Indeed, there has been "discussions" on this board about trivial things that turn into flamewars, but many discussions such as this that, though may be heated, are respectable arguments from both sides.
I live out in the middle of no where, where 6 miles down the road is "right down the road" to me rather than 2 blocks would be "right down the road" for some of you. Ironically the morning I saw this thread and opened it to read, my wife was going to her mom's house. She couldn't get on mom's road because it was blocked with countless police cars, marked and unmarked. She had to detour the 15 miles around to come in the other side. There is this moron who has a farm there, 6 miles away. He is just a simple moron, he mows his fields, makes bales of hay from it, then stacks them and burns them all around his property. It stinks up the entire area, and by that I mean for 10 miles all around. The smoke from it comes into my house and stinks it up from 6 miles away. Just a moron who always has done moronic stuff like that.
Anyways, that day, the reason cops were unusually all over the place (closest "city" where a police station would be is 40 miles away, this is way out in the country...) is the wife announced she is leaving him with someone whom she was cheating with for years. She threatened to take his farm and every thing else of his away, which in this messed up country, would happen. It doesn't matter why 2 married folks separate, the wife will be awarded nearly whatever she wants. This day, he came home from work to find her cleaning out the house with her "boyfriend". He shot and killed both of them.
Now this is where the death penalty debate comes in to play. No, I do not feel that this situation would/should result in a sentence to death. This was a crime of passion and rage, rather than cold blooded murder. This was not the kidnapping, raping, and killing of an unknown child or woman. This debate of the death penalty isn't about "an eye for an eye" or "kill and be killed". I'm sure everyone who is on the side of the death penalty speaking up here does not agree that everyone who kills should be sentenced to death as the opposer's of the death penalty seems to like to argue. It isn't black and white like that. Each situation is different, there are many types of killings that happen on a daily basis and many situations that caused someone to kill someone else. But when the death penalty comes up, it is the cold blooded murderers that we talk about that deserve the death penalties. Those such as the Virginia sniper that was happening back a few years ago (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_attacks). This is the kind of stuff that is what the death penalty is debated for by those who support.