In California this week, supporters of convicted killer and founder of the Crips street gang, Stanley “Tookie” Williams, argued that Williams should be spared execution because he had changed his ways while in prison, writing children’s books about the evils of gangs and encouraging young people to lead better lives than he had. Others argued that he should still have to pay for the crimes for which he was convicted in 1981 no matter what he had done with himself in the meantime. We didn’t hear anything about the gun control laws that were in effect 26 years ago when Williams committed the crimes that landed him on death row. What happened in San Quentin prison Monday night was about Williams and the four people he victimized.

The crimes for which Williams was executed boil down to a violent man who spent most of the 1970s building a gang and then, in the course of two weeks in 1979, slaughtered first a convenience store clerk and then a hotelier and his wife and daughter. In much the same way, the shooting that claimed the life of Dillon Stewart is about a man already wanted in another state for assaulting police officers who allegedly sped away from cops trying to make a routine traffic stop and then shot at them with a stolen gun when they cornered him, lest they find the 53 bags of marijuana that were apparently found in his car. The shooting of Daniel Enchautegui over the weekend is about an off-duty officer who tried to stop a burglary that was allegedly being perpetrated by two individuals looking for drugs after an evening at a strip club.

Any crimes, but especially violent crimes and most particularly the killings of police officers that have shaken New York City these past two weeks, rend the civic fabric. They demand a response. But precisely because they are so serious, it is vital that everyone think carefully about what that response should be. Facile calls for stronger gun control, for example, make for good grandstanding but bad crime prevention. The gun that allegedly killed Dillon Stewart was bought and used legally in Florida before being stolen – an act itself a crime – and finding its way into the hands of Allan Cameron.

The point that needs to be made is that crimes are about criminals and their victims, as was thrown into sharp relieve this week in the debate this week about Williams. Better, then, to focus on laws that deal directly with the offenders instead of nibbling around the edges of their bad behavior by trying to corral them into using one type of weapon or another. The people of New York State have shown they want a death penalty and, if that is to be defeated, let it be not on the margins but on the substance; we think that will be hard. Whatever the outcome, we will always rely on heroes like Dillon and Enchautegui to protect us. It is criminals who commit crimes. The correct reaction to those crimes is to focus, therefore, on punishing those criminals.