I think I would take revenge for my spouse or child, yes. I doubt I could manage torture or anything, but run him/her over with the car? I think I could do that. Of course it’s all talk, from someone who’s never done a violent thing in her life.
I do not believe I could bring myself to do it.
I would certainly and without a doubt leave his ass on the side of the road, almost certainly the victim of a really good kicking and an extended harangue about his behavior, but I’m flat-out not capable of killing another person in cold blood.
Killing to defend myself or another - that I’m capable of. Shanking him at the moment (or shortly thereafter) he murdered my loved one, you betcha. I’m going to assume that when the OP says my loved one was murdered in front of my face, I was in full-body restraints. But deliberate, cold-blooded murder after a loved one has been murdered? No chance. It just isn’t in me.
Aside from my own ethical reservations to such an act (which would be enough on their own), why would I risk going to prison for someone like that? And I would deserve my prison time for such an act, make no mistake. There is no such creature as a perfect crime. Why risk it? There is more than one person who love me enough that they’d be devestated if I were go to go prison for killing a person who’d murdered a loved one. Depending on which of my loved ones were murdered, I’d still have parents, siblings, a spouse, friends, etc.
Aside from other considerations - if I murder him, how am I any different than he is? I’m not, am I? Becoming a monster to punish a monster is… counterproductive to me.
Vengeance is sweet.
I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t waste the … person. After I might justify it to myself by knowing that the person would never do that to anyone else and it’s possible I saved an innocent life, but in the planning stages I’d know better.
Yes, planning stages. It’d be deliberate, premeditated, cold and calculated, if fate didn’t present the opportunity outlined in the OP.
Hurt my family and I will kill you.
So, the ankle thing is his own doing, right? I wasn’t the one to break his ankle. So I have three options here: I can take advantage of the situation and run him over, killing him. I can stop the car, offer first aid and/or take him to a hospital or at least the nearest town. Or I can do nothing, keep driving, and whistle a merry tune, chuckling at the laws of Karma while he probably, but not certainly, dehydrates to death in agony. (After all, someone else *might *drive by after me and stop.)
I’m going with the last one. I think I have a moral imperative to not *cause *harm (and also a religious one), but I don’t have a mandate to help anyone at all who wants it. Offering active aid is discretionary, I can choose to help or I can choose to not help.
I feel a twinge in my belly that perhaps that’s not the entirely clean course of action, morally speaking, but I could live with that. I couldn’t live with myself if I actively killed someone, even a waste of oxygen like that. 'Sides, I’d rather the bastard suffer a painful parched death than a quick cracked skull.
I’m not sure I entirely like what that says about me, but there it is.
I can understand the people here who say they would kill the person, because I would certainly be tempted to do so. And I can understand the people here who say they wouldn’t kill the person. What I can’t understand, though, is the people who say they’d take the person to the hospital to get the ankle fixed. Why would you do that?
I don’t believe in taking revenge. Period. What distinguishes me from the murderer is the fact that he is willing to destroy someone’s life, and I am not. I’m better than he is, for that reason. No way would I ever do anything to put myself on the same level as someone as despicable as that.
(My username is misleading.)
ETA: What I would want most is for him to have a moment of enlightenment and fully experience the horror of what he has done. Let him live with the full realization of the gravity of his act, let him understand and feel all the suffering he has caused.
Yes, but – if something horrific was deliberately and knowingly done to my children (Og forbid, knocking wood like mad over here) I would no longer BE me. That creature would cease to exist.
I wouldn’t do it for vengence. Vengence and punishment both wouldn’t come into the equation for me.
I’d do it because he was a piece of excrement that can’t be trusted not to kill the innocent. I’d do it since he got off without paying the price society deemed fit. I’d do it to prevent him from ever hurting anyone else again.
I’d end his life without remorse or pleasure, piss on his fucking head, go get the cops, show them his body and ask them if they have any questions.
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t, based on opportunities I have passed up to eliminate stray dogs that have threatened my pets and damaged my yard. Not that I think I’m better than that, or that it’s morally wrong – I wouldn’t even give that much thought at all. I probably wouldn’t even accost the person. I probably would drive right past and later fantasize that he died of exposure, and then carry that guilt around with me the rest of my life. Seriously.
Well, except for the me coming across them and they are at my mercy, it is not a hypothetical situation for me.
If it were within a month of the time of murder, yes I probably would have. I’ve cooled off since then so no I would not harm him.
That is an interesting point. One of my friends wrote his thesis on how identity shifts, where he postulates the question of convicting someone for a murder they did fifty years ago. He argues that the person fifty years ago and the person now could be considered two different people (purely on a metaphysical level; he’s not really arguing for lowering the statute of limitations or whatever).
