Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site cadre.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!decvax!mcnc!idis!cadre!geb From: geb@cadre.UUCP Newsgroups: net.legal,net.politics Subject: Re: NYC subway hero Message-ID: <144@cadre.ARPA> Date: Thu, 10-Jan-85 11:58:01 EST Article-I.D.: cadre.144 Posted: Thu Jan 10 11:58:01 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 12-Jan-85 07:46:02 EST References: <4850@utzoo.UUCP> <242@looking.UUCP> <568@tty3b.UUCP> <189@mhuxr.UUCP> Reply-To: geb@cadre.ARPA (Gordon E. Banks) Organization: Decision Systems Lab., Univ. of Pgh. Lines: 45 Xref: watmath net.legal:1287 net.politics:6759 Summary: > The fact that our vigilante friend shot the bozos is > nasty enough, but why was he *carrying* an *illegal* handgun? > He was (unfortunately) only asking for trouble... But he TRIED to get permission to carry a weapon after his first mugging. Of course we don't know the reasons he was turned down, but I suspect they weren't good ones. He appears to be a regular citizen who had a good reason to need protection, proved by what had already happened to him. I think the right to bear arms is his constitutional right, and hope someone on his jury thinks so too. Whether he used it judiciously is another question. >> >> The real point here is the difficult question of when to use deadly force. >> Police are trained for years in when deadly force is justified and when it >> isn't. Their actions are closely scrutinized when they do shoot someone. >> The average person simply has not considered these questions nearly enough. >> And besides, they've seen too many cowboy movies. >> >> Mike Kelly > >This is exactly why vigilantism is a bad idea. > >Marcel Simon ..!mhuxr!mfs BUT...the police are in a way volunteering for hazardous duty and restrictions need to be placed on them. The citizen has a right to self defense which should not be as restrictive as the rules of police conduct. Allowances must be made for lack of training. Of course, the person should have actually been threatened, else any paranoid could legally shoot anyone. We (and mayor Koch) really need to be careful about terms. Vigilantism is unauthorized law enforcement. There are good and bad examples of this. A bad example is the KKK lynching blacks. A good example, in my opinion was seen in Chicago. In the ghetto of Woodlawn a few years ago, the police were pretty slack on law enforcement (in other words, let the blacks kill and rob each other). A group of black merchants banded together and sent out patrol cars (they had clubs but no firearms). Of course the police screamed "vigilantes". Similar vigilante efforts are the "Guardian Angels". Everyone but the police and authorities seem to approve of them. What Goetz did was apparently not vigilantism. It was self-defense. If the punks had been bothering someone else, then it might have been vigilantism.