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The guy who opened fire at Comet Pizza because he'd cooked his brain online and believed they were a child sex trafficking hub was exactly as confident the people he was aiming at deserved it as Luigi Mangione, which is just one reason it's a bad idea to lionise vigilante murder.

It's less "is this a praisable thing," more "what other consequences are available," I think. Vigilante murder is a terrible way to deal with terrible people; but it's always on the table. When terrible people take off all the other options like jail or justice I don't know what they expect.

Ok but, can you see how for example "pro-life" activists might feel this way about abortion providers? From their (insane) perspective, doctors are being given legal impunity to kill babies one after another. By that (again, insane) framing, that's probably worse than denying insurance claims.

Right, and every one of those people was exactly as convinced they were doing the right thing as Luigi was. Also, every one of those people was likely cheered on by the people in their camp exactly as loudly as Luigi is. This stuff is not good!

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The thing is I don't think we get fewer vigilante killings by denouncing vigilante killings? I think we need to build an environment where we can trust that the justice system will prevent bad things and cause consequences for the people who do them, so we can all go "you don't need to do this ever"