If you’re rejoicing over the acquittal of Daniel Penny or the actions of Luigi Mangione, I have to say it:  killing people is wrong. There was no self-defense excuse in either of those cases; just 2 men who felt they had the right to take someone else’s life.

And it’s a 2-for-1 deal, too. You can’t rejoice in what Mangione did and be appalled that Penny was acquitted. Murder is murder. And I’m not as surprised to see the MAGAs rejoicing over Penny’s acquittal; these are, after all, the same people who think Kyle Rittenhouse is a hero. I am surprised, though, to see the pro-gun control left of the political spectrum calling Mangione a hero.

The hagiography that built up about this guy in a few days was amazing. He was a populist hero. He was an accomplished hitman. He was too smart for the cops and was going to get away with it. OK, he got caught, but he meant to get caught. He did it for all of us as an act of class solidarity.

It’s a great story. But the reality is different. He got caught eating in a McDonalds, turned in by an employee who recognized him. He got caught with the murder weapon on him. Maybe he was planning on murdering someone else? Who knows. But Occam’s Razor says he wasn’t a particularly clever killer.

Or how about his being painted as a class hero, a working person standing up for the rest of us against an industry that prioritizes profits over our health? But he was arrested with $10,000 in cash on him. See, he comes from a family of millionaires, and was most likely wealthier than Brian Thompson. Other news stories note that his family members are registered Republicans, including a member of the Maryland state legislature. He also seems to admire Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, and well, you know that’s not usually the mark of a progressive.

Family and friends say he disappeared from the surfing colony he’d been living at in Hawaii (in case you still thought he was some kind of working class champion) presumably as a result of a painful back injury. And I know that allegedly he had inscribed the bullets with “Defend, Deny, Delay” as a reference to the behavior of insurance companies, but this doesn’t seem to be a person who had a problem paying for procedures. He does, though, seem to be someone who suffered some kind of breakdown 6 months ago, which led to his stalking and shooting Thompson.

And even if your argument is that insurance companies denying claims murders people, while those practices are wrong, and the healthcare industry is fucked up and anti-patient, but it’s not murder. And if you think that it is murder, then what Mangione did is no better.

I’ll leave you with a Morrissey song about 2 notorious British serial killers, the Kray brothers, from the perspective of someone who hero worships them: