Are you a vigilante and do you support vigilante justice?

Do you approve of the use of lethal force beyond that allowed by law based on an ind

  • Yes, individuals should be allowed to use lethal force without lawful justification.

    Votes: 22 23.4%
  • No, lethal force should only be used within the limits established by law.

    Votes: 72 76.6%

  • Total voters
    94
To quote an old Byrds' song (written by Dylan who borrowed parts of it from the Christian bible):

"To everything, turn turn turn, there is a season, turn turn turn,
and a time to every purpose, under heaven..."

I believe this to be true.

Biker
 
Justice should only be served in court, so I voted no.

Let's just imagine you had just driven around the corner to see a man standing next to the burning dog. You assume he set the dog on fire, get out of your car, and shoot him before tending to the dog. Upon closer inspection of the man, his cell phone was dialed to 911 and his wife is running to you from their car, fire extinguisher. Congrats, you just killed a good samaritan. :D
 
jfrew
Justice should only be served in court, so I voted no.

Let's just imagine you had just driven around the corner to see a man standing next to the burning dog. You assume he set the dog on fire, get out of your car, and shoot him before tending to the dog. Upon closer inspection of the man, his cell phone was dialed to 911 and his wife is running to you from their car, fire extinguisher. Congrats, you just killed a good samaritan.

Except the scenario was that you arrive BEFORE he lights him up, match in hand, after witnessing the dousing with gasoline. Everyone here that fired, shot the perp - not the samaritan.
 
I think its pretty *&%$&ing sick that 15 of you would murder someone who poses no immediate threat to you or any other human. SICK
 
I have not read all the posts...

...so I am probably repeating something someone else has already said, but I think this is a misuse of the word "vigilante".

A vigilante goes and actively seeks out the person or situation that they perceive as a threat to their own sense of morality and deals with them in a manner outside the law.

Dealing with a situation that you do not bring upon yourself nor did you actively seek out is not "vigilantism"...it is simply being a responsible citizen and standing up for yourself and your fellow man. If you step outside the law during those circumstances it is not the best outcome but it is completely different then going out with a preformed prejudice and agenda.

As for seeing someone harming an animal, I would put myself in the position where they would have to go through me first. if they then continued to pose a threat to me I would deal with them with the appropriate amount of force to end the threat they posed directly to me.
 
Sign of a true Democrat
I think its pretty *&%$&ing sick that 15 of you would murder someone who poses no immediate threat to you or any other human. SICK

No mention of the person burning live animals to death with gasoline, if that person becomes a victim.
These kind of Democrats also believe it is wrong, wrong, wrong to shoot someone in your house in the middle of the night unless you are absolutely certain they have a gun and intend to use it on you. In Texas you can get away with shooting someone that is stealing your truck from your driveway. That - my friends - is justice.
 
Playboy came close to being right. We're just pounding keyboards answering the question because we haven't defined the term "vigilante". The original question was built around the extra-legal use of lethal force. Posters then jumped to the conclusion the question described in full extent vigilantism.

Let's keep the two separate. Perhaps some intrepid soul will post a similar thread on vigilantism.
 
I've seen a lot of violence in my life, and I've seen mobs of people go wrong. One of the scenario's that keeps coming up in this discussion is the vision of an America broken down into total chaos. My guess is that in this situation groups of people would spontaneously form to protect themselves, some decent and some not. Power grabs occur in the absence of law, just as you saw after the dissolution of Yugoslavia into the tribal solidarities of Croats, Serbs and Bosnians, etc. The power grab by the Serbs resulted in some of the ugliest genocide the world has known. Post Glasnost Russia is basically a bunch of Thugs, the former KGB just being one of the gangs.

But if you want an example of vigilantism in America, a bunch of gang bangers burned "snitch" into the face of a woman yesterday somewhere in Arizona.

People need to think more about what happens during anarchy. It's not a pretty sight. Think of the vigilantism against black people in the south: the lynchings, etc. Ugly.

As human beings we are supposed to be reasonable people.
 
The question poses a conundrum, pitting a person's moral imperative to act against the law's prohibition against action, and presupposes that the law perfectly addresses all possible situations that could arise (see oldphart's post).
 
No. Absolutely not. IT'S AN ANIMAL! I can't think of any animal that's worth a few years behind bars if the jury doesn't agree with me.

About all you can do is call the police.

(However, if the person(s) see you on your cell phone and start comming after you, making you fear for your life, that's a different story).
 
Quote:
Sign of a true Democrat

Quote:
I think its pretty *&%$&ing sick that 15 of you would murder someone who poses no immediate threat to you or any other human. SICK

No mention of the person burning live animals to death with gasoline, if that person becomes a victim.
These kind of Democrats also believe it is wrong, wrong, wrong to shoot someone in your house in the middle of the night unless you are absolutely certain they have a gun and intend to use it on you. In Texas you can get away with shooting someone that is stealing your truck from your driveway. That - my friends - is justice.
End Quote.


