The epidemic of school shootings in America could be drastically curtailed by a few simple policy changes.
First, school shooters should automatically receive the death penalty with only limited opportunities to appeal. The problem of frivolous appeals and court cases dragging on for decades afflicts our entire judicial system, but it is especially egregious in the case of school shootings.
There are often hundreds of witnesses and the shooter, when captured alive, is generally caught in the act while in possession of a firearm, with their acts caught on camera. The evidence is overwhelming in these cases. There is no reason for extensive appeals over irrelevant aspects of the law.
Hang, draw, and quarter in public the next day.
ReplyDeleteYES!!! The death penalty is no deterrent to a suicidal individual. Painful, public, agonizing death, however, is...except for the masochists (maybe).
Delete09:34
Delete...a few short steps from the jurors.
And make their only legacy one of shame and ridicule. They are usually easy targets for that so spread it wide and far. Ridicule the crap out of them (posthumously of course) so any others thinking of similar acts know they will not be martyred but heaped with scorn and shame. Oh, and cremate them and spread their ashes on landfill with the rest of the garbage.
ReplyDeleteDon't waste the energy burning them; just dump the bodies on the garbage and feed the ravens
DeleteAbsolutely right and not a chance this will be done. There really ought to be two categories for those accused of murder. The first, this one, is the case where the killer was caught in the act with zero chance of error about who or what. That should apply not only to school shooters but any killer where guilt is unimpeachable and the act was intentional. That group, regardless of age, purported mental status, or other 'mitigating' factors, should be given a fast trial and when found guilty allowed one, immediate -next day- judicial review followed by immediate execution. Same day. Done and gone. Not more than a month or so from start to finish. I do endorse the idea of public flogging or other disincentives, and hanging as a mandated method of execution. Fear of consequences is a valid way to stop these.
ReplyDeleteThe other category is the one we use now for everything. Careful trial, recognition of levels of guilt, etc. Any question that the perpetrator might be impaired, that there is any doubt, then by all means use the current approach. But for the flagrantly, obviously guilty intentional killers, fast and final.
Yeah, you'd think so. One difficulty with that is impairing the investigation into the crooks who set them up, supplied the guy, and stuffed them so full of psychotropic drugs they didn't know left from right.
DeleteJohn G.
@ John G. that's why a lot of them end up dead, especially if/when the feds are involved. Dead men tell no tails and exactly why Epstein didn't kill himself.
DeleteNemo
They will never stop. Too useful as a tool to disarm the gen pop and abolish the 2nd. Sad times.
ReplyDeleteThe death penalty is too cruel. Just remove all Police from the area, declare all laws void and send the bastard into the community. Whatever happens, happens. If he is alive after 72 hours he is free to go. Bonus points if his torture is broadcast live.
ReplyDeleteThe Anglo Saxons had the same idea. If someone was a persistent law breaker and would not abide by the rules of their society they were, after due consideration of the evidence, declared an outlaw. It had a very specific meaning in that they were outside the protection of the law. They couldn't have it both ways - either the law applied to them or it didn't. If the law did not apply, then they could be killed on the spot and no penalty applied to their killer.
DeleteIt wasn't applied lightly and then only for a specified period.
Nowadays with all the various forms of communication (TV, Newspapers, Social Media) and the ability to show photographs of the person, then it should be a sanction worth considering but, as pointed out above, school shootings and general lawlessness is too useful to the Government to allow this to happen.
Phil B
If you’re on SSRI’s….
ReplyDeleteyou need monthly evaluations or….
mandatory admission into mental health hospitals….
Locking up the mentally ill….
might prevent many of these shootings.
Ed357
How about we get an honest FDA (fat chance of that!) They'd declare them useless dangerous drugs and ban SSRI's entirely. Problem solved.
DeleteHow about create a time machine that would take us back to the mid-1950s when I was in High School kids were normal and this current crap didn't happen.
