You make good points!  True blasphemy WAS punishable by death, and acceptably so.  But...Our Blessed Lord WAS {IS} GOD, so no blasphemy existed.  The Pharisee's {et al} refusal to BELIEVE God is mirrored in the Protestants' condemnation of Catholics as  idolaters because of our belief in the Real Presence.  Belief in the Lord's words "This IS..." in transubstantiated Bread and Wine is no more "ridiculous" than that God would be here and now as A MAN.  {Many "Catholics" reject both}. And that God/Man Jesus nowhere in the New Testament condemned the PROPER use of the "sword".  In fact, His servant St Paul goes on to clearly defend its use! {Rm 13}.  So-called "Catholics" who condemn the use of the sword on principle are heretics.  To condemn its use in some cases, as I and many other Catholics do in the USA only reflects what we know of its historically unjust application, not the principled right of it's use.  Some criminals deserve death and there is no sin in its just application.