You, sir, are making a large leap to equate defending yourself (a human) and defending an animal or truck. Have you ever known someone who has broken through their addiction to drugs? There are many upstanding citizens around who wouldn't be here if they were shot for theft. It would take quite an ego for one to put himself on a pedestal as the judge of other men. Those who commit crimes against property deserve to spend time in prison. Those who intend to commit crimes against your person (assault, murder, rape, etc.) have subjected themselves to death from self-defense. It's that simple.

There was a gentleman in my area (Washington) who chased a car thief 5 miles from his home in another vehicle. This person then pulled alongside the stolen vehicle and fired rounds at the driver, killing him. The shooter is currently spending a long time in prison. I did not cry one single tear for him. What he did usurped the law and was morally wrong. He placed himself as the judge of man instead of God.

The only way one can articulate a reasonable need to defend property with deadly force is to show that the loss of property would directly contribute to the loss of life or grave bodily harm. Period.

-Jason
 
If you think that vigilantism is OK then go kill O.J. It's sure that he was guilty, why not string him up? If not, then stop posting stupidity on the internet. You aren't impressing anyone. Nor are you enlightening the public. We have laws because without them we can have no society. Those who ignore or disobey the law are criminals and we must punish criminals if we are to have a stable world. The law says you must let the authorized forces enforce the law. Therefore we cannot enforce the law without due process. End of lecture.:)
 
O.J. brings up a good point.
When justice is decided based on money,race,or any influence other than guilt or innocence maybe some good old vigilante justice is needed.
I know if Nicole Brown or Ronald Goldman were my family members, after that so called trial, i would of liked to see O.J. swing from a tall tree.
 
The only way one can articulate a reasonable need to defend property with deadly force is to show that the loss of property would directly contribute to the loss of life or grave bodily harm. Period.

-Jason

Actually to show that you would have stopped him from stealing, but feared you might get shot in the process, is plenty of reason to shoot to kill. I can't help it if I don't have your bleeding heart. I think we should shoot every damn thief and drug dealer on the spot. Screw them and people who feel sorry for them. They are the main things wrong with our society. If we kill all the drug dealers, much of the thievery would stop, because many of the drug addicts would disappear without the drugs. I could care less if they have this remote possibility of being rehabbed. People who make a living by taking food out of my family's mouth should be killed. Period!
 
When justice is decided based on money,race,or any influence other than guilt or innocence maybe some good old vigilante justice is needed.
I know if Nicole Brown or Ronald Goldman were my family members, after that so called trial, i would of liked to see O.J. swing from a tall tree.

OJ was not guilty.

WildwhatwouldmakeyoufeelotherwiseAlaska
 
I can't help it if I don't have your bleeding heart. I think we should shoot every damn thief and drug dealer on the spot. Screw them and people who feel sorry for them. They are the main things wrong with our society. If we kill all the drug dealers, much of the thievery would stop, because many of the drug addicts would disappear without the drugs. I could care less if they have this remote possibility of being rehabbed.

Love it. Back in the day, people didn't come around stealing and robbing people that carried shotguns regularly because they would get their s**t blown away. Now no one worries about being shot by an owner and so they steal rampantly in some places.
OJ was not guilty.

Oh he definately is guilty...just found 'not guilty' by a jury of douchebags who didn't think killing white people was a crime.
 
The little girl was not injured (he was driving very slowly), but the mob dragged him out of the car and beat him to death. The driver managed to escape
.
I can't imagine what segment of society perpetrated this obscenity.
Crown Hts in NY and the LA riots come to mind.:mad:
But I could be wrong.
Shouldn't be quick to judge you know.
That being said, if I came upon someone about to set an animal on fire just to satify some evil needs , I'd have a bead on him in an instant unless I was close enough to physically stop the act.
As for vigilantism in general, I'm not for mob rule.
I don't consider forcibly injecting myself into a situation where someone is about to be hurt being a vigilante.
If that's the case, there should be more.:cool:
 
I think there are moderate ways of governing oneself that do not necessarily need to include an all out firestorm on the bario. For instance, isn't a neighborhood watch little more than a group of good Americans banding together to protect themselves and the people in their community when and if the law fails to do so? I'm all for that. But knee jerk responses to what you may view (and perhaps rightfully so) as society's preventable ills might only get you arrested. What good will you be then?
 
And maybe the OJ jury was fed up with LA police and their perceived abuses of power and decided to participate in a little jury nullification. :p
 
The very fact that two folks voted to be vigilantes is absolutely frightening and is the best argument for gun control I have ever seen.

Now there are 18. The really stupid thing is that all or most of these folks will also claim the 2nd Amendment to justify gun ownership. In other words, they are happy to utilize the laws that they like, break the ones that they don't.

Vigilante = criminal, in this case, a murderer, on of the worse types of criminal there is.
 
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