17 minutes. It takes a State seventeen minutes to execute a man. One may argue, ..and about a zillion dollars to keep him alive.

There area numerous arguments revolving around Capital punishment. Is it just? Is the person guilty? Is there any possibility, as it has been shown, that the person may have been convicted wrongly, not incorrectly - which by the way is another argument into itself? Is it the right of any person to kill another. And from there, does the State, our nation have the right to execute someone.

If I may, and will without asking, be flippant about it - well if we can kill a bunch of terrorist - why the hell not! Now, starting from this point, and taking another previously mentioned. Incorrect or wrong, or better said, correctly made wrong, or incorrectly made right a persons conviction stands without any doubt to be a process filled with accusations, lies, deceit, mercy, hope, and regret. However, though the process is seriously flawed - I mean who else but someone who is omniscient could ever possibly have the information to convict someone as every person has the right under which to be convicted.

let me explain. Were there a car accident, that say a person, having had a rough night, their daughter perhaps not heading her parents claim of returning before midnight, only to worry her poor guardian to death, keeping her up until 3 am, then the 2 hours of arguing and call her friends to ensure that it never happens again, then with 2 hours of sleep, rush off to work after spending those precious moments to console her child for having been too tough the hours before, then rushing away, late, again, finds she's left something on the kitchen table, and for a brief moment lapses in concentration sending a poor elderly woman through a store front window fro having failed to see the red light is now on manslaughter charges for recklessly driving her vehicle.

Far fetched? Not at all as standing on that very corner are two kids on their way to school, who after being intimidated by the size of the patrol man, while taken in by the size of his firearm, and one child an 8 year old boy, wanting nothing more at that moment to be "just like that police officer" steps up to manhood and says "yea, I saw her barreling through the light" after the policeman having contributed to the description inadvertently by having been overhead by the boy just moments earlier, while examining the remains of the elderly woman hanging off the discount rack within the grocery store, saying to his partner - jeez, poor woman, she didn't stand a chance, she must'f barreled through that glass like a bullet.

All of this contributing to a distorted perspective of the truth. Given the horror of a corpse dangling from a rack of day-old bread, the screams, sirens, shrieks and wow's of the moment, testimony is far removed from truth, regardless of who it is that is being deposed.

Yet, when murders occur, bodies are found lifeless. When someone kills someone a life ceases to exist, and all the possibilities of that human being contributing to life ends, right there at that very moment.

Death is not like it is on TV. People before they expire defecate, the drool, the urinate on themselves, they convulse. The scream, their eyes widen, their throat tightens, they begin to think of all the people they'll never see. They grow cold before the cold sets in. The look about at those who could help them, knowing help will never come. They think of all those whom they've met, whom they're sure should have some clue as to help them. They think of their killer, they listen fro any relief. They feel the cold steel against their head, backs, arms, chest. They find their breath escaping them, and then they go. Silently. Weakly. Hopefully.

Do we have a right to kill another human being? I think this is the only question that should ever be answered regarding capital punishment because if we need a government to decide if they have a right to kill us, then certainly some discourse has taken place without our consent. Yet, it appears to a great many that the agony one experiences as they face death far outweighs the anguish they could ever have extracted on their victims.

Hmm, there's an argument there. There's self defense. There's murder as a crime of passion. There are so many convoluted ways of looking a justice that it is unfair to place a system though which we apply value and control over something which we have never had any control over to begin with - life itself.

So here's a possibility. What if capital punishment never existed. That means, that no State has the right to kill, er I mean, murder people. It is murder isn't it? I mean, if a State can drop a 2 tonne bomb on an iraqi village, is it a mistake? Was the pilot in awe at his new warplane? Were his commander caught in an argument on when a teenagers curfew should be? It is murder.

Is it capital punishment if McVeigh were let free? Yes it is, on all the families that suffer from his action. That goes to say, that for every breath that leaves his nostrils while he's alive, it is capital punishment on all his victims. I think, capital punishment should never exist as if you and I had the right to kill each other, what deterrent would exist other than your death being forfeited should you decide to take mine.

That is how we should address murderers. All should be shot onsite - by some method at the moment of their decision so that killing people can cease to exist permanently.

How can this happen? By reducing the loopholes for murderers to dance through. By relying on eye witness testimony and severely regulating how our justice system considers rehabilitation. There is no rehabilitation. You kill someone, you die. Simple as that. It should be as simple as handing a convicted murder a pill. Nothing else. Only a pill. No food, no water, nothing. Just a Cyanide pill for them to eat.