Should we ban Capital Punishment?

You're just now realizing this?

What you're advocating with the "what about the families" bit isn't justice, it's revenge.

And also, your'e putting things into my argument that aren't there. I never once said that they should be released, I was supporting the abolition of the death penalty. But life without parole should be kept as a sentence. The death penalty has been proven to be uneconomical and a poor deterrent of crime, so why still keep it? Because God says it's okay? From what I understand, there isn't some kind of Christian mandate that forces us to execute someone who murdered someone. Now, am I incorrect on that? Permission isn't the same thing as obligation.

If you want to play the "for the Bible tells me so" argument, I submit to you to think about whether God would be more pleased about man exercising some kind of permission to find justice in death, or resisting temptation to intentionally, or unintentionally, commit an act that's dangerously close to blurring the lines of justice and revenge.

no need to be snippy. it was a long journey to get here where I am in this.

The ONLY guarantee they will not murder men, women and CHILDREN again is if they are executed. Why do you want MORE innocent people to be murdered? Here is a partial list of murderers who did just that:

[h=2]A SHORT LIST OF MURDERERS RELEASED TO MURDER AGAIN[/h]This is just a short list I compiled when I set out to find people who were already convicted of murder and afterwards committed murder again.----------------------------------------------------------------------------
John McRae -- Michigan/Florida. Life for murder of 8-year-old boy. Pedophile. Paroled 1971. Convicted of another murder of a boy after parole, in Michigan 1998. Charges pending on 2 other counts in Florida.
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John Miller -- California. Killed an infant 1957, convicted of murder, 1958. Paroled 1975. Killed his parents 1975. Life term 1975.
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Michael Lawrence -- Florida. Killed robbery victim. Life term, 1976. Paroled 1985. Killed robbery victim. Condemned 1990.
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Donald Dillbeck -- Florida. Killed policeman in 1979. Escaped from prison in 1990, kidnapped and killed female motorist after escape. Condemned 1991.
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Edward Kennedy -- Florida. Killed motel clerk. Sentenced to Life. Escaped 1981. Killed policeman and male civilian after prison break. Executed 1992.
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Dawud Mu'Min -- Virginia. Killed cab driver in holdup. Sentenced 1973. Escaped 1988. Raped/killed woman 1988. Condemned 1989. Executed 1997.
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Viva Nash -- Utah/Arizona. Two terms of life for murder in Utah, 1978. Escaped in 1982. Murdered again. Condemned in Arizona, 1983.
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Randy Greenawalt -- Escaped from Prison in 1978, while serving a life sentence for a 1974 murder. He then murdered a family of 4 people, shotgunning them to death, including a toddler.
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Norman Parker -- Florida/D.C. Life term in Florida for murder, 1966. Escaped 1978. Life on another count of murder in 1979.
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Winford Stokes -- Missouri. Ruled insane on two counts of murder 1969. Escaped from asylum, 1978. Murdered again. Executed for this murder, 1990.
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Charles Crawford -- Missouri. Life term in 1965 for murder. Paroled 1990. Convicted of murder again in 1994.
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Jack Ferrell -- Florida. Committed Murdered 1981. 15 years to life, 1982. Paroled 1987. Murdered again 1992. Condemned 1993.
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Timothy Buss -- Murdered five-year-old girl. Sentenced to 25 years in 1981. Paroled 1993. Murdered 10-year-old boy. Condemned 1996.
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Martsay Bolder -- Missouri. Serving a sentence of life for first-degree murder in 1973. Murdered prison cellmate 1979.
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Henry Brisbon, Illinois. Murdered 2 in robbery. Sentenced to 1000- 3000 years. Killed inmate in prison 1982. Sentenced to DP. Commuted by Governor Ryan.
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Randolph Dial -- Oklahoma. Life for murder 1986. Escaped from prison with deputy warden's wife as kidnap victim. 1989. Still at large. Warden's wife never found.
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Arthur J. Bomar, Jr. -- released from prison in Nevada on parole in 1990. Bomar had served 11 years of a murder sentence for killing a man over an argument about a parking space. Six years later in Pennsylvania, Bomar brutally kidnapped, raped and murdered George Mason University star athlete Aimee Willard.
