Sign of the Times

Out in Los Angeles some members of an Hispanic street gang are being tried for hate crimes for allegedly conspiring to kill blacks. Here's part of their defense:

Defense attorney Reuven L. Cohen told jurors last week that one of
the slayings cited in the charges — the 1999 shooting of Kenneth Wilson — was
not a hate crime but "a simple gang killing committed out of boredom."

See, they didn't kill him because they hated him, they killed him because they were bored.

Oh, well that's a relief.

Wait--no it's not. I'd rather live sandwiched between a family of KKK members and another of Louis Farrakhan's followers than have even one person on my block who's decided that murdering fellow human beings is an acceptable solution to the problem of boredom. Really. The latter is clearly the more dangerous. The racists might hate me (or other people on the block), but they probably don't hate enough to kill and even if they do, it will likely take some grievance, real or imagined, to set them off. With the murder-to-alleviate-boredom guy, everyone on the block is in danger every time there's nothing good on TV.

In a sane society "I killed him because I had nothing better to do that day" could not be considered a defense--no way, no how.