My neighbor, my savior

[htpcl]

Hello, fellow cringing sissies brave vigilantes! When most Americans think of the volunteer vigilante security neighborhood groups, probably the first name that comes to mind is George Zimmerman. No matter that his actions in that rainy evening in 2012 that led to the death of 17 y.o. Trayvon Martin may have little to do with the established

Comments

[luvdovz]

The idea may sound good, but you did earlier say there are regions that are severely depopulated in your country, and that's exactly where this type of crime occurs most frequently. If the only residents remaining are some elderly people and most people in active age have moved away to the cities or abroad, the question remains who'd be forming those hit squads volunteer groups.

[mahnmut]

That's right. Why not put guns in the hands of people who've been holding centuries-old ethnic grudges in a highly volatile region, and legalize their use under the pretext of more security (security, but for whom? not the Roma, by the looks of it).

Like these guys, maybe. They seem actively involved enough. Hey, they're even from your city.

[htpcl]

Well, technically they came from all over the country. Football hools, and all that. I've written before about the difference between peaceful protesters and provocateurs with an agenda. As for the agenda in this particular case, it's a long story really. Thing is, there's no excuse for what they did in the center of my town.

[paft]

Again with the Roma.

Watch groups around minority ghettos? Oh yeah. We had those here.

http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2012/images/04/18/t1larg.lynch.gi.jpg

[htpcl]

It does smell of brown shirts, doesn't it. Especially if some wannabe nationalists get involved.

[yes_justice]

"Attack"? Wow. Just wow.

[htpcl]

They're a bunch of populist paranoid lunatics.

[peristaltor]

Whereas in the more problematic municipalities, on the contrary, neighborhood watch could actually increase the sense of insecurity and anger against the state institutions which have apparently abandoned the people to deal with the problem on their own - in some extreme cases, that could lead to mass paranoia, and have disruptive effects on the community.Interesting. For years now, I have suspected what could be related to the Broken Window theory. I call it the Security Device theory. Where neighbors put bars on windows, hulking great steel screen doors on entrances, where they have steering wheel bars everywhere, crime will be encouraged. Just as vandals sense just by seeing a broken window that more windows could be broken, thieves sense that there must be a lot of crime in an area that dedicates so much energy to the prevention of crime

[the_rukh]

I lived next to a store with bars for a while, it sure felt like the run down part of town-- for one block. Across the street was a nice church, and the rest of the stores looked pretty normal, but that one corner definitely was the shady inch of town.

[yes_justice]

The steering wheel bars are easy to get around with cutters.

Better to get one on the brake pedal, you cannot fit bolt cutters down there.

[peristaltor]

What kind of cutters do you carry, Dude?!? One-inch steel is not easily cowed. Then again, the older ones have a bit of a weak spot which, I accidentally discovered, can be overcome with a ball point pen.

No, I did not tell The Wife™.

[luzribeiro]

I don't get it, how could someone be "pro life", and at the same time encourage people to go trigger happy with laws like stand your ground. Ultimately, which freedom trumps the other, the freedom to live or the freedom to kill?

[the_rukh]

One might say that the difference is that pro-life people don't want people who don't have a choice in the matter killed, while they don't care if people who made the wrong choice themselves have the consequence of death. For being super threatening with skittles or popcorn.

[sandwichwarrior]

As rukh points out, the question is of "agency".