So, csteele, you are abhorred by Breivik, but what about the fellow who raped and murdered Jill Meagher, and finally admitted it - but only after being presented with irrefutable evidence of his crime?
Could you perhaps be persuaded to make a teeny exception in these two cases at least, and join me in putting the needle in their arm? (If only metaphorically. For myself, I would gladly volunteer - and I am genuinely a peace-loving person.)

I guess not. But if anyone ever deserved to have their rights, including their life, to be forfeit, and without further ado, it would have to be these two. (And those two aholes in the UK.)

I agree with misanthrope that, where there is doubt, one cannot in good conscience consider the death penalty (and would have to be cautious about even advocating a prison sentence), but where there is no doubt whatever, then, if the shoe fits?

So, if euthanasia is legalized it's ok for someone to assist in performance of the 'last rites'; and it's ok for soldiers to use lethal force in warfare when their life or the lives of others are threatened by an enemy (even if that enemy hasn't even killed anyone yet), but a proven murderer must be given a snug little cell for the rest of their 'natural', at taxpayers expense, because here at home, far from the battlefield, we are all 'above all that'?
(What a marvellous defence attorney you would make; maybe you could even make Breivik look like a true 'patriot'.)

Our legal system is a farce, and because we don't advocate and apply the death penalty, those who shake babies to death, or commit vehicular homicide, are given a few months in minimum security. And so it goes down the line, so that lesser crimes, like B&E cop only a virtual rap over the knuckles.
A weak society invites itself to be taken advantage of, and that is what is happening. Eternal Vigilance and security for all? Not when we even refuse to match penalty to crime.

Joe,
If I had my way you could piss on their graves tomorrow.

The poms need bigger guns. Sheez, 8 shots fired at close range and they are still alive.

Not to mention that armed coppers took 20 minutes to get to the scene.

I support the death penalty for heious crimes, The crims do not deserve to be part of our society.

All done quick and forgotton about, our life goes on.

Hi Banjo,

Yes, it's very tempting, I'm wrestling with the pros and cons, and it's a sort of 55: 45 situation in my mind.

But while it may be logical that if somebody takes a life, they are liable to forfeit their own, this really is the logic of a backward society, perhaps a form of reasoning not beyond chimpanzees. And surely we are beyond that.

On the other hand, I'm not against the liberal use of solitary confinement, lights out from dusk to daylight, an environment which may stimulate contemplation and reflection. It may make criminals like Martin Bryant or Breivik better people, but that would be up to them.

Joe

[I apologise for offending any chimpanzees reading this article.]

Breivik decided that the most expedient manner of addressing the issue or problem he had identified was to kill other human beings.

The two in London also came to the conclusion that the best way to deal with what was occurring in Afghanistan was to run a man down and hack him to death.

What this boils down to is the fact that you lot are adopting the same mindset. I am rejecting it. I am taking issue with who see the answers to the problems they identify within their own societies as involving the taking of human lives.

Thankfully most civilised Western nations have also rejected it.

Thankfully most civilised Western nations have also rejected it.
csteele,
And now they're starting to pay for that mistake.

Dear individual,

Well my friend I suppose the ball is in your court to show us how that is the case.

The evidence is surely there. The United States is the only major Western nation that continues this barbaric practice. Reliable homicide figures are available for it and all the other Western countries.

All you need to do is illustrate how having the death penalty has curbed the murder rates in that country over the others.

The floor is yours.

Of course my position is that citizens in a country where the state uses the taking of life as a means of solving its problems will have a greater propensity to contemplate similar methods to resolve their own problems.

Show me where I am wrong.