Admin: This person did not use a real name, but the comment was well thought out, so I will let it go… …this time.

But, from my perspective, whether or not he has a criminal is pretty immaterial to what is important to me.

For me, the point of prison, or in this case, a psych ward, is to punish, rehabilitate if possible, and to keep the person away from “us”.

If a person is held in a way that accomplishes all, or some of those, but they don’t have a criminal record, I’m really OK with that. Whether or not a person has a criminal record doesn’t stop them from hurting me or others if they have the notion, and ability, to do so.

And a person NOT having a criminal record doesn’t make them any more likely to hurt me or others if they are locked away.

Further to that… whether a judge says to this person “You’re a bad man” or says to him “You’re a sick man” doesn’t change the facts of the case, and doesn’t change the results, IF he is locked away. I think it’s just a case of semantics, and isn’t something I’d lose sleep over.

I also don’t see being required to whither away on a psych ward as a “gift”. I wouldn’t want to be there OR prison.

And as far as the pitbull analogy, I still don’t really like that analogy. I don’t believe aggressive dogs are put down because they are being “held responsible” and are being made to pay for their behaviour. Rather, they are put down simply to prevent them from being a threat in the future.

We believe that is acceptable, because they are animals. We (the general “we”, at least here in Canada and in other parts of the world) don’t apply the same logic when it comes to humans.

My comment about pitt-bulls was not an argument for capital punishment, it was meant to demonstrate this:

We as a society think that putting dogs to death when they hurt or kill a person is acceptable, in other words, we hold them responsible and make them pay, even though a dog does not know that killing people is wrong.

And yet we allow this man to murder, mutilate and consume the eyeballs of an innocent stranger on a bus, and then consider him not criminally responsible, allowing him to live out his life without so much as a criminal record for his actions. Remember, he was given opporunities for treatment before he beheaded someone, and refused it over and over. We accpet the words of a couple of doctors that he didn’t know it was wrong, didn’t know any better. Well if a human being can get away with murdering and mutiliating somone as long as a doctor is willing to say they didn’t know any better, then clearly we need to stop holding dogs responsible when they hurt people as well, because they also don’t know any better.

It’s a travesty. He has gotten off scott free, putting him in a psychiatric facilty is not punishment, it’s a gift. I agree he should not be in prison, he should be in a psych ward forever, but WITH a criminal record, because as politically incorrect as it may be, not everyone mentally ill person is simply depressed or bi-polar, some actually are, as Vince Li has so aptly demonstrated, CRIMINALLY INSANE. He’s a god damn real life Norman Bates for God’s sake.

My guess is that he WILL be locked up for the remainder of his natural life, but in a psychiatric ward, not a prison. The end result is the same (he’s off the street), and in fact… I’d wager a few dollars that the likelihood of him getting out “early” from a psych ward is actually less than the likelihood of him getting out “early” from prison.

And as a side note, the comparisons to euthanizing dogs is an argument that often comes up in cases like this, and I cringe every time I read it. It’s a horrible analogy IMO… because of the very fact that one is an animal, the other is a human.

And yes, I recognize that we human beans are just another animal… but still, we have, and should have, different “rules” for animals and people).

Argue for capital punishment, fine… I don’t agree with it, but c’est la vie… but the analogy of aggressive dogs isn’t the way to make the argument.