Lawrence King, murdered at age 15

[Sarongman]

While I am diverging a little from the original tenor of this thread, Just a few days ago I watched a documentary on our National Broadcaster (ABC) on capital punishment in the U.S. and was shocked to learn that untrained prison officers administer the lethal injections and, in more than a few cases, they have not been able to find the vein. (I can easily see this happening as, I have hard to find elbow veins even for a trained pathologist.) In these cases, they have given the injections intramuscularly which (1) causes intense and unbearable pain; (2) Death can then take from 20 to 45 minutes, most of this time the victim is awake and aware!
This has certainly disabused me from the easy myth of a quick, painless death that I had been led to believe L.E.was. Do we really want to torture these people to death? I know this is a family friendly site but I believe this had to be said.

[Pythos]

\when it comes to punks like this? Yes.

Do you not understand what I am saying when I say, One cell, one gun?

The gun has one bullet. The deed of removing this useless life from the planet is ultimately placed in the perp's hands. They are given the choice, die quickly, or starve to death.

I want to live in a world where I can wear what I want with no fear of some stupid ignorant punk kicking the crap out of myself, or my girlfriend, based on our appearance. I want to live in a world where the kind of job success is based on my ability, not on what kind of clothing I wear, or my religion, or my sexual orientation.

What parts of the bay area have you been in, cause I am seeing a melting pot alright, just not the type you described.

I hardly ever see a woman in a skirt or dress any more. Everyone is wearing some form of denim jean. It is very dull

[Departed Member]

In these cases, they have given the injections intramuscularly which (1) causes intense and unbearable pain; (2) Death can then take from 20 to 45 minutes, most of this time the victim is awake and aware!
This has certainly disabused me from the easy myth of a quick, painless death that I had been led to believe L.E.was. Do we really want to torture these people to death?

I must say, I find this very difficult to believe. To take 20+ minutes when the first part of the procedure (putting to sleep) should be complete in under 30 seconds? And they cannot proceed until this is done?

From my UK perspective, I was deeply dismayed when hanging (which I deplore) for first degree murder wasn't replaced by lethal injection. I don't accept either the 'revenge' thesis or the 'power of the state' argument. Responsibility lies full and square with the murderer.

[AMM]

This has certainly disabused me from the easy myth of a quick, painless death that I had been led to believe L.E.was.

As far as I can tell, there's no such thing as a "quick, painless" killing (whether for capital punishment or otherwise.) Most forms of killing are far messier and more drawn out (and stomach-turning) than they are usually portrayed in the media. With executions, there are the months and years of anticipation, which are a kind of torture, regardless of how "painless" the actual death.

Nor is it easy on those who do the deed.

I can't help feeling that, underneath it all, the search for "painless" capital punishment is really a way to enjoy the pleasure of revenge without having to face what you are really doing. Like the folks who love their steaks but can't bear to think of killing and chopping up a living creature.

[crfriend]

As far as I can tell, there's no such thing as a "quick, painless" killing [...]

Quite likely, the fastest (and hence painless to the soon-to-be deceased) method would be a large-calibre slug delivered directly to the head. But then you get into the "messy" problem.

One of the things that gets overlooked so often is that "ritual killings" (capital punishment) take place over the course of years, and as AMM points up, that, in and of itself, is a form of torture. I posit that humane societies should not condone such base actions because the actions debase the societies in question. How, then, can one condemn torture yet still regard capital punishment as a legitimate penalty? Segregating the criminal from society is a necessary action, but engaging in ritual killing or revenge behaviour is not.

I can't help feeling that, underneath it all, the search for "painless" capital punishment is really a way to enjoy the pleasure of revenge without having to face what you are really doing. Like the folks who love their steaks but can't bear to think of killing and chopping up a living creature.

That's an interesting thesis, and one that likely deserves to have some thought and reflection applied to it. Lots of work has already been done on it, but I suspect that more can be profitably undertaken.

The approach I had on the matter a good many years ago, back when I believed that capital punishment was useful and justified, was that it should be as brutal as possible -- "messy" if you will -- to point up just how horrible things can be. And, to be honest, on occasion when I hear of particularly horrific crimes I momentarily revert to that mentality because it would satisfy an overt need for revenge (note that I recognise it); fortunately, the feeling passes quickly and I can return to rational thought. That said, I positively abhor the notion of "lethal injection" as it's practised in the US right now.

[Pythos]

I have never understood why there is the electric chair, gas chamber, hanging, and now lethal injection. All of those are very ritualistic. All involve being strapped into or onto some article, then a waiting period, then some switch being pulled.

I think all of these are drawn out method of torture.

