Dr. Venkman wrote:So, someone who has sex with a six-year old is less culpable than someone who kills a rival drug dealer or shoots the guy banging his wife?
My argument is not that the child rapist (and mind you, we're talking statutory rape here with an extremely willing partner, not violent, forcible rape) is less culpable. It's whether the viability of the threat justifies the excessiveness of the tactics used to entrap people and obtain convictions, and I don't think it does.
Like I said, show me proof that Internet-associated child rape or abductions are a significant threat and I'll agree that the tactics are worth catching anybody who would act on the impulse to have sex with an underage person under coercion.