“I am not young enough to know everything”

There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable, and praiseworthy” ~Ambrose Bierce

When first formulating my opinions, growing up watching the news with my Grandpa, I formed several opinions which I believed to be my own. Namely, the opinion that people did things sometimes, and for those things, those people should probably be killed. In the Jump/Gary household, there was a quite simple decision-making process on whether or not someone needed to die. We called it “Needin’ a Killin’.” 

Let me attempt to put the NAK scale into words for the first time: 

Things that may justify killing someone else:

1. Murder

2. Rape

3. Adultery in most cases

4. Child Abuse (both sexual and physical)

5. Being a drain to society, re: crackheads, schizophrenics, etc.

6. People who steal your shit.  

7. People who insult your wife/girlfriend/slut you just met in a bar

8. People who insult you in a bar

9. Anyone standing outside a strip club looking suspiscious

10. People who endanger your life by driving like an asshole on the interstate

So that’s a pretty accurate assessment of what went on the scale when I was younger, and redneck, and conservative. In my college days, I spent most of my time with more intelligent people than what I had encountered in Jacksboro, Texas, and I started to get quite liberal on your ass. I figured that if I didn’t think abortion should be allowed, I also shouldn’t think the death penalty should be allowed either. After all, killing someone is killing someone, right? Regardless of the reason, there is only one type of murder, and it involves someone dying.

Now I’m stuck in a crux. I’m not a fan of murder, and of course, it should be very illegal. However, I do see certain populations that should probably be shot, namely to rid them from the presence of society, and to clean things up in general. The older I get (and the more family I acquire) I find myself thinking that more things should be punishable by death. Side note: I realize the legal system is greatly flawed, and that’s not so much what I’m rambling about here. I’m talking about this situation: Dude walks in your house and stabs your momma. You stab him right back. I’m not involving legal process in this case, I’m talking one-on-one killing.

So I’ve been deliberating these thoughts for a few days, and I sit down to speak to my husband about this issue. Typically we agree on things, and I was suprised we disagreed on this issue. He doesn’t think people deserve to die sometimes. He thinks that if someone were to molest our daughter, that life in prison would be an adequate punishment for said molester. I disagree. People that molest children need to be shot. Plain and simple. If my daughter came to me and told me some dude had been porking her at the age of seven, you can damn right believe that said man would be killed…. somehow. I realize many people say this, and you’re probably thinking I don’t have the balls to follow through, and I wouldn’t really kill the dude. You would be wrong. I also realize that by killing the dude, I may very well not be able to hide a body properly, and I may go to jail myself. I’m OK with that. I would hope that the judge would at least see some rationale in my ‘He Needs Killin’ defense.

Granted, my list of people who need killin’ is a lot smaller than my Grandpa’s list, but it’s still there, and I think it needs to be. My problem is with the judicial system, killing people who may not need it because they got some facts wrong, or because the guy couldn’t afford anything other than a public defender. For this reason, and for these people, I am still opposed to capital punishment. But you cross my family wrong, and you may just get some old-west style judgement on your ass.

Sorry if the rant makes no sense. It was sponsored by Ambien tonight.