6 dead in shooting at Christian elementary school in Nashville

[VBM]

The mandatory minimum sentence for mass shooting should be the death penalty.

No.

Give me one good reason why not.

[lfromnj]

The mandatory minimum sentence for mass shooting should be the death penalty.

No.

Give me one good reason why not.

Arguably a few shooters have surrendered during the event itself. Certain death penalty might lessen the likelihood of surrender.

[Del Tachi]

Sincere question for conservatives here: why do you think America is the only developed country where this happens regularly? Are Americans uniquely evil/mentally ill, or is it maybe the fact that there are more guns than people in this country?

The wide availability of guns is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for America's epidemic of violence. You don't see this in Switzerland or Czechia. American society is just deeply broken and it's only getting worse. Insane political, religious, ethnic and culture war (relevant in this case...) polarization, the breakdown of social cohesion, the opioid epidemic, and the massive differences between rich and poor all seem to be relevant factors to me.

...So then yes, Americans are fundamentally worse than non-Americans?

What a grim, pessimistic perspective to have.

Wouldn't your logic not be more pessimistic?  Since it implies that every country would be this evil if they only had the chance (i.e., more access to guns.)

[Ferguson97]

The mandatory minimum sentence for mass shooting should be the death penalty.

No.

Give me one good reason why not.

I'll give you 7.

1. The death penalty is not an effective deterrent.

2. The death penalty is more expensive than incarcerating someone for life.

3. There will always be the chance that someone is wrongfully executed.

4. School shooters are (arguably) fundamentally insane, and we should not execute the criminally insane.

5. The state should not choose which of its citizens lives and dies.

6. Mandatory minimums are a fundamentally bad policy.

7. If the death penalty is guarantied, then you're truly giving these people nothing to lose and they might wind up killing even more people.

[Joe Republic]

^ To expand on point #1, most mass shooters either commit suicide as their final act, or fully expect that the police may put them down during the act.  Mass shootings are therefore under the umbrella of suicide methods.  Threatening a suicidal person with the death penalty makes zero sense.

[FT-02 Senator A.F.E. 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦]

The shooter changed targets because of school security, evidence that we need armed guards in schools 📈📈📈

Uvalde would beg to differ

[DaleCooper]

The mandatory minimum sentence for mass shooting should be the death penalty.

No.

Give me one good reason why not.

Arguably a few shooters have surrendered during the event itself. Certain death penalty might lessen the likelihood of surrender.

This is an issue with mandatory harsh sentencing that a lot of people ignore. As satisfying as it may be to demand the death penalty (or even life in prison for certain heinous but non-fatal crimes, like sexual crimes), it is going to result in a lot more desperate and violent behavior from people that may not have gone so far if they thought they'd be able to make their case in court. You'll see a lot more killings of victims in an attempt by the perpetrator to make sure they don't get caught, you'll see a lot more going out in a "blaze of glory" as they say. Arguably this is why traffic stops or run-of-the-mill search warrants have become so potentially dangerous. If the suspect is on his third strike or knows his life will basically end if he's caught then he might lash out. And all this is coming from someone who does believe that the death penalty should be on the table, but hard-line sentencing like what's been suggested is unhelpful and only serves to make internet people feel a little better.

[VBM]

The mandatory minimum sentence for mass shooting should be the death penalty.

No.

Give me one good reason why not.

I'll give you 7.

1. The death penalty is not an effective deterrent.

2. The death penalty is more expensive than incarcerating someone for life.

3. There will always be the chance that someone is wrongfully executed.

4. School shooters are (arguably) fundamentally insane, and we should not execute the criminally insane.

5. The state should not choose which of its citizens lives and dies.

6. Mandatory minimums are a fundamentally bad policy.

7. If the death penalty is guarantied, then you're truly giving these people nothing to lose and they might wind up killing even more people.

1. So what would be an effective deterrent for school shooters?

2. That can easily be fixed

3. Not for a school shooting. The shooter’s guilt is undeniable.

4. Insane or not, they still killed children

5. Why not? Why should the state be allowed to decide who can be locked away for the rest of their life, but not decide who is too evil/dangerous to be kept alive? Seems like an arbitrary rule to me.

6. I don’t really care about it being a mandatory minimum for school shooters, but I do think school shooters should definitely be eligible for the death penalty.

7. Most of them already have “nothing to lose” anyways

[jojoju1998]

The response by the Police in Nashville compared to Uvalde is striking.

[DaleCooper]

The mandatory minimum sentence for mass shooting should be the death penalty.

