Accused killer of slain Navy SEAL Chris Kyle is indicted

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PawPaw
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Re: Accused killer of slain Navy SEAL Chris Kyle is indicted

Post by PawPaw »

Allowing someone to kill themselves does not equal actively killing them.
You've never been in a jail where someone hanged themselves. All I have to say about that is NOT ON MY WATCH. It makes the other inmates weird for a couple of weeks, lots of paperwork that needs to be completed, and some good correctional officer getting the third degree from the Warden.

Yeah, there's lots of folks whut need killin', and they're free to off themselves on their own property, but not on my watch.
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Aesop
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Re: Accused killer of slain Navy SEAL Chris Kyle is indicted

Post by Aesop »

As people, including the accused, don't as a rule go around whacking two relatively minor acquaintances, and he hasn't been living a lifetime life of crime, I'm willing to go out on a limb and assume that mental illness has far more to do with the motivation for the crime than anything else.

I invite anyone to complete the sentence for him "I killed them because __________.' and come up with any articulable explanation that doesn't involve "because I was batshit crazy" in the final clause. It wasn't that he was beginning his criminal empire, or covetted their weapons, or hated them. This is acting out at the behest of whatever personal monsters are pulling his strings.

I'm not arguing for letting him off, nor out. Ever.
But given his personal history, ending him pretty well meets the textbook definition of killing crazy people at this point.
Getting a rope may be a solution in many instances, but this isn't one of those.
Not least of which because the deceased were in the process of trying to bring this guy back onto the sanity reservation too, so whacking the guy they were trying to reach dishonors their efforts, and reduces them, us, and the criminal to nothing but animals in a farm pen.

I don't like crazy people, on principle, and due to 20 years' too-close association with them in the ER, and I know what a waste most efforts on their behalf usually are.
But I'm not willing to make the transition to "let's start capping them all" out of sheer expediency any more than most people are.
Doing that to this guy, even given the circumstances, is a step down that road that I don't think we ought to take.

At the same time, I'd volunteer my days off as the guy to personally start the IV for every douche on death row in CA right this minute if it would break the logjam and empty Death Row by a week from Tuesday.
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
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Aglifter
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Re: Accused killer of slain Navy SEAL Chris Kyle is indicted

Post by Aglifter »

A) No official knowledge of PTSD, etc... BUT, I do shoot w. quite a few young vets...

B) They get "hinky" when they cannot shoot how they envisioned themselves shooting, on a fairly regular basis. I could see that going very wrong - and no one involved being legally insane - maybe in a jurisdiction which uses the Irresistable Impulse rule.

I didn't really get the importance of this, until I started reading Mediatations on Violence - which I have found very useful.

(COMPLETE SWAG Following - I fully and completely admit I could be wildly off base.)

TMK, in the military there's quite a bit of pressure on not being the "f*ck up" of the group... (I've met men who ARE heroes, but I don't think I've encountered any soldiers who WANT to be heroes. As such, I don't think a heroic impulse is the motivation - or, at least not one that any of them have admitted to since the days of Glory.)

And, suddenly, they've become the "f*ck up" in, perhaps, the fundamental task of certain types of soldier - and it combines into a lack of emotional tools to handle it/need to prove their capability/and they get locked into a Very Bad Idea.

I'm beginning to think that some of the "hinkiness" I've seen might have been quite a bit closer to something tragic than I realized.

If anyone else is dealing w. this stuff, thus far, they seem to able to be calmed down by older vets pretty well. Not sure if that's a result of conditioning on their part, or experience on the vets, or what, but if you find a man 25+ years his senior, he can usually put an end to it.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes, & our sacred Honor

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Aglifter
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Re: Accused killer of slain Navy SEAL Chris Kyle is indicted

Post by Aglifter »

Oh yes. The "success" of an insanity plea, usually results in life - but an institution is a survivable place for the insane.

Prisons are full of the mentally ill and defective.

I'm just saying I could see where, if the jurisdiction does accept irresistible impulse, I could see a defense based on PTSD working.

No doubt, about the life-time suicide watch, either.
And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our Fortunes, & our sacred Honor

A gentleman unarmed is undressed.

Collects of 1903/08 Colt Pocket Auto
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martini
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Re: Accused killer of slain Navy SEAL Chris Kyle is indicted

Post by martini »

Aesop wrote:As people, including the accused, don't as a rule go around whacking two relatively minor acquaintances, and he hasn't been living a lifetime life of crime, I'm willing to go out on a limb and assume that mental illness has far more to do with the motivation for the crime than anything else.

I invite anyone to complete the sentence for him "I killed them because __________.' and come up with any articulable explanation that doesn't involve "because I was batshit crazy" in the final clause. It wasn't that he was beginning his criminal empire, or covetted their weapons, or hated them. This is acting out at the behest of whatever personal monsters are pulling his strings.

I'm not arguing for letting him off, nor out. Ever.
But given his personal history, ending him pretty well meets the textbook definition of killing crazy people at this point.
Getting a rope may be a solution in many instances, but this isn't one of those.
Not least of which because the deceased were in the process of trying to bring this guy back onto the sanity reservation too, so whacking the guy they were trying to reach dishonors their efforts, and reduces them, us, and the criminal to nothing but animals in a farm pen.

I don't like crazy people, on principle, and due to 20 years' too-close association with them in the ER, and I know what a waste most efforts on their behalf usually are.
But I'm not willing to make the transition to "let's start capping them all" out of sheer expediency any more than most people are.
Doing that to this guy, even given the circumstances, is a step down that road that I don't think we ought to take.

At the same time, I'd volunteer my days off as the guy to personally start the IV for every douche on death row in CA right this minute if it would break the logjam and empty Death Row by a week from Tuesday.
Aesop,
I can't agree with you more. Any society who begins to decide which of their less capable or damaged elements should be executed is not a society I want to be a part of. This clearly doesn't apply to people to cease to be part of society by committing criminal acts. They have forgone the protection of society's rules.

That said, I can't see anything other than "bat shit crazy" as a reason for this and it is particularly tragic as it looks like the reasons for his illness are his service to us. He deserves our pity and protection, not an execution. That means to me either prison or a psych ward for the rest of his life depending on his mental status.
Justice Sotomayor, States may have grown accustomed to violating the rights of American citizens, but that does not bootstrap those violations into something that is constitutional. — Alan Gura
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martini
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Re: Accused killer of slain Navy SEAL Chris Kyle is indicted

Post by martini »

Aglifter wrote:I didn't really get the importance of this, until I started reading Mediatations on Violence - which I have found very useful.
I recommend this book in particular, but all of Rory Miller's work has been both interesting and enlightening.
Justice Sotomayor, States may have grown accustomed to violating the rights of American citizens, but that does not bootstrap those violations into something that is constitutional. — Alan Gura
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