A friend of mine posted his opinion on mass shootings on his Facebook page. I thought some of you might enjoy reading it. Feel free to weigh in if you have an opinion. Just so you know, I am not in favor of executions, but I can see where what he writes makes sense. My friend is half my age, (to give this some perspective).
"School Shootings and the Manchild, a conjecture
These school shooters all fill the same niche: outsider, gun access, angry and trying to vindicate self, others as incurables who need to be disciplined, "I'll show them", etc., etc.
These are the attitudes of manchildren--those curious teenagers who are still very much children but who are beginning to have man sized feelings and capabillities.
I think that we have experience dealing with manchildren. They are like little bitches who need to be disciplined themselves. They need to be hardened out of their immaturity.
This latest shooter was planning on killing himself as the finale, but couldn't bring himself to kill himself. That shows me you've got a big, fat, manchild there.
His only social value at this point is in showing what happens to people like himself, to make an example of himself.
If we allow people like him to be treated with incarceration or institutionalization, then we are rewarding their behavior. The state should be clear that it will not incur undue costs associated with housing and maintaining these kind of people. On some level, knowing that you'll be treated fairly and with due process and won't be tarred and feathered and thrown into a bog with a 100lb stone around your neck is an incentive to these assholes.
Because of the ongoing frequency of these crimes, the state should take a deterrence minded penal philosophy towards its punitive approach. I think that these manchildren should know that once they embark upon this path there is no exit. The authorities will be merciless with them and they will be executed. I think death penalty should be used in these cases. The children should be tried as men and should face man sized penalties.
You can go after the NRA, but in the end it is the manchild who is pulling the trigger in these cases and we need to go after the manchild, too."