Owen Sparks
member
- Joined
- May 27, 2007
- Messages
- 4,523
Many states and cities have enhanced penalties for crimes committed with guns. Why should firearms be singled out? Is murdering a person with a gun somehow worse than murdering him with a knife or a claw hammer or with a ten pound rock?
Or is murder murder?
Last week a criminal was executed in Mississippi for killing a man by beating him to death with a common carpenter’s claw hammer. Would the crime have been worse, more brutal and evil had he shot the man?
Anyone who has dealt with prisoners knows that they will come up with all manner of improvised weaponry. An unopened can of soda in a sock can be swung with enough velocity to kill a man. Any piece of scavenged metal can be scraped on concrete until sharp and fashioned into a crude but deadly dagger. The wire from a common spiral bound note book can be made into a deadly garrote. Are these or any other weapon somehow less offensive than a gun?
Or is the tool employed irrelivant when compaired to the intent and result?
Or is murder murder?
Last week a criminal was executed in Mississippi for killing a man by beating him to death with a common carpenter’s claw hammer. Would the crime have been worse, more brutal and evil had he shot the man?
Anyone who has dealt with prisoners knows that they will come up with all manner of improvised weaponry. An unopened can of soda in a sock can be swung with enough velocity to kill a man. Any piece of scavenged metal can be scraped on concrete until sharp and fashioned into a crude but deadly dagger. The wire from a common spiral bound note book can be made into a deadly garrote. Are these or any other weapon somehow less offensive than a gun?
Or is the tool employed irrelivant when compaired to the intent and result?