Actually I've read that murderers have the lowest recidivism rate of serious criminals. I believe I've also read that they often make model prisoners. Most kill, on impulse, one time, someone they know. They snap! Often under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
I don't think MDC fits into the ordinary murderer profile. He is obviously seriously mentally ill. I mean, acting out your life to Catcher in the Rye? How crazy is that? I guess you could argue that all murderers are crazy at the time of the act, but I don't fully buy that. There are some evil people who kill (and usually kill again).
I think MDC belongs in a mental hospital where they can hold him until he's pronounced not a danger. If I recall, he got twenty years to life in prison, but will come up for parole (and may eventually get it). Release from confinement in a mental hospital may be tougher than release on parole. Regardless, I doubt he's getting out anytime soon. But ten years . . . .?
As far as MDC goes, the lines from John's signature song "Imagine" seems either dead on or dead wrong: "Imagine there's no countries/it isn't hard to do/nothing to kill and die for/and no religion too."
In a religionless world, would MDC not have been a religious zealot, fed upon his own delusions of religious grandeur, acting out his own pathology on the man who said the Beatles were bigger than Jesus?
Or does the world need religion and governments/countries to protect us from others and ourselves?
I feel no need to hate MDC. That just feeds into the same demon that possessed him to kill in the first place. And if you believe in soul or spirit, then that's part of John--the purest, realest part--can never be killed.
Hating MDC is missing the greatest message Lennon had--Love. The need for and experience of unconditional love. It's like hating James Earl Ray for killing MLK--it's missing MLK's central message. And true power. MLK knew when he gave the mountaintop speech that it was just a matter of time before he got killed. I think Lennon in the same way has some presentiment of his death, but chose not to live as a recluse, but was generally open and engaging to the strangers who were continually coming up to him (even MDC, ironically--Lennon was so nice, so human, to the guy, MDC didn't shoot him the first time he saw him).
Sorry for the presumption on my part. End of sermon, amen.