No.

Give me one good reason why not.

I'll give you 7.

1. The death penalty is not an effective deterrent.

2. The death penalty is more expensive than incarcerating someone for life.

3. There will always be the chance that someone is wrongfully executed.

4. School shooters are (arguably) fundamentally insane, and we should not execute the criminally insane.

5. The state should not choose which of its citizens lives and dies.

6. Mandatory minimums are a fundamentally bad policy.

7. If the death penalty is guarantied, then you're truly giving these people nothing to lose and they might wind up killing even more people.

1. So what would be an effective deterrent for school shooters?

2. That can easily be fixed

3. Not for a school shooting. The shooter’s guilt is undeniable.

4. Insane or not, they still killed children

5. Why not? Why should the state be allowed to decide who can be locked away for the rest of their life, but not decide who is too evil/dangerous to be kept alive? Seems like an arbitrary rule to me.

6. I don’t really care about it being a mandatory minimum for school shooters, but I do think school shooters should definitely be eligible for the death penalty.

7. Most of them already have “nothing to lose” anyways

It's really hard to deter irrational behavior, and school shooters are already not afraid of death, at least not enough to stop them from killing, because the chances of walking away alive is very small, and a lot of them kill themselves too.

If you want to deter crazy criminals, you have to lock crazy people up in asylums before they start hurting people. That's not something many people want to hear either, but I have noticed that a lot of the times when something like this happens, it becomes very very clear that the killer was obviously a crazy lunatic for a long time before they went on a killing spree. I'm certainly not advocating that every single eccentric or crazy person get thrown into a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest hellscape, but some people really do need to be institutionalized for their own good and for the safety of others.

[TheReckoning]

If you want to deter crazy criminals, you have to lock crazy people up in asylums before they start hurting people. That's not something many people want to hear either, but I have noticed that a lot of the times when something like this happens, it becomes very very clear that the killer was obviously a crazy lunatic for a long time before they went on a killing spree. I'm certainly not advocating that every single eccentric or crazy person get thrown into a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest hellscape, but some people really do need to be institutionalized for their own good and for the safety of others.

This.

Unless America accepts how useful mass incarceration is, we won’t be able to solve our problems.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

1. So what would be an effective deterrent for school shooters?

This one seems very easy. Making it almost impossible to get a gun would be a very effective deterrent for school shooters.

[Joe Republic]

If you want to deter crazy criminals, you have to lock crazy people up in asylums before they start hurting people. That's not something many people want to hear either, but I have noticed that a lot of the times when something like this happens, it becomes very very clear that the killer was obviously a crazy lunatic for a long time before they went on a killing spree. I'm certainly not advocating that every single eccentric or crazy person get thrown into a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest hellscape, but some people really do need to be institutionalized for their own good and for the safety of others.

A lot of the time, sure, but not always.  The deadliest mass shooting - Las Vegas, 1/10/17 - offered no warning signs beforehand, no known motive, nothing.  In fact, go pick a few recent mass shooters' social media profiles at random and tell me if you see all the warning signs there.

Also, how would such an 'early warning' system work in practice?  Unless you're advocating that people's social media be monitored (more thoroughly than perhaps it already is), or have some type of hotline for people to report on each other, and resolve the inevitable problems of filtering out the genuine threats from the 'just posting emo song lyrics because of a bad break up', I don't see how this is workable.  And that's just social media.  How do you spot all the warning signs of someone in real life?

Let's start with banning AR-15s first.  That at least puts us in the same club as all the other countries who also have mental health problems to resolve but don't have mass shootings.

[TheReckoning]

1. So what would be an effective deterrent for school shooters?

This one seems very easy. Making it almost impossible to get a gun would be a very effective deterrent for school shooters.

That’s impossible, so a non starter. You might as well say just making people think shooting up schools is bad would stop school shootings.

[Del Tachi]

^ To expand on point #1, most mass shooters either commit suicide as their final act, or fully expect that the police may put them down during the act.  Mass shootings are therefore under the umbrella of suicide methods.  Threatening a suicidal person with the death penalty makes zero sense.

This seems to be the historical case, but is the trend in the other direction?  More mass shootings now end with the perp being taken into custody.  Dylan Roof and Nikolas Cruz stand out as obvious examples, while I can't even think of a single notable event from the 1990s or 2000s where this was the case.

Mass shooters are distinct from people who commit suicide in that they are, at least partially, motivated by the potential to achieve notoriety.  People doing this because they want to bask in the infamy they've earned is a sick thought, but not surprising given how social media has indulged our desire to be the "main character" at the expense of everyone else.  We watch ourselves being watched by others.   

