[TomOnTheRun]

"The killer is responsible for his actions; the state is culpable in creating the environment."

The state helped create an environment in which this man would kill? I thought we expected people to make choice and then hold them accountable for those choices without regard to those sorts of things.

Haven't we been rejecting these sorts of arguments for years when they come from leftists. e.g. "Yes your honor he DID rape that woman and saw off her head but he came from a very bad home life, daddy never loved him, he was pressured at work, he had a bad headache that day........" etc.

[ketsu]

ding ding ding.

[MrB]

Perhaps this man DID decide to take justice in his own hands, as it had been thwarted in all other venues, and accepted the consequences for doing so, but did so with a clear conscience...

we don’t have any statements yet.

[Alberta's Child]

You make good points there, Tom . . . but I'll repeat something I posted on another thread yesterday on this same topic:

I've long speculated that the heavy-handed tactics the government used against groups like Operation Rescue in the late 1980s and early 1990s are a very big reason why some people have resorted to violence against abortionists.

As an astute observer pointed out some years ago (it may have been after the Slepian killing in Buffalo, NY), attacks on abortionists were almost non-existent until the government began forcibly removing peaceful demonstrators from public areas outside the offices and homes of abortionists.

[Turbo Pig]

The state helped create an environment in which this man would kill?

Absolutley; had the state done its job, then the issue of Tiller murdering babies would not have been an issue. He would have already been stopped, and/or punished. That doesn't release Tiller's killer from his responsibility, though. He should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

You can not turn your back on the fact that the state has a responsibility to protect those among society that can not protect themselves. There is just too much in foundational material of this country (both religious and secular) to think otherwise. The state has abdicated that position, because of liberal philosophy.