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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.