Carbon's thoughts on the death penalty

Last night Carbon asked me if our country had sentenced anyone to death "in this century". He was working on building his new lego set, the Queen Anne's Revenge, and I think it was pirates that triggered his thoughts to the death penalty. Or maybe it was the fact that my grandmother brought up Osama Bin Laden's death during her visit - something I hadn't talked to the kids about yet so we had to have a whole discussion to explain it and answer their questions about it.

But either way, I had to tell him that, yes, we still do that. He was shocked, and told me he thought that was wrong. I agreed with him - I also think it's wrong and that justice is not served by killing anyone. But then he said, "well, why don't you do something about it then?"

My first gut reflex was to say "there's nothing we can do", but apathy is a learned response to finding that your voice isn't heard over time - it took me time to learn that response and I would like for my children to not hear that from me.

So I suggested we write a letter. And this is what he wrote: