Sure, why not? There comes a point where an individual is so dangerous and destructive that a society cannot contain the violence they unleash at every opportunity. Life in prison merely changes the population exposed to that individual. Prison guards, staff, and other prisoners deserve protection from such uncontrollably violent people just as much as anyone else. Capital punishment reduces recidivism rates to zero. No one who has been executed has ever been found to continue committing crimes.

Probably because of the psychological damage to the individual(s) pulling the trigger.

It's only cheaper because our capital punishment process is so badly broken. It should not take decades to complete the process; that's just dumb. On the other hand, there are flaw in how it's applied currently (moving to the second part of your issue with it), so those also need to be fixed. I support the death penalty, but with some pretty major reforms. And as a strong advocate of it, I would be open to suspending it until said reform has changed the process to one which is much faster, cheaper, more humane, more fair, more evidence-based, and more regulated. For starters, take all the stuff the Innocence Project is doing and integrate it directly into the process and provide wide open access to all information going into the process to any third-party groups wishing to provide sunshine/oversight.

Some individuals are so dangerous and destructive that all members of society (including prison guards, staff, and other prisoners) deserve permanent protection from them. I have no issue with extinguishing the existence of those who are so fundamentally broken that we can't contain their violence. However, we need to bend over backwards to ensure the process to do that is applied fairly, reasonably, and is designed to make it as close to impossible to execute an innocent person as we can reasonably make it.

Capital punishment certainly can be "revenge killing", but it is not necessarily so. Personally, I think that if it's fairly applied and handled reasonably, it can be as simple as a society determining that an individual is simply too dangerous and destructive to be allowed to continue existing. I have no problem with that. Prison guards, staff, and indeed other prisoners are people too and they have a right to be protected from particularly destructive and dangerous individuals. At some point, it's fair to admit that you cannot adequately control the violence unleashed at every opportunity by someone who is fundamentally broken in a way we cannot fix.

The US Constitution doesn't give a damn about the rest of the world. Frankly, the rest of the world has such a sordid history (and present) that we should be thankful for that.

Capital punishment is long-established in the US. Taking the "cruel and unusual" approach won't get anywhere. Now if someone comes up with a particular method that's different enough (e.g. giant catapult, throwing people out of an airplane, letting alligators eat them, etc), you can attack the methods.

Oh please; they just realized how the drugs were being used? Decades of repeated, public use and some executive finally picked up a newspaper? Give me a break. What actually happened is that they periodically reevaluated the amount of money they made off sales versus the PR hit they took for making those sales and eventually the numbers tipped in a new direction.

Murder is against the law; killing absent unlawful motive or negligence is not. Hence, the state can lawfully kill someone once their guilt is determined, their due process rights respected, and the penalty determined to be reasonable given the crimes committed. An individual whose life is at risk by the actions of another individual can also kill, legally. Justifiable homicides happen all the time. If I break into your home to try and murder you, you can kill me and the state has no interest in prosecuting your causing my death.

Capital punishment doesn't bring anyone back to life and if we're honest with ourselves, it likely has little deterrence effect on other criminals. However, the benefit is that it stops an individual who is so dangerous and destructive that society cannot afford to risk their continued existence. Locking them in prison subjects other prisoners, guards, staff, and even other members of society to varying levels of risk from that individual. When an individual is found to exhibit a certain level of danger and destructiveness, society's best option may just be to end that individual's existence in a fair and lawful process.

It was a frequently cited difference - whether for propaganda or not it's still supposed to be a mark of civilization.

Energy weapons don't provide the satisfaction you get when gibbing someone with a gun that shoots bullets. Even the sound of them is lame.

The "people here who do not understand a topic" is aimed at the poster up above - "Richard_at_work" who got things so stupidly wrong that he suggested it would cost "billions".
For some reason I didn't catch that he was not the one that replied to my comment on his comment.

Sorry - another poster "Richard_at_work" wrote the utterly ridiculous "billions".

So does that Escomarine do it for "billions" as you suggest or a hell of a lot less as your link suggests?

PCB's ... and no doubt lead and mercury are also present.

So? People do work with dangerous materials you know.

in India and Bangladesh

That's right, the places that are now training engineers about as good as anywhere else. You've also given a link to an example of how dirt cheap it is.

my understanding is that the steel often gets rolled into rebar

The scrap gets melted first. Say goodbye to anything that's a gas at around 1500C - so no lead, no PCBs, no mercury - they go somewhere but not where the steel goes.

There's an informative show out there

I really do not get why people here who do not understand a topic take it upon themselves to "educate" people with real-world experience in a topic.

have works that have been in the public domain, sometimes for decades, and all of a sudden are protected under copyright again

There's a flute player in Australia who committed suicide due to the legal fallout from using a riff from a 1932 song with unenforced copyright owned by the Girl Guides (Girl Scouts). The copyright was bought by a record company who took legal action in 2009 against the song with that flute riff recorded in 1981.
IP laws are well named - it's about pissing all over everything.

"No man is above the law and no man is below it".
It's convenient to label some people we don't like as complete outlaws but it's a sign of barbarism that just leads to things like rounding up and killing minorities which is the sort of thing we fought a war against people such as Goebbels to stop.