Would you pull the lever?

Everyone in the D.C. metropolitan area remembers. I still think of it every time I see a white van. I even think about it when I see someone hustling to their car at a gas station. In October 2002, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd terrorized this area by randomly discharging bullets into strangers while they were pumping gas or strolling with their families through mall parking lots. Over a two-month period, they shot 16 people, killing 10.

Do you remember the anxiety you felt when you pulled into a gas station during that time? Or the games you had to play with your children when you pulled into a parking lot together? I remember parents telling their kids that they were going to play a game when they got out of the car—they would race each other and playfully zigzag toward the store. All the while, the parents wondered whether a sniper target was fixed on them.

With the pull of a trigger, these snipers inflicted terror on a community and destroyed lives. It is the height of absurdity that something so complex and amazing as a human life should end in an instant. But this did not give pause to Muhammad or Boyd as they discharged bullets into strangers.

Today, Muhammad is scheduled for execution. Some family members of those slain have used the occasion to articulate their opposition to the death penalty. We trust God to heal, they tell us. Well, I trust God too. But my forgiveness is not infinite. If given the chance, I wouldn’t hesitate to the pull the lever and bring an end to this memory.


Williams can be heard nightly on Sirius/XM Power 169 from 9 to 10 p.m. EST.

Visit www.armstrongwilliams.com .