500

500 people is a lot of people. It's about 10 NFL teams. More people than get to be starters in the NCAA tourney. About twice as many people as I graduated from law school with. More people than my high school graduating class. More people than my college graduating class. My entire state agency doesn't employ close to that many people. Even the biggest airliners we fly on stop short of holding 500 passengers. 500 people is a lot of people.

As of 7:37 pm ET, 500 people is the number of people the state of Texas has executed since 1976.

It is a staggering number. Appalling. Horrifying. The state of Texas has intentionally ended the life of 500 living, breathing human beings. And that's only since 1976. You know they executed a lot of people before 1972 as well.

What are they getting for it? It certainly doesn't appear that they're running out of candidates for their death chamber, so I doubt they're making a big dent in their crime numbers. But they just keep killing people. After a while, it feels like they're just killing people to kill people.

If it ever seems like I pick on Texas too much, like I'm too harsh on that entire state, too easy to find fault with it, this is why. They just kill too damn many people.