I was appalled when I turned to page 8 of the Sept. 2 Reporter and saw Jeff Johnson’s editorial drawing of a hangman’s noose with the caption “The only loophole for level 3 sex offenders.” The drawing was in very poor taste, and sends a message that violence is the solution to violence.

We must never forget what Mahatma Gandhi said: “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

The death penalty does not deter violent crime. The late Sen. Ted Kennedy wrote: “Some of the most convincing evidence is found in the experience of other western democracies. Not one of these countries has capital punishment for peacetime crimes, yet every one of them has a murder rate less than half that of the United States.” No matter how brutal the crime a person has committed, he wrote, “the infliction of death at the hands of government brutalizes our society. Government should not have the power to put a human being to death.”

If we as a society are ever to rise above war and violence, we must not condone violence towards anyone.

Karen Story, Kirkland