“Justice” Delayed

Kenneth Biros waited eighteen years to be served … his last meal.

Society waited eighteen years to see justice served.

Mr. Biros’ meal consisted of a cheese pizza (presumably small), onion rings, fried mushrooms, Doritos, French onion dip, blueberry ice cream, cherry pie and a Dr. Pepper.

Society feasted on a small satisfaction, long since grown cold.

The account of Mr. Biros’ menu exceeded in detail the account of his mayhem.

For those who care more about what he did than what he digested, he sexually assaulted a young woman, Tami Engstrom,  then stabbed her and continued to, then he dismembered her mutilated body and scattered the parts over two states.

He said he was sorry.

We all are.

Yet Mr. Biros won’t be remembered by the enormity of his crime but the manner of his execution.

He was the first, in the United States, to receive a one drug lethal injection. The new protocol is considered a significant improvement, being virtually painless.

True justice remains elusive.

“Madness”

Mr. Herbert’s most recent contribution to misinformation “A Threat We Can’t Ignore” argues that several recent and unrelated murders by “right-wing hate mongering, hate driven, gun craze wackos” is merely the opening volley in an uncoordinated but thematically unified campaign of violence.
The NRA, a morally complicitous co-conspirator, is named by Mr. Herbert as knowingly inflamming the intellectually enfeebled by fueling their paranoia.
These people (potential terrorists all) are dangerously deluded in believing the Second Amendment was drafted to protect their rights, not permit their recreational shooting. This bit of “madness”, Herbert’s term, is being exacerbated and exploited by the NRA.

A signature specimen of Herbert’s hyperbole.

Not to further alarm Mr. Herbert but there are tens of millions of Americans who share that view. The Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting and everything to do with the logic of liberty responsibly exercised.

Government is force (as Washington observed) and force hasn’t a conscience. Why would a free people forsake the means by which their freedom was won and may yet be preserved? (parchment barriers are so seldom respected by aspiring tyrants or social engineers with a messiah complex)

Cutting Edge

I suspect the Brits are suffering pangs of nostalgia for the good old days of gun-control.

So much easier to implement than the civilizational work of self-control.

Knife violence in Britain is edging out terrorism as law enforcements top priority. Headlines and hospitals are crowded with blood soaked youth. Savagery appears to be in season.

Among the proposals to combat this reversion to the feral the Prime Minister will launch an advertising campaign to “discourage” young people from stabbing one another as a form of conflict resolution. And for those of limited imagination a program acquainting perpetrators with the effects of their handiwork on the human anatomy. There´ll be interventions (an ominously vague term) with families whose children are at “risk”. Those families that refuse help will be “threatened with eviction” from their public housing, we may have to rethink that. Perhaps we could start with smashing their pets skulls on a rock.

In addition to these innovations we may consider providing a somewhat traditional moral education. Assuming we can agree on the difference between right and wrong.