Yes. Locked-in Syndrome would be ideal. Throw in blindness and daily torturing after the fact. I wouldn’t want him in a hospital though. I would want him somewhere that costs the taxpayers as little money as possible. Preferably he would be thrown in a room that smells like cat-piss, with some kind of auto-feeder. As little care as possible just to keep him alive. A punch in the mouth once in a while would be good too. Let him live like that for 20-30 years, then kill him off. Maybe.
I guess I’m just a closet pacifist or something. A 230 grain .45" hunk of lead and copper delivered at 900 fps to the brain stem would be just fine.
Also, I don’t think I have the attention span to torture… It’s just too much work
I, too, would probably get bored of it after a while.
I would not kill them, I would call the police on my cell phone, and enjoy attending their trial. I would hope that I am living in a state with the death penalty at the time. Then I would make sure to have the date of execution open in my calendar so I could attend the execution. I would mmake sure to sit right in front with a good view.
If the guy bled to death while waiting for the cops, that is not my problem. I will not get out of the car and risk being accused of injuring or killing them, or contaminating the evidence at their accident scene.
I might take pictures with my cell phone for personal use while I am waiting for the cops.
This thread kind of reminds me of the old joke about the well dressed guy who approached an attractive woman on the street and asked her if she would sleep w/ him for some outrageous sum of money. After she succumbs to greed, and agrees, he offers her another piddling amount. When she protests, and asks if he thinks she’s a prostitute, he replies that that has already been established, now he’s just trying to negotiate a price.
The OP’s dilema is really a question of personal morality and ethics. It’s basically asking about the degree of our indivdual control over our emotions, our use of reason and logic over rationalization.
If you’re unhesitant about exacting revenge in the OP’s scenario, where do you draw the line? What if the object of your wrath had physically assaulted you, or robbed you at gunpoint, or burglarized your home, and was then aquitted in court, would you feel justified in taking revenge for those things? What about someone who cuts you off on the highway, is it OK to retaliate for that? What degree of transgression is required to justify taking personal revenge?
I did a quick count of the responses, I tried to eliminate repeat posts, and I come up w/: 36 (53%) who were adamant in seeking some revenge, either death or severe physical punishment, including slow torture; 23 (34%0 who were against taking revenge, for various reasons; 9 (13%) who seemed undecided.
I find that a bit sad, given the stated mission of these forums and the pride many seem to take in their membership in the Dope. I can only hope that most of the adamant revenge seekers are young and will learn self constraint in the near future. I’ve often said that society only continues to work if at least 51% of it’s members participate. Are we in the midst of a decline here?
Nah, you’re measuring from the wrong direction.
Nobody’s sworn vengeance against the killer’s family.
Nobody’s sworn vengeance for lesser transgressions.
Nobody’s asserted that the killer might have been justified in his actions because the victim had it coming (for, say, dating outside of her religion, or being the wrong ethnic group).
Nobody’s asserted their right to kill someone else in order to out-compete, in the case of dwindling food supplies.
I think we’re actually demonstrating an amazing degree of civilization.
I shall endeavor to press onwards despite making you sad.
We’ve done threads sort of similar in the past, about whether people would kill an intruder in their house, or how people would feel if they actually did kill someone, and the results usually come in around the same as this one. I think there is a lot of macho bragging going on in a thread like this; if everyone was as comfortable with remorseless killing as they make themselves out to be, we’d have a lot fewer members because they’d all be in jail for taking out someone who cut them off in traffic. I guess part of the real question is, do people actually feel this way, or are they just posting like this on a message board? If they actually feel this way, then yeah, your society isn’t looking like a shining example of civility.
I typed up an answer the other night but thankfully avoided the send button. When I re-read it, I realized that those dark thoughts would have scared the hell out of anyone who read them. I’m not proud.
I’m a quiet guy in a bad job with high stress but I don’t bother anyone. I live my life for my wife & my kids. If they were taken from me that way, I might lose it.
If it’s the latter, then what’s the point of trying to have any kind of fruitful discussion?
All you people who would let the killer go: How would you feel if he became the suspect in another murder of a child?
Serial killers have no right to be kept alive. Period. If you kill more than once, or kill a bunch of innocents in a horrendous way, you deserve to die. Anyone who cannot be kept from killing, who enjoys the act, is too dangerous to live. We kill animals who kill people, and some people who kill people are lower than animals.
Yes, I would and could kill a serial killer who killed someone I loved, if it would spare another human being the hell I would be going through. Ted Bundy should have been killed before he escaped prison and killed three more innocent people, including a 14 year old child.
For an excellent tale of revenge, read Stephen King’s short story “Dolan’s Cadillac” printed in his book “Nightmares and Dreamscapes.” No monsters, nothing supernatural, just a tale of revenge served right. And it deserves to be in a TV series like Prison Break.
I guess for me the interesting point isn’t really how we would react, since there’s no way of really knowing, but what we think the ideal reaction is. I’m with those who say that I hope I wouldn’t do anything. Other people’s ideal vision is that they hope they would do something.
We might not be right about ourselves, but isn’t it interesting and, yes, upsetting, that what we consider the “right” reaction is so varied?
If you’re trying to claim protecting the world from this person is my responsibility, I disagree. I am not to blame for not killing someone.
All of which people?
I think I’ll move this thread from IMHO to Great Debates.
You’re injecting something not included in the OP. Nothing was said, or impled about a serial killer. Again, this is rationalizing, trying to paint the object as depraved as possible to justify taking the law into your own hands. This is, in no way, self defense. Were talking about commiting murder and seeking to justify it.
Well, any justification is better than the killer who says “Because I wanted to.”
If it’s someone who killed someone I know as a singular act, and who had no record of killing, I don’t know if I could would or even should kill him. Do I support the death penalty for all killers? Of course not. Do I support it for some killer? You betcha, and I’ve yet to met anyone in law enforcement who doesn’t support it.
I’ll say it again: Some people do not deserve to be kept alive.
But that’s not the question, is it? The question is, who deserves the right to exact justice, the law or you? Why don’t you ask your law enforcement friends how they feel about vigilantes?
No, don’t piss on him, think DNA. 
Gus, my dear, I thought of you the minute I saw the thread title, and I was hoping you would post. I think your input is very important, since for you, this isn’t just mental masturbation. You are one of my heroes, by the way.
Me? Oh hell, I don’t know. If my husband were killed, I would be the only parent for my kids, so I couldn’t allow myself to take any action that could result in my death or incarceration. If it were one of my kids, same thing- the living child needs me to get him through this terrible minefield and out on the other side as safely as I can. Besides, today I walk a different path, and the road narrows… I couldn’t do it and stay who I am, and I like who I am. Okay, so I DO know.
My husband, however, might be another story. He was a very hard guy in another lifetime, and I am afraid he might do something incredibly cruel and vicious, and do it in a way that he isn’t caught (especially if I would still be around to be the custodial parent if he was caught and incarcerated). It scares me because it would be very hard to live with that on one’s conscience.