Why do all this, when one bullet can do the job better? Messy, yes, but what about the charged smoking corpse from the chair? Or the chemical infested corpse from the chamber? All forms of a person's demise are messy, even natural causes. Ask any nursing home employee if death is a clean thing.

[sapphire]

As someone who has worked with multiple cats for many years, I have had the joy of seeing them borm, the pleasure of watching them grow up, the comfort of their company and ultimately the sadness of their death.

Euthanasia for cats is a quick thing. A cather is inserted, then flushed with saline and then the euthanasia drug is given. The cat does feel a stinging sensation for a second or two, but is then dead within 10-15 seconds.

Why can't it be that simple for humans?

Euthanasia is practiced in some cases for terminally people. Is the method the same as lethal injection or is it different?

Sorry, I don't mean to be morbid, just curious after reading the other posts on the matter.

[crfriend]

Euthanasia is practiced in some cases for terminally people. Is the method the same as lethal injection or is it different?

Euthanasia in animals and humans is usually carried out with a deliberate and massive overdose of sedatives (e.g. phenobarbital or some other barbituate). See http://www.suevet.com/petEd/Euthanasia.html for an example in veterinary practise. This renders the individual unconscious within several seconds and continues along that path until breathing and heart function stops. At that point, there can be no feeling or sensation because brain function is so depressed as to be non-existent.

Lethal injection as practised in capital (death penalty) cases in the US uses a three stage approach. In the first stage, the condemned is anesthestised, typically with sodium thiopental. Once the condemned (hereafter referred to as "the victim") is "under", a dose of a paralyzing agent, pancuronium bromide, is injected. This immobiolises the victim and stops breathing. Finally, potassium chloride is then injected to stop the heart. See http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/NEJMe0800032.

Getting all this right is tough -- and requires a great deal of skill on the part of the people who prepare the victim for his fate. If the anesthesia fails, then the victim will suffocate -- whilst aware -- due to lack of breathing, and the paralysis from the second drug will completely mask the executioners' knowledge that the anesthesia was incomplete. Finally, the injection of potassium chloride, a rather reactive salt, is an excruciating event. Compounding this, the human brain continues to function for a few minutes after the heart stops so if the anesthesia was incomplete the victim is fully aware of what's going on throughout the entire "procedure".

So, in short, ritual killing by way of "lethal injection" is nothing like the final act of compassion that one can offer a cherished pet. It's as fully a barbaric act as hanging, drawing, and quartering. It just "looks" more sanitary.

[Uncle Al]

Hey people This topic has now turned to morbidity, and
is not what the thread was originally about.

This forum is for and about skirts and kilts, not 'a how to'
about terminating a life.

Let's get back on topic

Uncle Al
Duncanville, TX

[JRMILLER]

The one wonders why not Euthanasia for prisoners instead of the 3 stage crap they use and muck up??

[Sasquatch]

No method, including a bullet to the head, guarantees a quick death. In China, the country with perhaps the highest rate of executions, the condemned are generally executed in a group on a set day. They are blindfolded, their hands and legs are bound, and they are made to kneel in the prison yard, lined up side to side with a few feet between each prisoner. A line of soldiers wait several yards behind. On command. the soldiers rush forward with their rifles, fire a single shot into the back of the condemned person's head, and then rush back to their spot and wait at attention. The prisoners slump forward, faces (what remains of faces) to the ground. An officer inspects the row of the dead, making sure the job was effectively performed. Those still living are shot again, if it appears death is not eminent within a minute or so. The second shot is at the base of the skull and passes through the brain at a different angle.

I am not a fan of execution, not because it's "cruel and unusual punishment", but simply because the probability is too great that for reasons of police incompetence or deceit, prosecutorial hubris and/or politics, an innocent person is killed. Yet I share the same ambivalence that most Americans feel, i.e., the lack of sympathy for those who commit the sorts of horrendous, chilling murders that sometimes happen here. Especially when they break into the houses of elderly people and murder them for whatever money they can find in the house - usually just enough to feed their drug habit for a day or two. Years ago, I had a retired neighbor who met that fate. His killer was a young vagrant the gentleman had befriended and was assisting toward a better life. The guy beat him to death. No simple answers.
Sasq

[crfriend]

Hey people This topic has now turned to morbidity, and
is not what the thread was originally about.

This forum is for and about skirts and kilts, not 'a how to'
about terminating a life.

Let's get back on topic

I agree with Uncle Al's assertion, and [mod hat on] I hereby ask for a tap on the brakes. [mod hat off]

The intent of my posting was not in the vein of a "howto", but rather to engage the reader's mind to consider the notion and nature of humanity. If I blundered by going into "forbidden territory", I hereby apologise.

