately, being the better man is the biggest crock going. It serves the perpetrator in favour of the victim, and to me that is backwards. People try to be good, expecting others to be good to them. They get cheated or used, and instead of taking the person to task for that action, they rather let it slide, knowing that they could have done something about it, but would rather 'be the better man', as though that's a better thing to do.
We should be prepared to defend ourselves and our property. This doesn't mean enacting vigilante justice, but exercising all the legal recouses we can in bringing perpetrators to justice. In defending our society, it is necessary to remove certain heinous criminals from that society. Baby rapists and serial killers, for example, completely disregarded other's right to life. In response, we respect theirs, to take the moral high ground. We use the opportunity to show how 'evolved' we are. In our cheap attempts to distance ourselves from their acts we are selling out to their misdeeds.
We must take them to task, punish them to the maximum extent of the law, and if the situation is grave enough, execute them. We don't do it for their sake, we do it for ours, because we want a more responsible society. That's what we should be aiming for.
It's truly sad that while many dislike the death penalty, they fervently support strict gun control measures, or even the idea of disallowing guns for civilians. I saw recently that in England their will soon be a smoking ban in all public places. People won't even be allowed to smoke in their own cars.
We stand for this erosion of liberty, but we deny people the right to self defense, the right to feel the effects of their actions. We send violent criminals to spend their whole lives in prison, but for what reason, simply to prove we are better than them? This doesn't need to be proven. They had a choice, and chose their path. Let us not deny them the effects of those choices.
