There is something rather chilling about a smiling killer,and something truly horrible about the unrepentant.
Alleged gunman Jared Lee Loughner, 22, as he appeared in court yesterday. Picture: AP Source: The Australian
New details emerged yesterday about how the alleged gunman had bought ammunition at a Walmart store just hours before the shootings. He was turned away from one Walmart store for reasons that remain unclear, but was sold bullets at another.
The gunman had two oversized magazines for the automatic weapon, each allowing him to shoot 30 rounds in rapid fire. He bought the Glock pistol from the Sportsman’s Warehouse in Tucson last November, a month after he was suspended from a community college over aggressive outbursts and told he could not return without a medical certificate declaring he was mentally stable.
Loughner has refused to shed any light on his motive for the rampage, but authorities portray him as a loner who descended into a world of paranoia and fantasy, harbouring a deep anger towards the government.
Despite Loughner being mentally disturbed, prosecutors intend to argue Loughner was in control of his actions when he plotted the assassination attempt and should face the full weight of the law, which includes the death penalty for murder in Arizona.
However those of us who care about justice can take comfort from the fact that Arizona does have a capital sanction and that this man can look forward to facing it for his crimes, the only downside here is that the process will take far too long and a whole swag of bleeding hearts are going to try very hard to argue that he should not face death should he be found guilty (he was caught in the act so that should not be a big ask). those of us with more sense will realise that it is those for which no doubt of their guilt that the death penalty is in fact most apt and justifiable.
Cheers Comrades
Pingback: Tweets that mention At least they have the death penalty in Arizona | IAIN HALL's Sandpit -- Topsy.com
Good post Iain.
The one frustration I have with the good ole US of A is that it, the country that is, refuses to address the root cause of problems such as this shooting. I don’t have the root cause so I don’t have any solution but it annoys be greatly to hear leading citizens say ‘he has a mental problem’ and he should be shot. That’s the problem solved lets move on. Let’s keep him locked away like a lab rat and effectively torture him for as long as possible while at the same time condemn country’s like China for doing the same thing.
The whole bloody country has a mental problem and it needs to stop this obsession with finding a scapegoat and ignoring itself.
That’s my rant for the day.
We in the south are thinking of you guys during the current flooding. Stay strong Queensland!
“The one frustration I have with the good ole US of A is that it, the country that is, refuses to address the root cause of problems such as this shooting.”
Easy access to guns? This guy bought his Glock while still a mental patient. He then purchased the bullets from a Wal Mart. It’s just too easy over there.
OMG! he belongs in a slasher movie!
BTW, we only pretend to have the death penalty in California
Yes Tessa that was my thought as well!!!
Why am I not surprised that you look forward to Loughner’s execution? This is typical conservative thinking, after all. If you see someone you don’t like then you immediately want to kill them.
That’s exactly the way right-wing Palin-loving Loughner behaved, too. You’re all the same.
Frankly, I think you should all be put in a cage so you’ll end up killing each other!
Derek
What do you suggest should be done with this wacko?
Derek
You are being disloyal to your own understanding of the Goddess by failing to chide Loughner for only killing six people, after all in your understanding of Gaia’s intentions don’t you want to see humanity laid low and made less of an affront to the goddess?
Good on you for finding that clip….
I usually respect Ray’s views, but this killing isn’t partisan, no matter how you view it.
I see you still haven’t lost your bloodust for killing criminals then Iain? Pity…I will still feel sorry for the innocents you will also kill if you ever make it as Prime Minister.
PKD
As I asked ,Derek, what is your solution to dealing with this wacko?
Derek,
You really must try to keep up with events and not just rely on the ABC for your news. Loughner’s reading list comprised Mein Kampf, the Communist Manifesto and he appears to have been influenced by Noam Chomsky’s work on language and totalitarian control of the population (hence his reference to “grammar” on his YouTube video). Hardly a reading list to be enjoyed by a Palin-loving right-winger.
(BTW I carry no water for Palin, whom I regard as unintelligent and unprincipled. About the only thing she has going for her is that she looks good on camera). But don’t let information get in the way of blaming the conservatives.
FYI, I don’t support the death penalty. But life should mean life with no possibility of parole.
PKD,
You make the very common Leftist error of confusing justice with revenge. Of course, in your mind, execution = murder and the only possible reason for Iain’s support of the death penalty is that he is in the grip of bloodlust and just wants to see people die. No other explanation is possible. And I thought the Left was supposed to be so big on nuance?!
As I asked ,Derek, what is your solution to dealing with this wacko?
GD, Life imprisonment.
Luzu,
Of course, in your mind, execution = murder
Incorrect.
Execution = incorrectly killing people who were wrongly convicted of a capitol offence as has happened many times in the past where it exists.
Bit late to apologise to them and compensate them for the mistake once they are dead.
The ‘bloodlust’ comment simply reflects the long-running debates I have had with Iain ad nauseum on this and I am sure he took it with the pinch of salt I intended it.
Oh and I am not a leftie either, your mistaken assumption again I am afraid – what, do you think only lefties oppose the death penalty???
PKD
I don’t know if you have noticed but I have been very careful to restrict my advocacy for a capital sanction to cases where there is NO doubt about the guilt of the accused as in this case.
So when you say this:
I can’t help but think that you have not been actually reading my argument
I have been reading your argument for along long time, and your ‘fatal’ flaw in your logic that you keep willfully ignoring is you *still* have provided no guarantee of getting it right 100% of the time.
Probably because you don’t have a way…and I can assure you if there was a simple way of guaranteeing no mistakes, it would have been implemented already by states that do have the death penalty. But for one more time – there is NO WAY of guaranteeing you would never kill a wrongly convicted person.
PKD
How is this case not 100% sure?
