however, once the crime is over the victim is still around to excercise the right to 'the pursuit of happiness'. murder victims are not. also, pedophiles cannot continue to abuse children while in prison, but murderers can continue to kill in prison.
Ok, I'll concede this point, though it is a bit of a slippery slope.
and like i said before, the goal is not to reduce violence overall, it is to eliminate violent individuals. how is this a catch-22?
Because imprisoning someone for life in a super-max facility is just as adequate as eliminating them. They are no longer a threat to society, and your contension that it also serves the purpose of eliminating a threat to other prisoners is merely relative to the massive amounts of violence commited by gang members, rapists, and drug-dealers.
So...you say that life in prison isn't adequate enough because they still pose a threat to their fellow prisoners, but death row doesn't account for much violence among criminals, so therefor it's somewhat of a Catch-22.
in just about every mass murder or serial killing that has happened in the states, the victims have been americans...
Yes, this is a bit of a pickle, but I'd leave that classification up to law-makers. If they considered taking an AK into a crowd and letting loose a terrorist attack I suppose I'd support their classification. Nine-Eleven has changed things, and this is a relatively new debate even among politicians, so I don't know how I would classify it.
and making exceptions for a death penalty ban for terrorists still doesnt address individuals who continue to kill in prison.
Once again, candidates for death row aren't the ones commiting murders in prison. Death row is a facility all to itself.