ReplyDeleteGet rid of the public school system in the first place. It's just a huge brainwashing machine that treats everyone the same. Set up a school system that develops students according to their abilities rather than forcing them through the cookie cutter. People with no abilities or potential get to go dig ditches or be baristas or whatever. There is no point in wasting "education" on about half of the population.
ReplyDeleteBan public schooling, create (fully voluntary) tax incentives for home schooling, and massive incentives and subsidies for trade schools.
DeleteYou cannot get tax money to schools without also having government (i.e. socialist) control of said schools.
DeleteTax money going to ANY charity (of which all education is one example) is an abomination - it's not charity if it's somebody else's money, it's political grandstanding and votebuying, and is unconstitutional.
John G.
Extend the fealty penalty to the FBI/CIA handler’s as well. Far too often we see that these kids “were on the radar”.
ReplyDeleteThat was supposed to be death penalty… dang autocorrect
ReplyDeleteI actually liked 'fealty penalty.' If the shooter is on the radar and LE wasn't proactive, highest on 'the radar' chain also gets a touch-up.
DeleteNo one wants to hear the 'abused as a child' rational. It is very real. Simple english: If a child's boundaries are being forcefully & continually violated what chance does that child have of developing healthy boundaries and moreover recognizing & respecting the boundaries of others. Abuse is the gift that just keeps on giving.
ReplyDeleteNobody wants to hear the *rationale* because it's merely an excuse. Millions upon millions of us have abusive childhoods. Until recently very few tried to excuse our actions by blaming that childhood. Yes, it affects my behavior. Always has. But I have a functioning brain and know it isn't the world's problem to deal with nor for me to try to make it so.
DeleteToo many of these shooters are under 18 years of age for there to be political will for the death penalty. We simply don't sentence juveniles to the DP in our culture. LWOP might sail.
ReplyDeleteAccepted but lower the age where DP applies to 14 instead of 18. Those little bastards are more dangerous than adults. Ask a Vietnam vet - or Iraqi vet for that matter
DeleteHow about adding this to whatever you come up with. "A random C-Suite executive from the biopharmaceutical company making the medication he was taking will be treated to the same penalty."
ReplyDeleteThat was going be my suggestion too.
DeleteWith politicians being politicians, the overwhelming evidence argument will be used by Star Chamber courts. How about lauding people who shoot the shooters while they're in the act?
ReplyDeleteIt's way better to shoot them on the way in than catch them on the way out. Secure the schools take the pay for security out of the administrative budget.
ReplyDeleteWe have school districts where the teachers are armed. Too bad that's mainly in areas where the chance of school shooting is low anyway.
ReplyDeleteAll you have to do to stop the shootings is to stop the publicity. It's illegal to give identifying information of a minor victim of a crime. Make it illegal to give any identifying information about a shooter. Refer to them only as "The cowardly micropenised killer" and only show a generic silhouette. One of the shooters bragged to his friends that "in three days everyone will know who I am". Take away the fame, and you take away the incentive.
ReplyDeleteYUP, the PUBLICITY is what propagates school shootings, mentioning the dirtbags name in public(outside a courtroom) should make one an accessory, and subject to equal charges. once we go thru a set of TV and paper 'NEWS' reporters/ publishers, the dirtbags names will forever be lost to eternity, and the number of non gang shootings will drop precipitously.
DeleteThe obvious answer is to take away the dirtbags incentives, AND the shooters!
Fuck a trial. Smoke him/her/it up on surrender.
ReplyDeleteIn 1990 a law was passed making it illegal for the adults in a school to protect the children, the Gun Free School Zones Act. It should surprise no one that we then began to see the occasional school shooting. The United States is a very large country, so one would expect there to be persons willing to mass slaughter students just for the notoriety, not to mention the emotional problems emanating from the drugs the shooters are on. I don't think there have been any that were not on drugs, and now we have the phenomenon of the trans shooters. Why on Earth was this law not rescinded when it turned out to be such a disaster? It's almost like the politicians don't want them to stop.
ReplyDeletehttps://drp314.substack.com/p/mass-shootings