What Have We Become?

Chandler, 53, escaped from the flames. But his wife was killed in what authorities are calling an example of vigilante justice.

These are but a small sample of the unintended consequences of these public lists. In addition to these acts of hate, these lists make it nearly impossible for these people to find work and housing leading them to commit even more crimes...not a very good means to protect the public.

Are we to believe that those who committed these atrocious murders are really "better people" than those they hunted down and killed? Is this they type of society we want our lawmakers to encourage, knowing full well that we have sociopath killers who will only use these lists to kill more people?

Citizens need to be better educated because they are living under false information and a false sense of security offered by politicians, for no other reason than to fool the public into thinking they [politicians] are doing something to solve a problem, which they are not. They have made us less safe.

Fact: Between five and nine children are abducted and killed every year, 10% of all child homicide victims. A child is 15 times more likely to be killed by a parent than an unknown pedophile. One child dies on average every two to three days at the hands of a family member.

Fact: Sex offenders, after release, have a much lower recidivism rate than other offenses. source, National Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Fact: Most sex offenses are not committed by strangers but by a family member or someone close to the victim.

Fact: More sex offenses are committed by those released from prison for non-sex offenses than for sex offenses.

The idea of protecting children from assaults of all kinds is noble and necessary. In the end the best protection lies not in ill-conceived "feel good" laws but in parental education and vigilance at home. For this to happen, politicians and the media need to make an effort to provide accurate and honest information. Passing a law and telling the public it will protect them does everyone a great disservice because it does not provide protection at all. It creates false sense of security while at the same time leading to violence and harsh barriers to reentry into society as law abiding citizens. For those who succumb to the urges, it turns more of us into the very type of monsters we want to be protected from in the first place.

Congress needs to search it's soul for meaningful solutions and abandon those that don't serve the public good.

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