Charin,

Some asswipe rapes your mother/sister/grandma/brother/father, then buries them alive, sends you letters taunting you that they have 24 hours to live unless you pay a big ransom (which you do) and then refuses to provide the whereabouts to save them. Does that change your kind and gentle answer? Or, do you settle it like a West Virgina shine runner?

Bottom line, TX, AZ and FL have it right (and correct): right to carry laws are liberal. Gun ownership is easy. Death penalty is implemented regularly. (homework for the class: why does Kenesaw, GA have VERY little crime?)

Human beings are nasty animals. They will steal, pillage and do all kinds of unkind things to one another given the chance. Please use the Bible, Rome, Genghis Khan, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, any of the purges in South America and/or Planet of the Apes (original, not the remake) as evidence. The only thing that keeps human behavior in check is the threat of more pain being wrought on them than the pain they bring. It is why countries have militaries for "the common defense". Pain and death are just about the only common language that all cultures (and animals, for that matter) understand.

As a civil society, we wrap the death penalty in a series of what we hope are fair trials to make the decision to carry out this penalty more humane. Is it fair? Is it equitable? Hell no. However, it is better than getting whacked without a chance to defend or justify yourself. And, it is better than anyone else's system.

All people are liberals until the purchase property, choose a spouse and start a family-- then the liberal bullshit fades away.

Liberal bullshit pisses me off.