| Timmah! said: To those who say that 'killing is always wrong', what would you do if someone was about to kill your mother and the only way to stop the person was to kill him? If someone was about to rape and murder your sister, would you maybe risk killing that person to protect her? Don't preach to people that 'killing is always wrong' without concidering things like this. I don't like the idea of killing, and would not ever want to have to do it, but sometimes it IS necessary. |
In germany that case is called 'Notwehr' (acting in self-defence). It means, if you kill someone in a situation to stop him from doing harm to others and theres no other way, then it's no crime. So to avoid that your sister gets raped, you can kill the rapists without having to fear consequences. But this case does not apply to capital punishment. The criminal is already imprisoned. He is not longer a threat to anyone. Death penalty is not a act of self-defence. The real question is: What are the advantages and the misadvantages of death penalty. As I can see, there are no advantages, countries executing death penalty usually have higher rates of capital crimes, than countries without death penalty. Vengeance is to less of a reason, to kill a human. And can a murder be a useful member of the society later? Yes. Many murderers that served a sentence and showed remorse, were able to integrate later in the society. Want we cut away this chance by killing the criminal?
