Carjacker dies from stab wounds suffered while stealing woman's car

Vigilante?  Who was the vigilante in this story?  The lady innocently driving her car someplace?  The citizen who came to her aid?

As I said, the details were murky in that poorly written piece.  However, it does not read as if the outcome was decided in a court of law by due process.  

Frankly, overall I am not in favor of the death penalty.  When a perp is found guilty enough to warrant a long prison sentence, that is satisfactory to me in general.  It also allows time for rectifying a wrong conviction, which seems to take a heap of doing.

When one acts to harm another, he/she risks losing the right of due process when things take a bad turn.  

Candy

A vigilante is simply someone who takes the law in his/her own hands. That's what happened here.

I know it's part of the rugged individualist American mythos to rely on oneself and not call the police. We, as a society, don't have a lot of cohesion or collectivism. So "fix it yourself" and "be a hero" are part and parcel of that mythos.

But if you want to talk about "losing" rights--part of the social contract is that we voluntarily give up the right to exact punishment and retribution for crimes committed against us. We may feel that revenge is justified. But in order to avoid social chaos, we forfeit the right to exact that revenge ourselves.

Imagine the endless chains of blood feuds that would result otherwise. Together with the tremendous collateral damage as everyone and his brother (literally) continually settled scores. It was the first sign of civilization in the old West when citizens in a town assigned that role to the law.

And one person acting to harm another should absolutely, positively retain the right of due process. Isn't that why the Bill of Rights was crafted--to preserve the rights of people who are in danger of having them taken away? The right to free speech protects people who say things other people HATE, not things others like. Freedom of religion doesn't protect the most popular or prevalent religion. And the right to due process doesn't protect people who aren't accused of a crime.

The idea that it's OK to strip away the rights of someone you don't like or who has done something unpopular and/or wrong--because they're no longer human beings/Americans due to their offenses--is very, very seductive, and very, very dangerous.

Kevin misses my point regarding due process.  Carjackers want to get away fast.  If the CJ is killed in the ensuing chaos, i.e.crashes the car into a power station, car explodes in an inferno, he has forfeited due process since he is dead.  He took that risk. His NOK might undertake a civil suit or something if the circumstances suggest...sue the city or the car manufacturer or the power company for a nice payday, if they have the money. Attorneys are the winners in end anyway. 

Well, I don't spit on the law because "it all just benefits attorneys anyway"...otherwise, I might as well just wear a suit of armor everywhere I go and arm myself like Rambo.

I think you missed my point regarding the social contract and how we have a mutual tacit agreement to not take the law in our own hands. But I think you disagree with me, ideologically--that we are allowed to judge for ourselves when that applies and when it doesn't. So I won't belabor the point.

It's unfortunate that we have bad guys, but we do and when they die, it's for the best.

So you agree that Trump should die?

Actually, bad guys should be punished, but we're a bit past the time--which was about 700 years ago--when the only punishment for ANY crime was death.

If Trump car jacks someone, I hope that he's shot dead.

If he actually did that, you'd be posting here, defending him and blaming it on liberals.