Vladisvok Destino's thoughts: Vigilantes

Recently I ended up getting given a copy of Watchmen on dvd and decided to watch it, quite a good movie I thought and it does raise an interesting question about the idea of superheros/etc and (for me at least) in more general terms the idea of people taking the law into their own hands.

Personally I find myself in two minds on the subject, that of what I feel would be beneficial in a more "ideal" situation and what I perhaps feel would work given the situation the world finds itself in. Firstly, I do not agree on principle with the idea of overly tight controls on what weapons people may own and their right to use them against people who threaten/attack them, by making weapons more difficult for ordinary people to get you simply make sure that the only people who are armed are those who wish to use these weapons to do harm. When you take into consideration that the police, as much as they may try, simply cannot offer 24/7 protection to every single person in the country, you accept that crimes are an unavoidable fact, there will always be muggers, thieves, murderers, thugs, rapists and the like and as much as people may try to avoid it sometimes these people will only be caught after they have had a chance to destroy someones life.

Given this acceptance, surely it makes sense for the population to have the right to defend themselves and to carry that which will help them in that act, true this will not stop such attacks taking place, but perhaps we can even the playing field? Would some of todays scum perhaps think twice about attacking a person if they knew there was a good chance they could get their brains blown out for doing so? Would a thief think twice before breaking into a house if they knew that might cause them serious injury or death? Would the population themselves not feel safer, knowing that if they were attacked that they could defend themselves as needed without threat of prosecution for daring to injure a murderer, a rapist, a scumbag that quite frankly deserves far worse than whatever the victim may have dealt them?

The other flaw I see with the idea of weapon-control is how short sighted a measure it is. Sure you can stop a man carrying a knife, but can you stop him carrying a screwdriver? A drill? Each of these are fundamental tools of their trade, but if a person wished to use them as a weapon it would probably do just as much damage as a knife could. A good example I can think of for this is when I went out for a drink with the people from work recently, we went to a club and the security on the door were searching people, they chose me as one of the people to search and said I couldn't take my pen into the club with me. On the surface this might seem like a stupid thing to say, while a wise man once said the pen is mightier than the sword, surely that does not apply in this set of circumstances?



However, consider for a moment what damage a pen could do if someone got into a fight, sure you probably won't get far stabbing someone with it, but you could quite easily take out an eyeball couldn't you? Blind by pen attack...and so you see, this security guard (or whoever gave him his instructions) has seen that which most people do not, human beings will find a way to hurt eachother if they want to find a way, so where do you stop? You ban knives, so people use screwdrivers, you ban those so people use drills, you ban those, etc, etc. Again, since you cannot protect all the people all the time, give them the chance to protect themselves.

This however brings me onto the second point I was considering and one which, in a way, invalidates what I have just argued for. While I believe that in principle people should have the right to defend themselves by whatever means they feel are appropriate, could I honestly trust the average person to use this new given authority only for their own protection? How many people, given weaponry and permission to use it, would perhaps turn it on other people and become the very scum that I am arguing we need to be able to protect ourselves from? Given a gun, how many would then go out and rob a bank? Or a store? Or settle an old score? Is this really what I would wish to unleash upon the world?

I suppose, as with most things, it is a good idea in principle, but human nature stops it from becoming an effective reality. Perhaps one day the species will evolve to a point where they can be trusted with such things, or perhaps to a point where such measures are not necessary at all...or perhaps we shall always be as we are and this is nothing more than a fools dream to think otherwise, only time will tell...

IRC Quote of the day
Announcing todays bronze trophy.....Vladisvok/Dacian for 'depressing sex'
Announcing todays silver trophy.....Vladisvok/Dacian/Wenulu for 'Wenulu Card' - Wens first entry
But todays gold trophy goes to.....Vladisvok/Nici/Dacian for 'wait wut?'

Todays results therefore:
1st Place: Vladisvok with 52 points across 25 showings - up 6 points and 3 showings
 2nd Place: Vesta with 22 points across 10 showings - No change
 3rd Place: Nici with 21 points across 12 showings - Up 3 points and 1 showing, now 1 point behind Vesta

I hope you'll come back next time for another edition of..."Vlad's Musings!!!"
Back to blog main