If it has to be a boolean choice (which of course it doesn’t), I’ll take egg on the face. For a comparatively minor incident* such as this, ‘no consequences’ is better than ‘fatal retribution’.
*I’m aware that it’s possible for a whole debate to arise over what’s minor and what isn’t; I’m not sure where the dividing line should be drawn, but that doesn’t mean certain things can’t definitely be on one side of it, or the other.
What’s wrong with calling the police to deal with criminal mischief? Why shouldn’t the police be called to deal with troublemakers of any age?
(By the way, I’m just amazed at the anger at kids doing things like throwing eggs, and these thinly veiled excuses for unrestrained violence against them. Am I the only one here who engaged in any dumb childhood behavior? I can’t recall if I threw eggs at any cars or houses, I don’t think I did, but I do recall hanging out with a few other dumb kids and throwing ice cream sandwiches (!) at a few parked cars, throwing rocks at each other, TPing this one house, various other annoying and dumb pranks and stuff… I mean this not to excuse that kind of behavior, but holy cow, were the rest of you really spending your after-school hours and summers at the Little Lord Fauntleroy School for Hemopheliacs and Ideal Adolescent Behavior?)
I’m pretty sure that there actually are legal consequences for throwing eggs at people.
Which is not to say that people should rely on such a system over vigilante justice, of course. After all, chances are that the kid would have just gotten a slap on the wrist from our criminal-friendly legal system, instead of the several decades in prison he’d surely earned. Now that he’s dead, society can rest secure in the knowledge that he’ll never graduate to throwing slices of Danish ham at people. Instead, now his carcass can be hung from a lamp post in front of his middle school, to teach his peers the value of civil behavior.
Ravenman, I can only speak for myself, but I was never the kind of kid who could get away with much, because I didn’t enjoy being mean for the sake of it. So when people called me on bad behavior, I didn’t need much convincing to realize it was wrong. Most of my hijinks were a matter of wanting to have fun, not wanting to :mad: with people.
Terrifel, was this kid a relative of yours?
Rilchiam: I am deeply puzzled and offended by your accusation. I assure you, everyone in my family believes that today’s children should expect to die horribly if they ever throw an egg at someone. We’re all decent, civilized people.
As I said earlier, I don’t get into GD much. Is it always like this? People can’t have a discussion without getting bogged down in scorn and sarcasm? I can’t answer you at all, Terrifel, until you get off this tack you’re sitting on.
All I’m saying (to others, not Mr. LaLaLaI’mNotListening) is that, while shooting and murdering the egg-thrower was over the top and criminally actionable, it’s not as if he didn’t do anything wrong at all. His actions were not deserving of death, but neither were they completely defensible. I’m just wondering how much crap someone can pull without getting tables turned on them.
While I don’t agree with folks who feel like shooting vandals is an appropriate thing to do, I do feel that there is no adequate recourse/protection against such individuals. Not that I have much of an idea what that recourse might be.
Many people live in areas where criminal mischief is #741 on the list of police priorities. If it isn’t a violent felony, it gets ignored. If you want justice for “petty crimes”, you’re on your own.
I apologize for bogging down your thread, then, and I hope your debate is able to find a happy medium between the two unacceptable extremes of either murdering vandals or letting the law deal with them.
I think vandalism is a shameful, stupid thing to do. And this goes beyond vandalism, since it could have caused a car accident.
That said, I find it utterly incomprehensible that someone would say, as Ludovic did above, that vandals “deserve to die.” I don’t find it surprising (given the equally horrific points of view that have managed to attract their share of defenders on this board and elsewhere), but I do find it incomprehensible. That kind of attitude bespeaks a sad lack of appreciation for the value of human life.
Or maybe you’re just running your mouth without really meaning what you say. I can understand being angry that people “get away with” vandalism and other crimes. I can understand feeling a desire to hurt someone when they do something that angers you . . . but that doesn’t mean you should defend that desire as morally justified. I can’t be bothered to look up your posting history and see if this sort of thing is the rule for you or just a bout of hotheadedness.
But if you really mean it, I ask that you consider the following:
(1) How many people as adults look back and regret some of the stupid decisions they made in their youths? I know many who grew up to be good, moral people and made a positive difference in the lives of those around them. Were those lives better off not lived because they made a few stupid, thoughtless choices when they were young?