I agree with you that life imprisonment is preferable in most cases, but not in this instance, nor in the Martin Bryant killings.
How is this case not 100% sure?
I am not talking about this case but the overall system of the death penalty for capital offences. Many mistakes have been made in the the past where we were ’100% sure’ only to have a sentence quashed at a later point.
Given that no system of justice currently is, or is ever likely to be perfect in future, the principle of having a justice system that is more likely to let a guilty man free than convict and punish an innocent man is the right ideal…especially where the death penalty is concerned.
sorry PKD But I think you have snookered yourself here Perhaps its time to gracefully admit that your argument is confused and flawed
PKD
This post is about Loughner and his crime, not the validity of the death penalty. Do you agree he should be executed? If not, why?
No I don’t believe Loghner or anyone else should be executed for the reason I gave previously about the principle that justice as a system of laws cannot guarantee it will never make a mistake when sentencing someone to death.
Even if Loughner is executed based on a conviction that is correct and never challenged, someone the next week could be wrongly executed based on the same laws than convicts and executes Loughner.
Got it?
sorry PKD But I think you have snookered yourself here Perhaps its time to gracefully admit that your argument is confused and flawed
Maybe in your imagination Iain, it does seem to be a fertile place after all.
Quite telling that you could not answer my point about the flaw in your desire to kill criminals, perhaps you’d like to actually tell me how my argument is logically ‘snookered’?
PKD
In this case he is guilty, just because there is doubt in other cases doesn’t exempt this killer from the death penalty. The law should not be that inflexible. The wacko did it. Is it better to keep him alive in a cell, or do what we do to a rabid dog?
there is doubt in other cases doesn’t exempt this killer from the death penalty
If there is doubt in other cases then the jury must aquit. ALL convictions must be ‘beyond all reasonable doubt’ – yet mistakes still get made with wrongful convictions. Don’t they, hmmm?
This is the exact same flawed thinking that Iain suffers from btw – somehow magicking up 2 levels of murder conivctions and only executing on this mythical higher level where you never make a mistake. Except this magical ’100% never wrong’ level doesn’t exist – at least no-state has found a way of creating it yet anyway…
PKD
People saw him do it! What don’t you get about that? There is room in the law to accommodate this type of crime as well as the reasonable doubt crimes. Are you saying he should be kept alive because another trial of murder, somewhere else, in another time may result in ‘reasonable doubt’?
People saw him do it! What don’t you get about that?
I am sure people did see him do it – but there is still no system in place for a 2 tier system that would always execute correctly people like Loughner. You just want to close your eyes to the fact that no system guarantee 100% of all executions will be made without any errors in your eagernesss to execute this particular individual…
Obviously a two tiered system is needed. Eagerness? oh come on, your eagerness to prove us as slavering murderers is insulting and way off the mark. That is not what we are saying. BTW you are still in need of a punctuation and spelling lesson.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. That’s simply why State sanctioned capital punishment is wrong – it’s cold blooded murder. It’s just a pity this bloke didn’t do the right thing and top himself as well, or that some police officer didn’t drop him while he still had the gun. But if you apprehend him alive and take him into custody, you own him.
Yes there is also that fact too Ray – good point.
I wonder if GD / Iain would want to execute those responsible for the wrongful execution of someone later found innocent? I mean there would be no doubt that they did it…
PKD & Ray
What I have been consistently suggesting (over many posts) is that fro a capital sanction there should be an even higher standard of proof than “beyond reasonable doubt” and that is why the cases I cite as deserving capital punishment are the ones where there is no doubt about the accused person’s guilt, like this one where the scum-bag was literally caught red handed with a smoking gun in that hand.
Quite simply PKD’s caveat about executing the innocent by judicial error just does not apply here and making the argument about mistakes killing the innocent is entirely irrelevant to this case That said I can respect Ray’s argument even when I disagree with it because it is at least cogent and consistent.
Iain it’s you who is lacking consistency. I know you want a higher standard of proof but your problem is you are wishing for something that does not currently exist because there is No known way available to ensure that would work.
If there is you could tell us the speciic criteria around making this higher standard work, but you don’t know which is why you always duck the question.
And you don’t know because it doesn’t exist – a foolproof system is science fiction and a figment of your imagination.
But I guess that’s just a minor detail in your quest for eye-for-an-eye style justice…
In fact the sci-fi I think you are longing for is in Minority Report : the infallible legal system that NEVER makes a mistake…until of course it does. But until then, what are askIng for does not exist – get over it!
PKD
Firstly I think that you have to admit that there is no doubt that the accused committed this crime and that the only possible defence that can be mounted is the “insanity” one. There is CCTV of the shooting, innumerable eye witnesses, and he was caught after a 61 year old woman who he had already wounded disarmed him. When it comes to proof that is beyond all doubt, there is not much better than this.
As for your example from fiction to support your argument I suggest that you try again because the essential aspect of that film that you are ignoring is that the “crimes ” being investigated had not in fact happened they were detected by three “precogs” who were seeing into the future something that is way to far from actual reality to be at all useful to your argument here. Oh yeah and any Sci-fi with Tom Cruise in it has no credibility as far as I’m concerned
It’s not the pre cog theme (which is merely the means by which they have an ifallible system) but simple the principle that they have got an infallible system that is relevant.
in reality though we don’t have an infallible system yet iain – it’s still the domain of fiction – got it?
Although at least we share a mutual dislike of Tom Cruise!
PKD
while I agree with that the proof of someone’s guilt is often not infallible there clearly are cases like this one where there is NO doubt, they are rare for sure but when they pop up they should be acknowledged, even by you, in this context.
and to my mind when there is NO DOUBT and the crime is serious enough (like multiple murder or acts of terrorism) then a capital sanction is both warranted and ethically justifiable.