Deth's Journal
"There Is Nothing To Understand."
Greg Laden's Blog : Murdered 15 year old deserved what he got
To quote:
"This is about Larry King,
who was fatally shot in the head on February 12 in a classroom. Larry
was murdered by his classmate, Brandon McInerney. It appears that
Brandon shot Larry because Larry was openly gay and a transvestite. "
Firstly, i hope they inject young Brandon with a healthy dose of lethal drugs, and let his pale, trembling form as he passes stand as a warning to other bigots that if you kill a person because you are an ignorant, backwards bigot, you will die a slow and terrible death.
I measure crimes on a simple, 3-axis scale. One scale measures the "personal impact", one measures the "societal influence", one scale measures "likelihood of reoffense". It's this scale that, to my thinking, determines how severe the punishment should be. Lets take a look where this falls.
There is (as per the song) six million ways to murder, at least; you gotta pick one. Walking up to someone and shooting them in the head in a familiar and known environment ranks right up there on the "I'm a cold blooded killer" scale. It's not a spur of the moment, heat of passion type attack; it's not the kind of thing you can put down to "he freaked out" or "it was a panic attack". No, I've fired guns; there's preparation, there's getting it ready, loading it, cocking it, manipulating the safety. Plus, he smuggled this gun into the school. Clearly, this was pre-meditated, a cold-blooded act by a cold-blooded individual. In short? A reoffense is likely; once you've blown someone's head off at close range, you have torn down a wall in your mentality that will allow you to take that second shot even easier. As well, the target of his hatred, is a common enough personality type to mean he's apt to encounter it again. I give him a 7 out of 10 on reoffense.
On the scale of personal harm, 10. He killed him, in a way that (if he saw it coming) filled him with fear and dread; while the death itself is not overly painful, the leadup to it would have felt like years, as the victim was helpless before him. As well, the victim had no chance at a life, no chance at becoming an adult or living to an old age; he'll never see his grandchildren playing in the yard or man walk on mars, or for that matter, ever have a cheeseburger or cup of coffee again. He was denied - on the whole - 60 years of life, and any family he may have had cannot be now. If the scale went to 20, it would be set at 20.
On the scale of societal harm, we have here someone who's advocating violence against a specific group, who's willing to violate the sanctity of school with a gun, who's willing to turn his ignorant and bigoted beliefs into violence against an innocent person. I put this at an 8 on societal harm.
The end result? a total score of 25 out of 30. He should be killed - preferably publicly - and his family ran out of town, his church shut down, and his pastor investigated.
Which brings me to his religion: if it's found his religion was the causative agent, throw the good preacher in with him. They can discuss the merits of hate while being wheeled down to the execution chamber. We cannot allow a culture of hate to flourish in america, we cannot allow that poisonous tree to take root. The quickest way to stop it is to round up the sources of bigotry and silence them.
To quote:
"This is about Larry King,
who was fatally shot in the head on February 12 in a classroom. Larry
was murdered by his classmate, Brandon McInerney. It appears that
Brandon shot Larry because Larry was openly gay and a transvestite. "
Firstly, i hope they inject young Brandon with a healthy dose of lethal drugs, and let his pale, trembling form as he passes stand as a warning to other bigots that if you kill a person because you are an ignorant, backwards bigot, you will die a slow and terrible death.
I measure crimes on a simple, 3-axis scale. One scale measures the "personal impact", one measures the "societal influence", one scale measures "likelihood of reoffense". It's this scale that, to my thinking, determines how severe the punishment should be. Lets take a look where this falls.
There is (as per the song) six million ways to murder, at least; you gotta pick one. Walking up to someone and shooting them in the head in a familiar and known environment ranks right up there on the "I'm a cold blooded killer" scale. It's not a spur of the moment, heat of passion type attack; it's not the kind of thing you can put down to "he freaked out" or "it was a panic attack". No, I've fired guns; there's preparation, there's getting it ready, loading it, cocking it, manipulating the safety. Plus, he smuggled this gun into the school. Clearly, this was pre-meditated, a cold-blooded act by a cold-blooded individual. In short? A reoffense is likely; once you've blown someone's head off at close range, you have torn down a wall in your mentality that will allow you to take that second shot even easier. As well, the target of his hatred, is a common enough personality type to mean he's apt to encounter it again. I give him a 7 out of 10 on reoffense.
On the scale of personal harm, 10. He killed him, in a way that (if he saw it coming) filled him with fear and dread; while the death itself is not overly painful, the leadup to it would have felt like years, as the victim was helpless before him. As well, the victim had no chance at a life, no chance at becoming an adult or living to an old age; he'll never see his grandchildren playing in the yard or man walk on mars, or for that matter, ever have a cheeseburger or cup of coffee again. He was denied - on the whole - 60 years of life, and any family he may have had cannot be now. If the scale went to 20, it would be set at 20.
On the scale of societal harm, we have here someone who's advocating violence against a specific group, who's willing to violate the sanctity of school with a gun, who's willing to turn his ignorant and bigoted beliefs into violence against an innocent person. I put this at an 8 on societal harm.
The end result? a total score of 25 out of 30. He should be killed - preferably publicly - and his family ran out of town, his church shut down, and his pastor investigated.
Which brings me to his religion: if it's found his religion was the causative agent, throw the good preacher in with him. They can discuss the merits of hate while being wheeled down to the execution chamber. We cannot allow a culture of hate to flourish in america, we cannot allow that poisonous tree to take root. The quickest way to stop it is to round up the sources of bigotry and silence them.