‘New Wave of Executions’

Thank you for your forthright editorial against state sanctioned murder. That violence is now fairly well understood in family matters, i.e. abusing parents produce abusing parents; but the obvious connection that violent societies beget violent societies is not made. This despite the fact that most of our European neighbors have long since abandoned capital punishment, and that there is no scientific evidence establishing a significant deterrent effect to “antiseptic” state murder. The raw, unmitigated urge to retribution and revenge prevails!

Whatever our claims to a national preeminence might be, they are unquestionably not in the areas of relational sophistication!

DUANE V. WALN JR.

Covina