It will be a frightening day for all of us when the purpose of the penal/legislative system is to make people suffer. To punish, yes. And to punish without comfort, yes again. But to induce suffering to no end other than to sate the apparent bloodlust of a broader community? Not for me.

The death penalty achieves nothing. How do you account for the fact of multiple mass shootings in a country that has the death penalty (America) yet by comparison almost none in a country that doesn't (the UK?)

Killing people is murder, whether sanctioned by the state or not. When the state can kill, killing as a means to an end becomes implicitly legitimised. Our refusal to adopt the death penalty is one of the best things about Britain and reflects well on political parties from across the spectrum.

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

So does life imprisonment. Arguably, more so as its then possible to rectify mistakes.

I'd suggest that retribution is never really capable of being justly applied, when it doesn't allow for rehabilition or atonement. Sometimes I think we let people off too lightly in terms of the later, and that those who's actions are harmful, should maybe be required on parole to atone for their actions, for a period of time.

But killing people because they killed people, isn't a deterent to murder, simply because people who kill other people usually do so for very powerful personal reasons (usually deseperate, or 'accidental' ones).

Obviously, this is an extreme case, where you could probably wrap it up nicely with a quick lynching after a fair trial (if thats possible given the TV coverage).

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

Yes, those facts may explain the number of shootings but they also expose the fact that the death penalty does nothing to mitigate the problem. So why have it? Is it ever really appropriate for a civilised country to assassinate its own citizens? Or is that something you'd like us to have in common with Sharia Law?

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.

Well there are ways to kill people painlessly I assure you but the knowledge that are going to die is unavoidable unless you do it with a mafia style "wacking" when you never see it coming. Not sure that is going to happen.
Certainly all the current forms of execution unacceptable.

Problem is that most of the 'painless methods' are either brutal, pleasant or would have legal consquences for Medicine. Thats before you get onto the ethical issue of keeping people on death row for 12-25 years, and then killing them irrespective of whether they prevent a threat or have rehabilitated.

"One Nation Under God, has turned into One Nation Under the Influence of One Drug"
[Link]

I'm not sure how you think the fact that Roof knew there would be consequences as a result of his actions serves as a justification for the death penalty. Every criminal, indeed every sane person, knows that life is a matter of cause and effect. In the case of the law the criminal chooses the cause and society chooses the effect. When society administers an effect that doesn't solve the cause (the death penalty does NOT reduce the number of murders) then what's the point of it? If anything, it simply dulls our view of and increases our tolerance of violence as a means to an end; if the state can do it, anyone can. Put another way, don't we teach our children that if someone hits you, hitting him or her back isn't the answer?

Colour indeed doesn't matter. But the function of a civilised government is not and never will be to induce suffering, no matter what crime has been committed. That is antithetical with being civilised. Even where a punishment results in suffering, it cannot explicitly seek to do so or we would compromise every value we hold in the west.

Roof will almost certainly be sentenced to death, I suspect. It's an easy way out, and his demise will be greeted by a religious fervour not unlike that generated, I suspect, by advocates of Sharia Law. His death will achieve nothing; his rehabilitation if he is sentenced to life in prison just might. Perhaps we should let the families of the victims decide his fate; they've already demonstrated more dignity and courage than most of the trigger-happy death penalty advocates in this thread.

Sydenham by birth. Selhurst by the Grace of God.