We do not defend his actions, and we are as shocked and outraged as anyone else - not only in this case, but whenever we hear of violent deaths. But this is not about McVeigh. It's about us, and what killing him says about us and does to us. I am not a killer. Tim McVeigh may deserve to die, but I do not deserve to kill him.
Silence is complicity.
As a former supporter of the death penalty, I urge everyone to look beyond McVeigh. Set aside the concept of killing prisoners convicted of murder, and instead to look at the death penalty in practice. For most Americans, the Oklahoma City bombing is as close as we have come to the reality of terrorism. We wanted to share our response with others as a way of explaining our position in this case. In McVeigh's mind, he was engaging in an act of revenge when he bombed a United States installation.