“I think I have already explained that when I said that the Germans lock up murderers instead of killing them and that works very well.”
In the US, we also lock up our murderers instead of killing them. The death penalty is rarely used. There are 10 or 15 thousand homicides per year in the US, only a handful ever result in execution of the offender.
At a rate of about 99%, we lock up our murderers rather than execute them.
“I also said that public confidence that murderers will be locked up works as a deterant as well as periodically executing people.”
Straw man argument. I never said that the death penalty is, or should be a deterrent. Although, it DOES deter the criminal who is executed from re-offending. Ted Bundy killed roughly 50 folks and then was sentenced to a prison term. He escaped, killed three more folks and then was caught again and executed. Since his execution, he hasn't killed anyone else. THAT'S deterrence. But of a limited scope.
“The number of guns sold in the United States has grown astronomically”
You do realize that this has little to do with crime in the US and much more to do with the fact that many Americans are afraid that the Kenyan anti-Christ - a fellow, by the way, who is extremely popular in Germany, he would have received 90% of the German vote if they had been allowed to participate in our presidential election - will move against our Second Amendment rights, and thus are stocking up before he gets a chance.
Try not to mix the apples with the oranges.
“There is a quiet panic about child molesters which means that if one drives in a suburb, you almost never see any young kids playing unattended by adults.”
There was a panic as folks learned just how many molesters were around them. This was due to criminal records being put on-line, and folks’ ability to see who had done while sitting in front of their home computer. The panic is subsiding.
As for children playing freely, it certainly happens in my neighborhood. But less than when I was a child. For two reasons unrelated to your theory:
First, there are fewer kids, relatively speaking. When I was a kid, there were often three, four, five children in a household. A neighborhood with 40 homes might have 150 - 160 children. Today, families often don't have more than two children, and many households are childless altogether. I live in a neighborhood with nearly 90 homes. I don't think all the families combined have even 90 children currently living at home.
Second, more of children's time is taken up by structured events. Much, much more so than when I was a child. This is especially true for upper middle and upper class families. There are two reasons for this: Because there are fewer children, often, structured activities are important to get one’s children in the presence of other children. When I was a kid, we could get 5, 8, 10 or more kids together pretty easily and have a basketball game. Or a football game. And we did. Tough to do nowadays. So, organized stuff is often the only way to go.
As well, especially with the middle and upper classes, there is a real focus on building a child's “résumé” starting fairly early in life, to get into the best schools, and ultimately, into the better colleges. My older son is a college freshman, so the application process is still relatively fresh in my mind. On his applications to prestigious universities, activities that he began in grade school, such as karate and piano, were listed.
Whether these things are good things or bad things, they're not related to the number of molesters in the area.
However, this is pretty far afield. We were speaking of murderers, not child molesters.
What you originally said was:
“It works rather well in Germany, which has no death penalty , but keeps murderers locked up.”
And so does the US. No matter how many times you post back, no matter how many tangents you go off on, no matter how many rabbit holes you go down, no matter how many irrelevant things you say to the conversation, no matter how many insults you offer to the United States and its citizens, the inescapable truth is that the US locks up its murderers at a similar rate and for similar terms as does Germany.
If you want to withdraw this foolish sentence - “It works rather well in Germany, which has no death penalty , but keeps murderers locked up.” - and argue about other things, that's fine. You may find that there is little about which to argue, at least with me. But it remains that this is the case: The United States keeps its murderers locked up about as much as does Germany.
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