There are only a select couple types of criminal that I believe deserve the death penalty (preferably by the most painful method possible. Stoning, mayhap?). One example is murderers. I believe that it is only fair that to take another’s life is to forfeit one’s own (and none of this “well, to take the life of the murderer will only continue the cycle of violence” hogwash that
you so frequently hear from the we’re-too-sensitive-and-righteous-for-our-own-good leftist elites, either). Another type of criminal that I believe deserves the death penalty is the rapist. to violate a woman (or child) in that way seems, to me at least, to be the worst thing you can do to her, short of killing her.

Lately, another criminal type has been added to my list of evil men who should probably be eliminated for their crimes. These are the looters currently terrorizing their way through New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. I have heard several stories of people who have had to flee their homes in fear for their lives as the looters threaten to shoot the occupants (often actually following up on said threats). Unfortunately, the police and military units
offering aid to the flood-ravaged Big Easy can only do just so much. Naturally, their primary focus is the rescue of remaining survivors and the cleanup of the damage zone, which leaves
little time and resources to chase down bandits and thieves.

Looters are, in this situation, the worst kind of people, if ‘people’ is even the right word for them. They take advantage of what is already a very tragic event and make it even more tragic. It is like rape, except that in this case it is the rape of their community, the rape of their neighbors, the rape of their city. What Katrina didn’t destroy, these hoodlums and vandals destroy for her. Part of me, the fallen and imperfect part, wants to drag these evil men out
into the street and stone them to death for their vile acts of carnage, for essentially taking advantage of people when they are already down and hurting.

In the long view, however, I recognize that such individuals will ultimately reap the ‘reward’ of their deeds in eternity, as they face the Almighty and have to answer to Him for their deeds here. I suspect that God would have us pray for and offer assistance to those survivors of Katrina and share the blessings of Heaven with them in that way, as well as to pray for the looters that God will touch them with their guilt and use both this tragedy and their own deeds to win them to Himself. Tough though this may be in the human view, it is probably also the most right and godly response for us as Christians.