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Dwain Little -- Oregon. Raped/Stabbed 16-year-old girl. Life term 1966. Paroled 1974. Returned as Parole Violator 1975. Again Released 1977. Then shot family of 4. Three consecutive life terms for rape and murder 1980.
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Arthur Shawcross (The 'Monster of the Rivers') -- Released after serving a 25 year sentence for a child murder, turned to murdering prostitutes. At least 10 in all. Now serving ten consecutive sentences of 25 years to life - 250 years in all.
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Samuel D. Smith -- in prison for murdering Zita Casey, 79, during a burglary in St. Louis in 1978. While in prison he murdered another inmate, Marlin May, during a knife fight in 1987 in prison.
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Darrell P. Pandeli -- After being released from prison after a conviction for murder, Pandeli murdered a prostitute, cut off her nipples and flushed them down the toilet. Now on DR in Arizona for that second recidivist murder.
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Chad Allen Lee -- Convicted of capital murder. Sentenced to other than death. Released and went on murder spree. Murdering Linda Reynolds, a pizza delivery person, and 9 days later robbed and murdered David Lacey, a taxi cab driver. Lee then robbed a mini-market 7 days after than. Shooting the owner, Harold Drury, multiple times without reason.
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Scott Lehr -- Convicted of capital murder. Sentenced to other than death. Later released. After release, between Feb 91 and Feb 92 lured 10 different female victims, between the ages of 10 and 48-years-old, into his car. Raping and beating them unconscious, stripped and adandoned them in the desert. Three of his victims died in those acts.
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James Erin McKinney -- Convicted of capital murder. Sentenced to other than death. Later released. Then murdered Christine Mertens in a home invasion robbery. Later murdered James McClain in another separate home invasion robbery.
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Michael Murdaugh -- Convicted of capital murder. Sentenced to other than death. Later released. After release murdered David Reynolds. Beating him to death. When 'dumping' the body, Murdaugh severed Reynold's head and hands, pulled out his teeth, and buried the body parts.
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Charles Daniels -- was convicted and sentenced to Life for the 1965 rape and murder of a Louisiana woman. Later having his sentence commuted, he was release. And he again killed another woman, 32-year-old Debbie Tatum.
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Jarmarr Arnold -- who, while on DR, murdered another DR inmate by stabbing him in the forehead with a sharpen spike. Proving that not even a death sentence can prevent murder until the sentence is carried out.
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Robert Lee Massie -- Sentenced to the DP, but overturned by Furman, which resulted in him committing further new murders.
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Kenneth McDuff - Sentenced to the DP, but overturned by Furman. Subsequently released, and murdered as many as 19 young women after his release. Finally executed in 1998 for the murder of Melissa Ann Northrup see ... Who once remarked "Killing a woman is like killing a chicken. They both squawk."
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Darryl Kemp -- Sentenced to the DP, but overturned by Furman. Subsequently released. Authorities now say he raped and strangled a woman jogging, less than 4 months later.
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Timothy Hancock -- Serving a life sentence for a murder he committed in 1990, murdered his cellmate, Jason Wagner, in November 2000, while serving his life sentence.
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Howard Allen -- murdered an elderly woman.. Opal Cooper, in Aug 1974, and was sentenced to 21 years in prison. By January 1985, less than ten years after being incarcerated, Howard Allen was released. On May 20, 1987 Howard Allen broke into the home of eighty-seven year old Laverne Hale, and savagely beat her to death. Six weeks later Allen struck again. On July 13, 1987 Howard Allen knocked on the door of Ernestine Griffin. At lunchtime the following day she was found murdered. On June 11, 1988 Allen was found guilty was found guilty of Ernestine’s murder.
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Melvin Geary -- originally sentenced to L wop, for the stabbing death of a woman in 1973 with a boning knife. Changed to Life.. released... After his release, Geary was subsequently convicted of murdering 71-year-old Edward Colvin of Sparks, again with a boning knife after Colvin took him in.
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William Coday Jr. -- convicted of murdering 19-year-old Lisa Hullinger in September 1978. After spending just 15 months in a German prison, he was released. In April 2002, he was convicted of having murdered Gloria Gomez on 13 July, 1997.
