Entry the Fifth - To vigilante or not to vigilante

I love Dexter. No not the weird little kid with a funny accent. The Sunday-night-after-the-eight-o’clock-movie Dexter. He is a cold blooded serial killer, but he is hot, and he only kills bad guys. And he always gets it right. Always.

What I would like to say about Vigilantism is "Yay for them." But I am not an impulsive kind of girl. I am not the type to look only at one dimension of anything.

To fully express my view on vigilantism I would have to write a long, long, long blog. Because it is complicated. But let me break it down as much as I can.

1. I could never do it. I truly don’t think that I have the capacity in me to murder, no matter what evil thing they had done.
2. I would like to think that I could protect myself, and my family to the point where I could take someone else’s life. But I have never been in that position. I have never experienced that level of fear.
   

The biggest problem with vigilantism is that mistakes can be made. Innocent people can be harmed, or killed.
It’s all good and well to Cheer every time a vigilante puts a drug dealer or child rapist in his grave.
But what if they get it wrong, what if it is your child or brother or sister who is incorrectly gunned down? What if they make a mistake and it affects you? Directly? In you home, where it hurts the most?
Sadly, with a mostly ineffectual policing system, as we have in SA, vigilantism is rife, and probably needed.

So, ultimately, what am I for?
I am for a stronger, more armed, more trained, better paid, better equipped, larger, more involved police force so that vigilantism wouldn’t be necessary.