Every state is guaranteed a republican form of government.
The idea that you could possibly have an American republic that allowed the murder of the innocent is ludicrous.
Such an idea is a gross violation of the country’s most important cornerstone principles.
I swear, people have lost their minds. They’re straining at gnats and swallowing camels.
Well, try to be patient with them. I think most of them are sensitive to states rights issues and assume that the states did not by adopting the 14th Amendment transfer their power to design their own criminal laws to the federal government. If you look into the matter, you will find that state laws differ as to which homicides are crimes and which are not. You might specifically look into homicides that are committed to protect one's own life or the life of another or one's property or the property of another. Consider also that state laws differ as to requisite mental capacity and sanity to render homicides criminal. State laws differ as to age and capacity to commit crime. If a police officer intentionally shoots and kills an "innocent" person because of a reasonable mistake of fact, it is not necessarily a criminal act.
Not everyone agrees that the adoption of the 14th Amendment rendered all these issues federal issues and that all state homicide laws must be uniform. The 14th Amendment also protects "property" and not everyone agrees that the adoption of that amendment requires all states to have uniform laws to protect folks from the loss of their property.
That's the problem you're running into here. Historically, states have had the power to define and punish crimes and a lot of folks don't want to turn these kinds of things over to the federal government.