According to Kant, who's responsible?

On a sunny afternoon in early April of 2012, when the streets of this mountain mining city were filled with schoolchildren and parents hurrying home from work, gunmen entered a tiny apartment and started firing methodically.

The assassins killed everyone: the family matriarch and her adult son; her daughter and son-in-law, and finally, her 22-month-old granddaughter. The child was not killed by mistake. Preliminary forensics indicates that the gunmen, unchallenged, pointed a pistol at the child and fired.

My reasoning for discussing this story is not for any shock value, or to cite inflamed emotions, but rather to ask a core question; Is one life more valuable than another?, Through classroom debates in discussing the great Immanuel Kant, we’ve begun the argument of circumstantial ethics, consequence based ethics, and universality. An American citizen would argue in many cases that a Mexicans life doesn’t carry the same value as an Americans. So to would the case be made that a child’s life is more precious than an adult. For Kant, the consequences of killing another are irrelevant, regardless of the nationality, gender, or personal affiliation associated with that life being taken. The American system routinely reacts strongly to any child killing in this country, as well as anyone who’s charged with a crime against child, typically they are obstatrized and vilified in our media and court of public opinion. My question is this, why is that? Does it mean that we see the children an innocent and adults as deserving of those crimes? Do we associate children with moral purity and therefore blissful ignorance?

Kant argued that experience is purely subjective without first being processed by pure reason. He also said that using reason without applying it to experience will only lead to theoretical illusions. The free and proper exercise of reason by the individual was both a theme of the Enlightenment, and of Kant's approaches to the various problems of philosophy. For Kant, age is truly irrelevant, as it’s not an accurate reflection of what one knows due to experience in general being subjective. Just as due to the categorical imperative, if a society condemns killing, they must condemn it for all, and not limit the consequential acts to follow to those we simply don’t approve of.

It should be noted that in this instance the killings are being carried out for a target purpose of intimidation within a population. For Kant, those tactics would not be applicable, and thus futile if that population were committed to rational thinking and non-responsive to irrational acts committed by others. For according to Kant, those killing are simply their own moral agents and nobody has any right to judge them for those actions. Now, having said that, the citizens can choose to apply their own moral law upon the minority, or they could choose to isolate themselves from those that are viewed as immoral agents. There is always choice with Kant, for we are in his system, all capable and responsible for our own moral acts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mexican-drug-cartels-targeting-and-killing-children/2011/04/07/AFwkFb9C_story.html