Discriminating the death penalty?

[TG]

This isn't like some of the debate above.
I use to live in a real bad part of NYC and I'm really fast, which mean I'm something else with a knife. I've risked my life not to kill people. I've had muggers pull knives on me, while I had one in my pocket, and I just smashed him the mouth(REAL Fast-remember) I would have been safer to just slice him cause he had a buddy bring up the rear, and I was taking a chance to leave him standing. I won't do it. Not that I'm afraid. I went up to a guy convicted of manslaughter and smashed him in the face for messing with a young girl I knew. I had a gun at the time, and I left it behind.
But I will support the death penalty for murder of police.
I've done the good samaritian thing several times, and it's just like the guy from 9/11 WTC. It's a thankless thing, and you're always banged up afterwards. Most people put in 40hrs. and come home. Those guys put in 40, and some don't come home. For our sake. So yeah, if an inmate hold back from killing a cop because he's got something to lose,
I'll vote for that. But I'm not going to be one pulling the switch.
I've seen women and sisters crying in the streets and hallways because sons and brothers have been killed on the street, and I won't argue with them. Whatever they decide, I'm keeping my mouth shut. It's their call in my book.
I don't like killing people, and I'm against it. I had a guy hanging out a window one time for trying to slash me in the face with a saw, and when I saw I could kill him, the rage went out of me and I let him go. Life and death is God business, not mine.
My reaction to this topic isn't philosophical. It gut level feeling from what I've seen and done. And it also a gut level feeling when I see cops going to work in the morning, and when I see someone crying over someone they've lost.
And I've shot back to kill when someone was shooting to kill me.
So summary: Self defense, OK. But you'r a better man than George Getz if you can hold back.
Take care of the cops.
Kill to save another's life.
I keep my mouth shut when someone else has a loved one taken away.
TG
PS When I was 18 I nearly drowned and had the whole "out of body", white light thing, and that Light is as real to me as what I remember about last Christmas. The whole thing about afterlife is an issure I don't want to mess around with. I just want to throw my hands up and say, "This is out of my hand. It's more than I can handle." You never hear what that Light feels like. I remember what it felt like, and I'm not going back there a second time and say, "Yeah, I killed somebody."