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Corey R. Barton -- In 1983 he murdered 16-year-old Shari-Ann Merton. He received 18 years in prison. He was released after serving 9 years and 8 months. In November 1998, he murdered 27 year-old Sally Harris of North Carolina.
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Cuhuatemoc Hinricky Peraita -- Rainbow City, Alabama, who was serving life without parole for 3 murders in Gadsden, Alabama was found guilty of capital murder for murdering a fellow inmate.
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James Prestridge -- Sentenced to L wop, for murdering Esfandiar Ateighechi, as he begged for his life in 1989. Escaped from prison along with John Doran. After their escape Prestridge murdered his fellow-escapee John Doran, shooting him in the back of the head.
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Jimmy Lee Gray -- who was free on parole from an Arizona conviction for killing a 16-year-old high school girl, kidnapped, sodomized, and suffocated a three-year-old Mississippi girl.
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Jack Henry Abbott, who had murdered a fellow prison inmate, was released early from a Utah prison. On July 18, 1981, six-weeks after his release, Abbott stabbed actor Richard Adan to death in New York.
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Benny Lee Chaffin, on December 7, 1984 kidnapped, raped, and murdered a 9-year-old Springfield, Oregon girl. He had been convicted of murder once before in Texas, but not executed.
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Thomas Eugene Creech, who had been convicted of three murders and had claimed a role in more than 40 killings in 13 states as a paid killer for a motorcycle gang, killed a fellow prison inmate in 1981 and was sentenced to death.
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Wayne Henry Garrison, 42, was convicted of 1st-degree murder in the death of Justin Wiles 13, of Tulsa. As a teenager, Garrison had killed two children in Tulsa. Police earlier said the circumstances of those killings were similar to Justin's death.
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Tommy Arthur -- sentenced to die in Alabama's electric chair for killing Troy Wicker in a 1982 murder for-hire scheme in Muscle Shoals. Arthur had already been convicted in 1977 of killing the sister of his common-law wife. He had been sentenced to life for that murder.
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Robert Lynn Pruett -- a convicted killer already serving a life sentence, fatally stabbed prison guard Daniel Nagle with a sharpened rod while patrolling the Texas Department of Criminal Justice McConnell Unit near Beeville in South Texas. It was the first fatal attack on a Texas corrections officer since guard Minnie Houston was stabbed to death in 1984 by an inmate at the Ellis Unit near Huntsville, a prison official said.
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Miguel Salas Rodriguez -- charged in the murder of a sheriff's deputy. Sgt. David M. Furrh, 40, in Dec 2000. Rodriguez had a December 1973 conviction of homicide without malice, for which he was sentenced to five years in prison. And yet ANOTHER conviction for murder in April 1979, for which he was sentenced to 70 years in prison. Rodriguez was paroled in October 1989.
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Bennie Demps --condemned to the DP for the 1976 murder of Alfred Sturgis, a prison snitch. Originally, Demps was sent to death row for the murders of R.N. Brinkworth and Celia Puhlick, who were fatally shot in a Lake County citrus grove. A year after Demps was sent to death row, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out capital punishment across the country, ruling death sentences had been imposed in an arbitrary way. Another failure of the Furman-commuted murderers.
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Leroy Schmitz -- convicted of strangling his live-in girlfriend in 1986, during an argument. He was sentenced to 18-20 years for that homicide. He was later convicted of murdering his wife, in Whitefish, Montana in 1999.
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Vernon Sattiewhite -- In 1977, Sattiewhite had been sentenced to five years for a murder but was paroled two years later and granted clemency. In 1984, he was convicted of robbery and sentenced to two years in prison but was paroled after less than six months. Soon after he murdered his ex-girlfriend, Sandra Sorrell.
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Tomas G. Ervin -- Sentenced to death in 1990, after conviction of the December 1988 murders of Mildred L. Hodges, 75, and her son, Richard E. Hodges. Bert Hunter, who was arrested along with Ervin pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder charges. Hunter and Ervin had met in the Missouri State Penitentiary, where they were both serving life sentences for previous murders.
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William Michael "Billy the Kid" Mason -- killed his wife three weeks after he was paroled on another murder conviction.

