Cutting of Hands

Let’s assume the Americans decided to hack the hand off anyone who committed a crime that merited 3+ months incarceration. At first the horror would cause a noticeable dip in crime. But after a while, with people inured by the hand-hacking TV channel, it would become commonplace, the way hanging was in the 1600s in England where it was treated as jolly good entertainment. You would find gangs hacking off the hands of old ladies for amusement. The more violence there is, the more violently people behave. People copy what they see. It does not matter if the violence comes from the government or from individuals. This partly explains why murder rates drop when a government stops executing people or killing them in wars.

~ Roedy (1948-02-04 age:70)