[DaleCooper]

If you want to deter crazy criminals, you have to lock crazy people up in asylums before they start hurting people. That's not something many people want to hear either, but I have noticed that a lot of the times when something like this happens, it becomes very very clear that the killer was obviously a crazy lunatic for a long time before they went on a killing spree. I'm certainly not advocating that every single eccentric or crazy person get thrown into a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest hellscape, but some people really do need to be institutionalized for their own good and for the safety of others.

This.

Under America accepts how useful mass incarceration is, we won’t be able to solve our problems.

I'm not talking about mass incarceration. I'm talking about institutionalizing crazy people who obviously are not safe to be out wandering around on their own.

[TheReckoning]

If you want to deter crazy criminals, you have to lock crazy people up in asylums before they start hurting people. That's not something many people want to hear either, but I have noticed that a lot of the times when something like this happens, it becomes very very clear that the killer was obviously a crazy lunatic for a long time before they went on a killing spree. I'm certainly not advocating that every single eccentric or crazy person get thrown into a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest hellscape, but some people really do need to be institutionalized for their own good and for the safety of others.

This.

Under America accepts how useful mass incarceration is, we won’t be able to solve our problems.

I'm not talking about mass incarceration. I'm talking about institutionalizing crazy people who obviously are not safe to be out wandering around on their own.

That’s mass incarceration. They might not be in prisons per se, but any time someone is detained against their will is incarceration.

[afleitch]

^ To expand on point #1, most mass shooters either commit suicide as their final act, or fully expect that the police may put them down during the act.  Mass shootings are therefore under the umbrella of suicide methods.  Threatening a suicidal person with the death penalty makes zero sense.

This seems to be the historical case, but is the trend in the other direction?  More mass shootings now end with the perp being taken into custody.  Dylan Roof and Nikolas Cruz stand out as obvious examples, while I can't even think of a single notable event from the 1990s or 2000s where this was the case.

Perhaps because mass shooters, with associated 'manifestos' can now gather a sympathetic ear from those they are trying to appeal to.

[VBM]

1. So what would be an effective deterrent for school shooters?

This one seems very easy. Making it almost impossible to get a gun would be a very effective deterrent for school shooters.

I’m in favor of repealing the 2nd Amendment, so I agree with this. However, we still do need to appropriately punish the monsters who manage to commit these acts

[John Dule]

1. So what would be an effective deterrent for school shooters?

There is no "deterring" them. They're criminally insane and they intend to die while committing their killings.

[VBM]

1. So what would be an effective deterrent for school shooters?

There is no "deterring" them. They're criminally insane and they intend to die while committing their killings.

So Fergie’s point is moot

[Ferguson97]

1. So what would be an effective deterrent for school shooters?

There is no "deterring" them. They're criminally insane and they intend to die while committing their killings.

So Fergie’s point is moot

How? If anything, Dule's argument affirms my point. I'm literally saying that the death penalty won't deter them. If there is no deterring school shooters, then implementing harsher punishment is pointless.

[VBM]

1. So what would be an effective deterrent for school shooters?

There is no "deterring" them. They're criminally insane and they intend to die while committing their killings.

So Fergie’s point is moot

How? If anything, Dule's argument affirms my point. I'm literally saying that the death penalty won't deter them. If there is no deterring school shooters, then implementing harsher punishment is pointless.

Just because it won’t deter them, that doesn’t change the fact that they still need to be appropriately punished for their crimes.

[Ferguson97]

1. So what would be an effective deterrent for school shooters?

There is no "deterring" them. They're criminally insane and they intend to die while committing their killings.

So Fergie’s point is moot

How? If anything, Dule's argument affirms my point. I'm literally saying that the death penalty won't deter them. If there is no deterring school shooters, then implementing harsher punishment is pointless.

Just because it won’t deter them, that doesn’t change the fact that they still need to be appropriately punished for their crimes.

Why is the death penalty more appropriate than life in prison?

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

1. So what would be an effective deterrent for school shooters?

This one seems very easy. Making it almost impossible to get a gun would be a very effective deterrent for school shooters.

That’s impossible, so a non starter. You might as well say just making people think shooting up schools is bad would stop school shootings.

No, it is not impossible. Every other developed country has done it, but the United States can't. Supposedly, the "greatest" country in the world?

If that's the case, then that means the United States is a worthless country and that Americans are depraved individuals.