We are our own enemies

THE EDITOR, Madam:

No laws, however draconian and swingeing, will suppress the resolve of those bent on murder and mayhem. No endorsement of the ropes, or the enforcement of the electric chair, or any future blood curdling means of justice will check a decadent person from kicking down a door and spraying bullets in the bodies of people asleep.

No dreadful justice that makes the average man shakes in his boots, will faze any 18-year-old seized on a mission to serve justice, however twisted. For if justice is blind, it is also blind to the destroyer fixed on revenge. If fear of punishment could deter a killer from his mission of blood, why are many not afraid to execute themselves after their imagined justice is satisfied?

Justice, it seems, is a stronger force than fear and blinds people to the consequences of their journey until the course is run. Therefore, shouting ‘Stop the killing!’ whether orally or in written form, is like shouting desist to the waves rushing towards the shore – an empty exercise in futility when the laws of operation are already in motion.

In the same way, no prison walls can cause a criminal to be seized with fear and trembling, until he’s released from his own inner prison that blocks consolatory reasoning and humane approach. In other words, we are more our own enemies than the external enemies we fight.

HOMER SYLVESTER

Mount Vernon

New York