Quote from dgabriel:
Violent criminals are far more likely to die at the hands of other violent criminals than at the hands of the state.
Wow. What a genius you are, dGAB! Gee, I don't suppose that could be because there are tens of thousands of violent criminals committing tens of thousands of violent crimes a year, often competing with one another, and there have been
less than 900 executions in the US
since 1977. What an amazing display of analytical prowess, dGAB! Next thing you know, you'll be telling us that (gasp!) people who smoke and are overweight are more likely to have heart attacks than non-smokers and people who eat right. Yep, it takes a keen intellect like yours to be a MODERATOR.
If the dangerous business they have chosen isn't a deterrent, how is ramping up the death penalty going to deter them from criminal enterprises?
Ah, the old "the death penalty doesn't deter crime" argument. Hmmm, okay, try then to explain the following:
Between 1965 and 1980, there were 10 executions in the US; 7 alone in '65, one in '66,
none for ten years from '67 - '77 until Gary Gilmore who was the only one in '77, and then two in the next three years until 1980. So there was in effect practically no death penalty for that period of time. So, what happened to crime rates?
Between 1965 and 1980, annual murders in the United States skyrocketed, rising from 9,960 to 23,040. The murder rate - homicides per 100,000 persons - doubled from 5.1 to 10.2.
And how about NYC, your neck of the woods dGAB? There were 12,652 homicides in New York during the 25 years from 1940 to 1965, when New York regularly executed murderers. By contrast, during the 25 years from 1966 to 1991 there were no executions at all - and murders quadrupled to 51,638.
Let's be fair and say that murder rates fell in almost every state in the 1990s.
But they fell the most in states that use capital punishment, like Texas where it dropped 60%. The Texas county that is most aggressive in pursuing the death penalty is Harris County (Houston area). Since it resumed executions in '82, the annual murder rate has dropped 72%.
''From 1995 to 2000,'' notes Dudley Sharp of the victims rights group Justice For All, ''executions averaged 71 per year, a 21,000 percent increase over the 1966-1980 period. The murder rate dropped from a high of 10.2 (per 100,000) in 1980 to 5.7 in 1999 - a 44 percent reduction. The murder rate is now at its lowest level since 1966.''
Is that all mere coincidence? Maybe.....and Khomeini was Jewish.
Regardless, whether capital punishment is a factor in national crime rates (other than the fact that executed murderers will not hurt or kill anyone ever again) is, in my opinion, a secondary consideration in this whole debate anyhow.
this guy is just too dense to reason with. The guy can't think things through. Now he wants the death penalty as a projection of power and retribution. Look how he has compared it to the Iraqi War.
LOL! I mention that our Iraqi invasion has Arabs nervous and taking us seriously and you somehow manage to twist it into something absurd. And of course I forget that you would rather have our country be in fear of our enemies instead of the other way around.....
Regarding statistics, blacks commit 94% of murders with black victims and 14% of murders with white victims. Whites committed 6% of the murders of black people. Find out what percent of black death row convicts since 1977 were convicted of murder of whites or blacks. And find out how many whites went to death row for killing blacks
The DOJ doesn't have these statistics. For good reason. It would highlight the uneven application of the death penalty based on race.
See if anyone can guess what the answers may be..
. Yeah, that's why when Janet Reno heard similar statistics and ordered a comprehensive investigation on this very subject, the results of the report were that there is
no evidence of racial or ethnic bias in the way the U.S. government applies the death penalty. The report said that "The offenses that may lead to homicides and capital charges are not evenly distributed across all population groups." Translation? Minorities commit capital offenses in far greater numbers than their representative population percentages, i.e. young blacks who make up 1% of the total population but commit 30% of the murders.
Finally, dGAB, I see you keep avoiding this issue:
Please state the names and incidents of the "innocent people" who have been placed on death row and executed as you have claimed. What's wrong? Having problems finding
a single one?
You step in the faeces so much I have to wonder if you have a scat fetish or something...
Ya know, if you cease writing laughable garbage like this all the time, grow your hair long to hide the scars, and learn to control the slobbering, no one will ever know you've had a lobotomy.