[Peter v]

He (Lawrence King) was gay and had asked the boy who shot him to be his Valentine. I think that's really sweet. But I guess the boy couldn't handle that - or the fact that Lawrence wore feminine clothes.

So sad.

http://www.egossip.com/celebrity/ellen- ... rder-10840

I'd also like to state that trying a 14 tear old as an adult is just plain insane. That's not justice -- that's revenge. If revenge is what we're after as a society, why not just up the charge to capital murder, stuff the kid in the gas chamber, and be done with? I'd like to think we're better than that.

Well, what can we say, I can put some thoughts down, as I think of them, right or wrong. "talking about these things can give us a wajke up call and hopefully something positive will come out if the discussion.

Actually, as gruesome as it sounds, that should probably be done.
He is a murderer. It was an ""Ädult"""act, of which he was capable of. Just look at world wide conflicts to see what children are capable of, blowing themselves up, playing the terrorist, they shoot you dead and then after, they go on playing with their toys.

There are so many issues to be taken in account, we don't know the half of it.

But it is very discerning that people are so easily murdered these days. Making it the question if you want to even leave the house at all. Or pay everybody protection money as you pass them on the street.

The murder comes very close to home, thinking that we or even one of our children, might be the next target of some idiot just because we are just ourselves, dressing in a skirt, as a man making us stand out even more. (not "different", because the first thing everybody should learn is that we are all individuals, and in that CANNOT be "different", different to what? with the right to be that, an individual.)

You don't just "have" ( even if you have one for protection, that leaves you wide open to misuse when you momentairly 'loose" it, as the firearm is at hand's reach) a loaded firearm, "children" of 14 in the US seem more adult than I see them in western Europe, also driving at the age of 16... still too young. His murder was an adult action. Only by a thorough investigation will there be hopefully a just version of the happenings. I don't know anything of that myself.

Don't under estimate what people of a young age are capable of. "children" is just a jurisdictial term, not having any relevance to the capabilitys of any particular person. People who are very elderly can murder the very same way as even 10 year olds, or younger. At the moment of murder, those people irregardless of age I would think are very aware of what they are doing. The murdered person is also very deffinitely sure of that.

The gun question, self defence is a naieve thing. Only in very special circumstances can you defend yourself. To defend yourself with a gun, you have to be agressively using a gun yourself, or you are too late. Agressively using a gun makes you the criminal. Waiting until another makes the first move makes you dead. With all those guns lying around it is no wonder that there are so many """"accidents"""" happening. It is the accidents that people of the anti gun lobby want to prevent. Not to prevent people owning firearms. With regard to firearms, I am happy I don't live in the US, where the wild west doctrine, gun fights at the OK corale seem to live on to this very day.

The media plays a large roll in stimulating wrong thought patterns, like PC games, kill everybody and spawn again, etc. The A team, shoot a thousand bullets and nobody gets hurt.

I truly hope that this horrible shooting will be well investigated and all guilty partys prossecuted. In principle the parents, and with them the community, made up of other same thinking people, parents, are largely to blame for making this possible, having failed to bring respectful thinking over on the culprit. But every person is an individual and can go his / her own way despite all the best will of others.

All said, there is one dead, thousands now fearing they may be next, and one who pulled the trigger, again I am happy I wasn't part of it. All the thoughts, right or wrong will not change what has happened, but it does make us think about what we ourselves are doing, in life and what we can do to prevent that happening.

Let us do our part and our best to bring respectful thinking over to people we have contact with.

[Uncle Al]

I agree with Uncle Al's assertion, and [mod hat on] I hereby ask for a tap on the brakes. [mod hat off]

The intent of my posting was not in the vein of a "howto", but rather to engage the reader's mind to consider the notion and nature of humanity. If I blundered by going into "forbidden territory", I hereby apologise.

crfriend-Thank you! You did provoke some
'thoughts' but some went overboard. That's life!

Again, Thanks for being the Brakeman on this train!
I hope the 'engineer' will see you waiving your red lantern
as you try to stop the train!


Uncle Al
Duncanville, TX

[Pythos]

I would actually like other's opinions as to whether this topic should continue other than Uncle al's or CF friend's. They have made their case for closing the topic, but other's here seem to want to participate.

This is an important topic and I personally think it should be discussed.

The topic of this area is in the news. This is news. Every time we choose to go outside we run the risk of getting shot or beaten by some sh*t head for any reason, not just our skirts.

The penalty for killing someone pales in comparison to what the perp does to his or her victim. Hell, some get out of jail in some cases like a robbery gone wrong.