wow you people are cynical
Between the rape thread and this one, I’m a bit dismayed by the dim view of humanity a great number of people here obviously have.
<nevermind. hadn’t seen the poll answers>
I agree. I believe there are a few people out there who have such strong convictions about killing they would never kill someone else under any circumstances, but I think that a very high number of people (both male and female) could definitely kill someone if they had a reason to and really thought they would get away with it. I think the only reason murder is relatively rare is because few people encounter a situation that really does make them think murder is the right answer, and of those few the majority realize the odds of getting away with it are low.
I suppose you could say that this is a dim view of humanity. I would admit that, overall, I tend to view mankind as a whole as being not terribly different than hairless chimps (and murder is a normal part of chimpanzee society, too). Still, I would not say that someone is evil because they could potentially murder. For example, I’m including in my definition of potential murderers the sort of person who would kill a child molestor who had hurt their child (or even someone else’s child just because they think the world is better off without child molestors). While vigilantee killing is clearly not a good idea for various issues of innocent until proven guilty and so forth, I don’t really see the person who would consider such a thing as evil.