When quite young, I used to be very severe in my opinion that a murderer deserved to die etc. I was all for the Death Penalty of 'hanging by the neck until dead', and sorry to see it abolished here in UK. But my old father (who'd seen death in all its forms during the War) once asked me to imagine the felon in his last moments being pinioned, led to the scaffold, a bag put over his head, the rope noose placed around his neck and the lever ready to push for the 'drop'. He asked me, "Now, in all sincerity, would YOU push that lever?" And I had to admit I couldn't have done so. He asked me why not, and it was because to take a life like that in cold blood seemed so obviously wrong. I have to add that the last British Executioner, Albert Pierrepoint, in his autobiography, came to the same conclusion, that hanging was no deterrent, that it was pointless and wrong, and he had no regrets that it had been abolished.