Joseph

3/1

When you murder someone, you need to do it right.

If you use a gun, for example, all you’re really doing is moving the trigger. You pull the lever, and someone dies. There’s an unhealthy disconnect there, a disparity between the action and consequence. Because it’s not your consequence. It’s the poor sap getting murdered who pays the tithe. There was a science experiment once, that asked people what they would do if runaway train was heading towards a group of people working on the tracks. Most people asked would pull a level and change the train’s path so it only ran over one person, rather than the whole group. But, when asked if they would push someone off the bridge above the tracks in order to stop the train with their body, they would. Same amount of lives saved and lost in both situations. The only difference is that in one example you end someone’s life by pulling a lever, in the other you actually have to push them off a bridge. For some reason it seems like one is murder, and the other isn’t.

It’s for this reason I feel that using a gun to kill someone is too easy. I’m not saying you should choke the guy to death, and I’m not saying you should look them in the eyes as the life leaves them. That’s morbid. But you should definitely get hands-on with it. Gain an appreciation for the act of death. It doesn’t get easier. It does, however, get more meaningful.