[zamler]

Originally Posted by Matt Reeeeead

It's not a matter of "deserves".

If he truly did not have the mental ability to make the decision to kill, prison is not considered to be a "penalty" for him. That would suggest that the penalty is being done to change his behaviour (next time he wont stab 5 people! serves him right).

Prison or whatever would be to isolate him from society since we're not sure if he has the ability (or meds have the ability) to allow him to control his actions and prevent him from being harmful to others.

I am bugged by everyone assuming that this was as simple as him pressing the on/off button in the remote like he woke up and said "I'm going to kill 5 people today"!

That's almost for sure not what happened. Maybe it is, we haven't established evidence for that. But it doesn't make sense. It probably is a mental disorder that we need to learn and understand better to make the proper conclusion. At the end of the day, I'm suggesting that "punishing" him is likely worthless, as there may not be anything to "punish". Punish him for what, having a brain disorder he is unable to control? That's akin to punishing a dog because he's stupid. I'm more concerned that until properly diagnosed and figuring this out, that no matter how you slice it he's obviously extremely harmful to society, and until we can have absolute certainty that whatever his issue can be controlled he needs to be removed from society in isolation.

Good lord.

Originally Posted by Banner

It's not that I disagree with you and dino, it's just that we barely know the whole story. In fact, we know close to nothing, just the result of his actions. Everything here is our speculation on why he did it. If your incredibly kind best friend did what Matt did, would you say the same things that you're saying right now? Not saying you have to forgive him whole-heartedly, but since you know it's completely out of character for him to do so, there's got to be a reason. It's highly unlikely someone goes to the other side of the sanity spectrum in one night.

Yes I would. I'm not saying it would be easy, it would be the hardest thing in the world to deal with. But I would ultimately feel the same way.

BTW I agree with the last sentence to a point, but in a way people do cross over "in one night" that is how someone commits such an act. The process of getting to a state where they are capable of murder is a whole other story and very complex.