The “me” I am now thinks I would not be capable of murdering anyone. I am firmly against the death penalty - I think it’s barbaric that a society that considers itself civilized still systematically executes its members for whatever reason. In principle I agree that having the murderer live out their life in prison would be a more fitting punishment. However, never having experienced the pain of having a loved one murdered, I really can’t say how I would end up reacting were I to be put in such a situation, because the person would no longer be the “me” that I am now. That hypothetical me might have very different ideas of what is fitting punishment for murderers, and may even have the strength to carry out my convictions. Which is a chilling thought.
Just TRY to stop me.
I’m getting sick to my stomach just imagining something happening to my son… 
I’d do it only if it was a cold-blooded murder, and not something like an escalation of violence after a night of drinking. It would be done in public and I would surrender myself immediately after the monster’s heart stopped beating.
If we are talking about someone who killed my daughter, things wouldn’t have to depend on some asinine chain of coincidences to put that person at my mercy for me to take revenge. I will take revenge. Long, drawn out, twisted, painful, revenge that would make the most diseased psychopathic sadist turn away in revulsion. My not getting caught isn’t even a factor. The murderer will have a long time to savor who I am and why I am doing it before the darkness swallows him.
Kill one of my parents or my wife and I’ll kill you. It won’t necessarily be the baroque orgy of excruciation that you’d get for killing my daughter, but I’ll have your life sooner or later. Most likely sooner.
Vengeance? Nah, I’ve got people to do that for me. These people, the police and prosecutors, really resent it when we civilians step in to do their work for them. If you were murdered, would you want your spouse to spend life in prison to avenge your death? I wouldn’t.
Your “people” failed.
Would that change things?
It is good to think these things out but IRL, be prepared to find yourself doing things different than you thought.
My 18 year old daughter was murdered in 1991.
Long story short. It was bad.
The investigating officer told me, (after my alibi was checked), that if anything happened to the suspect, god would not be a good enough alibi and I would go down for it. To just let the system work.
The case was never solved, it is still open. The original; suspect is now in South America I think. Why you ask? Because the Local DA at the time was running for higher office and refused to take the case because it was not air tight. Pissed off the police no end. He died of a heat attack before his ambitions could be realized. I was not bothered by this karma.
When it came down to it, neither my son, who was in the ARMY in Germany at the time and came home, put rifle sights on the guy but did not kill him nor have I …yet. There is that niggling little doubt that it could have been someone else.
I was trying to get sober at the time and I managed to do so in spite of this happening to my child. So, no, even with a failing in what I thought was a personal requirement of myself as a man & as a parent I have not done anything yet. It is still open and I am still in contact with the cold case people. They still do not tell me who they are looking at as DNA evidence changes their direction.
No, I did not have to drink over this. So. some things that we say are absolutes are not really, we just need to believe they are to keep on with any sanity IMO.
If it ever happened like the OP said, absolutely no question of guilt and all parties knew it, then all bets are off but … I had another child, a wife and some other life experiences & death ones and jail ones and what prison is really like and what my Catholic conscience is like, and the fact that my alibi had to be perfect because the police will be looking at me with incredible detail and patience as I am really the one who has motive. I would be in a real mess if they could prove I just drove by.
It never goes away, no matter what you or do not do, you will always second guess yourself, but be careful what you declare.
The “Kill then no matter what” and the “I will never take a life” often when presented with the reality, not the thought problem, do things that bewilder themselves.
Just hope and pray that you never have to find out because it sucks rocks forever… A truly, “If you have not been there personally, you have no real clue.”
She left this world in 91. I have been sober since 91. And contrary to what you might think, they really do not have much to do with each other.
First have you killed or not, military or secretly/openly in civilian life? Do you have more than one child? Have you had siblings or close relatives murdered? Do you all really have a clue?
When I was 18, I had a 1000 lines in the sand.
When I was 40, I had one left and it was bent all to hell.
I’m 64 now and I know better than to ever even think about a line in the sand.
The world is round
It is not fair
It is just damn round.
No job is too hard for the person who does not have to do it…
Dead. Maybe if I had a child, as someone pointed out, I wouldn’t. But otherwise, dead.
I do not understand the idea that “it wouldn’t bring her back” (as if I somehow think she will magically appear in the seat next to me) is an arguable reason against the act. Putting him (or her) in prison won’t bring my wife back, either, but I’d really like to meet the person who says that we shouldn’t prosecute because “it won’t bring her back.”
I barely touch base with “it makes you no better than the murderer” argument…barely…still disagree with it, but I can see it as a valid argument. I don’t see the other argument as valid, though.
I would be more likely to attempt to frame her for something she didn’t commit than to kill her.
My luck, I’d come up with an elaborate scheme and then the murderer would get hit by a bus right before I implemented it.
GusNSpot -
I was thinking, as I was reading the thread, “Lead me not into temptation”. Then I got to yours, and I thought, “But deliver us from evil”.
Congratulations on your sobriety, and I am very, very sorry for your loss.
Regards,
Shodan