Liberals spent much of the 20th Century trying to undermine capital punishment, mostly because they just didn’t like it, because it made them feel bad.
But capital punishment, swift and sure, provided an element of fairness that we no longer have today. Accused of murder, rape or armed robbery, a person would stand before a judge and jury, and their peers would decide that they had committed a capital offense and should hang for it. 13 judges, as it were, any of which could have spared their life.
And it wasn’t just the hanging that was the deterrent, though it was what people assumed. It was the certainty of the trial, that judge and jury, and even the governor, who would in effect sentence them to death in the name of society.
“You mother still loves you, but you are a bad man and need hanging.”
If such a thing still existed, in a swift and sure form, resulting in a drop from gallows, would this man have still tried to armed rob a store?
He might have. Yet few armed robbers would consider that a clerk was armed. They might imagine themselves hanging, however.
In either case, liberals lose, and some of those that need killing get killed. The last armed robber legally executed was (not the actor) James Coburn, in 1964. Not executing them for robbery has not reduced the death rate of armed robbers one bit.