The death penalty makes no difference because the people they want to use it on are typically not afraid of death, at least not at the time they do their crime. Harsher penalties would only work on those who would see them as a loss, such as corporate criminals that only need to worry about a loss of money and a little vacation in soft prison. It would be more productive to put white collar criminals in nastier prisons than to execute the people who commit capital crimes.
When somebody kills you, he either thinks he's not getting caught or doesn't care if he lives or dies. Rather than worrying about the death penalty, we should start looking at a mix of more efficient police and courts and making life semi-bearable for people in crappy areas. That mix of carrots and sticks would make murder seem less rational to any candidate and would make it easier to get the ones who do it anyway. How we do it, I don't know, but that would have an effect. The death penalty is a cosmetic and aesthetic choice that is equally or less frightening than life imprisonment to some.

If police and courts where made more effective, then we would have to worry about the issue of the death penalty more, seeing as how there would most likely be more people sentenced to death with more efficent police. No matter what tactics we use to minimize crime, it will still be there. So where do you stand when it comes to the death penalty? I have heard people argue against it by saying it is immoral. The government shouldn't worry about whether or not it right to kill a murder. They should be more concerned with the welfare of those not in prision, people contributing to society. If theres a man who takes another life, he is obviously a threat to others, and should be eliminated.

It doesn't really matter. Different people are more terrified by different things. Some fear imprisonment more than death. For others it is the opposite. I bet there are many who are in the situation that don't see much of a difference. If people are not going to be rehabilitated, I see no point for life in prison over death. Since I do not believe in punishment for revenge, I see no benefit of death penalty over life imprisonment. And both are unpleasant ideas that should deter rational people.
The problems are:
1) Some people are just irrational, possibly in need of psychiatric help.
2) When your life is pure **** anyway, the incentive to avoid prison is lessened by a great deal.
3) If your experience and knowledge base convince you that you will never get caught, fear will not deter you from a crime
4) If you think you are going to die anyway, as many in gang-plagued areas do, fear of death will not deter you from crime.
5)Even normally rational people are a lot less rational at the time a capital crime is committed.

Explain how the death penalty would change this. People like you and I (well, I assume you) would probably not kill even if there was no law against it due to upbringing, empathy, and a knowledge base suggesting that killing won't do us any good, as well as a general distaste for death (from upbringing and possibly influenced a bit by biology). The death penalty makes little difference for us as well.

So better law enforcement and better living conditions and better upbringing are real solutions. The death penalty is just one of those dumb issues people argue back and forth about to no avail.

I don't support the death penalty because I think its fair to kill a killer. I don't support the death penalty because I think its a sever enough punishment to keep people from commiting crimes. I just think that if someone is sentanced to life in prison it would be much more efficent simply to execute them. To me that makes more sence than keeping a person who is never going back into society alive.

As I said before, better law enforcement and living conditions may reduce the amount of crimes that occur, but there will still be capital crimes commited. There are reasons beyond the ones you listed for commiting crimes. Sometimes rational people find themselves in situations where they commit a crime. These kinds of things can be avoided, but they still happen. If the death penalty is abolished, then prisons will just be filled with people who have to sit in prison until they die.

The death penalty doesn't do much to stop crimes from being commited, but it takes care of people who have already commit these crimes, and sees that they won't do it again. People talk about abolishing the death penalty, I think we need to make it more efficent. If someone is sentanced to death, I think they should be taken out back and taken care of right away.

Since we're not looking at incidents as for the number that happen but as to the inevitability of them happening, what about the cases where a person sentenced to death is later proven to be not guilty. Once shot it is too late. Therefore the appeal process that makes the death penalty so expensive is also the insurance for society not getting innocent blood on its hands.
It may not happen often, but it does happen. At least with life in prison, a person found to be innocent can be released (though usually this will probably not make the person's life all that great- unless they write a best-selling book).

Regardless of how horrible a crime was commited, what gives us the right to take away another's life? Just becuase the dealt penalty is legal in some places, it doesn't make it right or make us any better than the murderer in the first place.

Its not about whats right and whats wrong. Its about what needs to be done.

Dead men commit no crimes.

Actually, the Fifth Commandment has more the force of "Thou shalt not murder," which means that killing is okay in war, self-defense, and executing criminals. And legally taking the life of a killer does not automatically dispatch the killer's soul to hellfire and (*)(*)(*)(*)ation, as he/she had plenty of opportunity to decide whether or not to repent. And besides, what is the sense of relying upon a book that recommends the death penalty for adultery and working on the Sabbath as an authoritative support for anti-death penalty arguments? And so, we should just let criminals run loose until God sends his holy lightning bolts to clear them from our midst? Hmm.