I'm not at all comfortable with civilian vigilantes. We have police that are extensively trained to do this job and are officially accountable for their actions. We have a justice system designed to determine the guilt or innocence of the perpetrator. To promote vigilantism is to mock our very concept of Justice. If we find we do not have enough police to combat rising crime rates, should we not be investing in crime prevention and perhaps more (or a more effective) police force?
You cite a very specific -- and rare -- instance of a vigilante
presumably saving someone, and then go on to draw conclusions you can't possibly infer. First, that the girl would have been killed had the civilian not intervened (you don't know that). Second, that executing someone without a fair trial is a good thing. (Here's a hint: it's not.) Third, you uttery fail to take into account how the victim may be endangered by the ineptitude of the vigilante. Not being trained, a drive-by shooter could
easily put a bullet through the head of the person they are trying to save. Fourth, you assume that only a gun could have resulted in her rescue. Without a gun, the same person may have wrestled the attacker to the ground and detained him for police. In fact, I bet I could find more stories of someone
without a gun being a hero than someone doing so
with a gun. That's just a guess, but my instincts tell me it's true.
That said, I'm glad she got out of it okay. Really, I am. But I still don't think this case supports your argument in any way whatsoever.
Your suggestion that pro-gun control lobbyists would rather see her dead is just insulting. By this logic, could I not say that Hitler helped fight communism and therefore people that disagree with his actions are communists and evil? Any sane person would balk at this logic, and rightly so. We all know that it is irrelevent; the problem with Hitler is that he tried to exterminate an entire ethnic group and conquer the world. Yet this logic is exactly what you propose we accept. The fact that someone, somewhere, used a gun to save someone, maybe, does not address any of the issues that the debate over gun control revolve around.
Your accusation that gun control supporters would prefer to see the girl dead is remarkably similar to the argument that states: those of us who disagree with the invasion of Iraq support Saddam's atrocities. Or that those of us who belive in the right to choose are somehow "for" the death of babies.
I sense a theme coming from the idealogical Right. And it's getting tiring. I'm tired of being accused of some preposterous immorality when the other side starts losing the logical debate. Let me tell you something. If I supported ideas that you label as liberal because I like to see people die, I'd be in the armed services where I can kill with impunity.
Okay, that was a cheapshot.
