system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
If Death Penalty Opponents were Ideologically Consistent, I Believe They Would Oppose the Idea of All State Use of Lethal Force, Including the Police and Military. CMV

I have never heard a single argument in favor of totally abolishing the death penalty in all circumstances that couldn't also be used against having armed police or the armed forces in any circumstances, including emergencies or wartime.

"What if they kill an innocent person?"
"Killing another person is wrong, no matter what they've done."
"You can never know for 100% certain if the person you are killing isn't really innocent."
"It costs too much money to kill or put a person to death." (have you seen our defense budget?)
"Vengeance is wrong; we shouldn't seek to kill others, but rather, we should seek to reform them."
"Being killed is a violation of human dignity."

If you think about it, the death penalty is actually fairer than armed police. If the police shoot a suspect and kill him, he could have been innocent. Or, they could accidentally shoot a bystander. And if the suspect dies, remember that he didn't even get a trial! At least the death row inmate has had his day in court.

And the army? I mean, how many civilians are killed in wars every year? Way more than the actual combatants! Even when the army deliberately avoids trying to kill civilians, accidents still happen.

I think that most death penalty opponents aren't actually anti-death, they are just anti-judicial. The government dealing death is okay as long as the executive branch does it, but the second that the judicial branch does, it becomes wrong somehow? Doesn't make one iota of sense.

Yet that's how many South American nations conduct themselves. They haven't had the death penalty for centuries, yet they have shady death squads under control of dictators that force disappearances of political opponents or other undesirables. They're being hypocrites. 

So, if you oppose the death penalty but support armed police and the armed forces, CMV that you're a hypocrite. Tell me why you oppose the death penalty, and why that reason shouldn't also cause you to be a total pacifist?

**EDIT: One of the main responses I have been getting is that it's okay for the police or military to kill someone who poses an immediate threat, but an unarmed prisoner poses no immediate threat. So in their minds, it's worse to kill someone who isn't an immediate threat. But I'll respond with a thought experiment.**

Situation A: I walk into my house and discover that a crazed man has stabbed my family to death. Fearing for my own life, and enraged at his actions, I reach for my concealed handgun and shoot him, and he dies.

Situation B: I walk into my house, see the murder scene, draw my gun, and the man runs away before I can shoot him. But I spend the next year tracking him down, and finally find him a year later, where I confront him and shoot him when he's unarmed.

Which situation is morally worse? From the murderer's perspective, he'd prefer situation B, since he gets to live a year longer. From my perspective, it doesn't matter as long as the murderer dies. My motivations for killing him are nearly identical in both situations, too.

**This is also assuming that unarmed prisoners aren't a threat. They could always escape, or hurt other prisoners, or guards. If they are a mob boss, they could run their organization from prison, which might indirectly lead to more deaths.**
gpt
This may seem like a glib answer, but what's wrong with the response that while a military and police force that are equipped to kill serve a necessary function (namely, protecting us), the death penalty serves no such function, because everything it accomplishes can also be accomplished by imprisonment?

Note also that we can hold this view while opposing the *actual operations* of the military and police, which we might think *don't* primarily serve the function of defense and security. We can think that but still accept that there is a *necessary* role for the police and military to play, even if they are not playing it right now, or if they are doing other unrelated things as well.