Daniel Joe Hittle -- convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death for murdering a police officer Hittle, 40, was described by witnesses as a man who gleefully killed or tortured animals and who routinely beat women and children. He was on parole for the killings of his adoptive parents in Minnesota when he shot Garland police officer Gerald Walker during a traffic stop. Hittle then sped to East Dallas, where he fatally shot Mary Alice Goss, 39; Richard Joseph Cook Jr., 36; Raymond Scott Gregg, 19; and Goss' 4-year-old daughter Christy Condon.

Tony Walker -- Texas. Convicted of murder in 1978. Sentenced to 5 years. Murdered a 66 year-old woman and her 81 year-old husband in 1992. Jerome Butler -- Found guilty of the shooting of cab driver Nathan Oakley, 67. Oakley had been a Houston cab driver for 30 years. Butler had an extensive criminal history, including a 1959 conviction on two counts of robbery and assault in New York City. Butler had previously served about 10 years of a 30-year sentence after pleading guilty to the murder of A.C. Johnson, 69.

Dalton Prejean -- killed a taxi driver when he was 14, . When he was 17, he gunned down a state trooper in Lafayette, Louisiana. Despite protests from the American Civil Liberties Union and other abolitionist groups, Prejean was executed for the second murder on May 18, 1990.
Phillip Jablonski -- Carol Spadoni married Jablonski on June 16, 1982, while he was serving a prison sentence for the 1979 murder of his third wife, Melinda Kimball. After she became his pen-pal correspondent in prison. Jablonski murdered his prison pen-pal wife and her mother. And the day before those murders he had murdered Fathyma Vann, 38, in Indio, about 25 miles from Palm Springs, Vann was found shot and sexually mutilated in the desert with ``I love Jesus'' carved in her back." Now GET THIS -- See... It seems that Phillip Jablonski, now in prison after ALL those murders, placed an ad for a pen-pal -- "Jewish Death Row inmate, white, 51 years old, seeking understanding and open female or male for honest correspondence. Amateur poet, artist. Will answer all correspondence received. PHILLIP JABLONSKI, C-02477/SE95, San Quentin, CA 94974"

Jerry Michael Ward -- Originally sentenced to die in the electric chair, for committing murder with malice in the rape and murder of a Houston school girl. His sentence was commuted to life in prison when the U.S. Supreme Court abolished the death penalty in 1972. Although the death penalty was reinstated, the sentence was not. He was subsequently paroled in 1984 after serving 18 years in prison. He was the number one suspect in two new cases, involving the the disappearance of Connie Sue Cooke, and the murder of Brenda Maureen Hackett. But althought police were on the verge of arresting him, Ward committed suicide in a self-inflicted execution.

David E. Maust -- Hammond, Illinois. Murdered a 15-year-old boy in 1981. After released murdered three teenage boys, in circumstances similiar to John Wayne Gacy... burying their bodies in concrete in his basement.

James Homer Elledge -- sent to prison for life in 1975 after beating a Seattle motel owner to death with a ball-peen hammer. In the years that followed, he won parole 3 times, most recently in August 1995. prosecutors have now charged Elledge with 1st-degree murder for allegedly stabbing and strangling Eloise Jane Fitzner, 47, in a church basement.

Zeno E. Sims -- sent to prison for eight years for the murder of a 24-year-old-man. Released on parole, in Kansas City, he then murdered DeAntreia L Ashley, a 15-year-old-girl, after a minor traffic accident.

Arthur James Julius -- convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. In 1978, he was given a brief leave from prison, during which he raped and murdered a cousin. He was sentenced to death for that crime and was executed on November 17, 1989.

In March 1979, a Graterford (Pa.) prison guard was murdered brutally by an inmate. The inmate -- at the time he murdered the guard -- already was serving a life sentence for the triple murder of two infants and an elderly woman.

In 1994, an inmate who already was serving two life sentences in the Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center was sentenced to three more after he was convicted of stabbing three prison guards.

In 1995, two death-row inmates at the Florida State Prison in Starke were killed by their fellow inmates.

In 1999, a Beeville (Texas) prison guard was killed by an inmate already serving a sentence for murder.

On November 9, 1983 Associate U.S. Attorney General D. Lowell Jensen told a Senate subcommittee that it is impossible to punish or even deter such prison murders because, without a death sentence, a violent life-termer has free rein "to continue to murder as opportunity and his perverse motives dictate."

On October 22, 1983 at the federal penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, two prison guards were murdered in two SEPARATE instances by SEPARATE inmates who were both serving life terms for previously murdering inmates.

Did you even read a single word that I posted? "I never once said that they should be released." Death sentence = no. Life without parole = okay. Without parole. No chance of getting out of prison.

READ THE LIST I posted!! They DO get out. No matter how loudly someone says "life without parole" the FACTS are THEY GET OUT AND MURDER< RAPE AND PILLAGE AGAIN.

Whether YOU don't want them released is irrelevant. MANY DO. Why do you want to subject innocent children to released murderers? IF you bothered to read the list, you would have seen GUARDS that were murdered by these CONVICTED murderers. Tell THEIR families that you only wanted them to spend life in prison.

Being a conservative Christian Republican, I believe I have clearly proven a valid argument against abolishing the death penalty. I believe you owe me, and other conservative Christian Republicans an apology.

I read your list. And there was only one person who was sentenced to life without parole, and he murdered a fellow inmate. But that's an entirely different conversation. And please, taper your emotions.

And just because you want these people executed is irrelevant, many don't. And where are you getting that I want to "subject innocent children to released murderers"? You just made that part up. So that, I don't understand what put that in your head.

Okay, here's where we are.

You want executions because they'll kill again. I suggested life without parole as an alternative, which you've still failed to address. Keep in mind my response to your list.

Yes, guards get murdered by convicts. But there's also another side, inmates are consistently malnourished, beaten, and even sexual assaulted by guards as well. So, there's that problem.

And also, you failed to remark on the fact the number of inmates on death row that were eventually found to be innocent of crimes that they've been charged with.

All in all, you've provided no information to directly counter the facts the I've presented. It's all been founded upon moralistic and emotional values.

Just to recap, here are the points that I brought up:

1) The death penalty is costly and unsuccessful at deterring crime.

2) There is an alarming number of former death row inmates whose innocence was eventually proven.

3) Life without parole (meaning, they're in their until they die) could be a better alternative.

You haven't countered any of these points. All I've gotten from you is an argument about "what about the children?!" and you thinking that I want to "subject children" to convicts, which I'm still very uncertain of what gave you that idea. I'm almost convinced you're just an internet troll trying to ruffle my feathers with that one.

Your turn.

EDIT: LWP in minimum 35 years. So, that as an alternative, or even extended life sentences as an alternative to the death penalty.

That's because the prisons have become so overcrowded to the point that the Supreme Court ruled that the inmates were being submitted to cruel and unusual punishment.

Although I believe there should be consequences for breaking the law,i don't agree with putting a person to death.
Once a person is gone,then their is no more to say to that person because their appointed time came and judgement was put first instead of mercy over judgement.

What a fantastic Prime Minister you have! Absolutely no sarcasm intended. You are truly lucky to live in a country with a leader who is so morally strong! May God bless him and your nation.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott Will Send Troops to Ukraine to Protect Aussie Officers | The Gateway Pundit

Well Seed, you are putting your judgment over God's Word.
Genesis 9 is still as valid as the rainbow.

Did you realize that in the Law of Moses there are no prisons?

Are you going to pay for the free food, housing, condoms, clothing, utilities, and medical care? I opt out.

Surely you have by now read the Word of God on this, so how comes it that your wisdom is superior?
What are your arguments based on but moralistic & emotional nonsense?

If innocent persons are convicted, that means we need to follow Biblical standards of evidence. Require 3 witnesses.
But whatever you say, God's Word requires of man to execute murderers.

It isn't a game. It is what God's word says.
Have you not read it?
Innocent Blood pollutes the land, & men (made in God's image) must execute murderers on sufficient & strong evidence.
You don't have to guess about what pleases the Lord in this matter. He has told us.

Do you believe that the Bible is God's Word, Anton?

I'll have to agree with Atwood on this issue... which disturbs me.

I'll try to redeem myself by arguing with him twice as much in some other thread.

: )

Don't get me wrong a person should obey the law of the land,but the law has no mercy,and thats for keeping order in society,but we all need mercy since GOD had mercy on us.