(2) The child who was shot wasn’t the only victim of this murder. When a person dies, and especially when a person dies young, the pain for those who loved them is almost unbearable. What did this boy’s mother do to deserve to suffer like that? (I hope you aren’t going to tell me the parents are responsible for all their children’s mistakes, unless you’re such a good parent that your children never do anything wrong . . .) What if this kid had a little brother or sister? What did they do to deserve to lose their big brother?
Of course, if your comments above really are indicative of your values, then maybe everything I’m saying will seem as absurd to you as your attitude does to me. Eh, I tried.
Teirfel, I love you madly 
Well isn’t it a wonderful thing, then, that nobody has declared you Emperor For Life.
Which is frightening, really. You people have SUCH a violent society! It’s really scary to watch.
That point shouldn’t even have to be made. Where did people get such a sense of entitlement? Not to mention disproportionate anger and desire for violence. It’s a flippin’ egg. Nobody got hurt. Now I understand that to some people, a vehicle is beloved and sacrosanct but this is beyond and beyond again any range of normal reaction.
Then set up a website for your city where people can post pictures of vandals and other criminals engaged in the act. And lobby for a law that dictates that parents have to pay for any damages done by their kids. Don’t just sit and bitch.
Are people so unimaginative that they can only conceive of a) no consequences and b) death ? Please tell me it isn’t so.
Again with the violence. What is WITH you people? If you must, carry a water pistol filled with food colouring and ‘shoot’ any offender. Then you can tell the media or the police that there’s a vandal afoot covered in dye.
Oh there are probably a few thousand possible ideas someone could come up with which don’t involve death or major physical damage and which would still get the point across. I think photos and websites would be a very good solution.
I know! Lord knows how often someone eggs my car and I go all postal on them. Or maybe I don’t. But at least that explains why I lobby to enact the death penalty for vandalism. Wait, I don’t do that either.
What was your point again?
Or you could go to a car wash.
Hey, don’t be raggin’ on me if you’re unwilling to stand up for your convictions! 
Look up “Epistemology” sometime.
Theres a big difference between “kids throwing eggs at moving cars deserve to die” and “i dont feel bad that a kid throwing eggs at a moving car died”. I just can’t make myself feel sorry for the kid, i do feel bad for his parents, family and non egg throwing friends though. I’ve had enough experiences with the police to learn that unless its a serious crime chances are nothing at all will be done about it, and even if by some miracle those vandals where caught and punished the punishment would be so trivial that all they would learn is that they can do as they please and get away with it even if they are caught. A few broken bones would have been much better than cold blooded murder, but i imagine we would have this thread either way if thats what had happened.
Why? What is the huge deal about it? It wasn’t rocks. Eggs smash upon contact, unlike pretty much any other projectile. So why these violent and angry reactions?
Is this not sweating the small stuff writ large? Really, what is it that makes it SUCH an egregious sin that people are frothing at the mouth here?
My first reaction was maybe a taser and a little pepper spray might do the trick.
But seriously, assaulting a minor is going to get you in far more trouble than whatever slap on the wrist the teen would have gotten, had he actually been apprehended by some miracle.
The days when little old ladies could grab brats by the earlobe and haul them down to Sheriff Taylor’s for a stern talking-to are pretty much over.
The idea I should put up a website with pictures of youthful offenders also wouldn’t work, since I don’t spend my nights patrolling the streets armed with a night-vision camera.
This shooting took place at 12:30 AM. I’m not out catching vandals & thieves at that hour. What were these kids doing out at that hour? Where were their parents?
Will they be held responsible for anything?
About the only thing I can think of to is blanket everywhere with CCTV like the UK does. But I wonder how much good that would really do, how expensive it would be to implement, and how much public resistance there would be to it.
So are you saying that in some cases, two wrongs do actually make a right?
Wow. lots of people talking past each other on this thread.
Could we all possibly agree on the following two points?:
Hopefully agreeing on these very simple concepts will at least shed some light on levdrakon’s posts.
Let’s try to agree on one more thing:
Simple enough so far?