I recently read about a murder and rape in Florida, of a young girl, which has led to demands for new laws. They want the new law to be named after the victim.
With all due the respect, this idea of creating new laws every time a sensational crime is committed, is a very bad way to make laws. It is a very, very bad way to make laws.
It was not legal to rape and murder children when the crime was committed, and there really is no way to make it even more illegal than it already was. The shameless politicians behind these laws evade this issue by adding meaningless technicalities. They make it a separate crime to murder someone while drinking a slushy or something. So suspects can be charged with murder and with committing murder while drinking a slushy, and then with willfully committing a murder while drinking a slushy on a Tuesday..
And the idea that sentences need to be tougher than they already are in the most barbaric nation in the industrialized world, is preposterous. Nothing is going to bring back the victim of a murder, and I don’t believe that it really is satisfying to anyone to see someone else suffer as a consequence of the suffering caused to you. It’s just surrendering to the most childish of natural impulses: to hit back.