Thank you got this, and for your many level-headed replies down-thread. In addition to the overriding principle that *vigilante murder is bad,* people seem to be missing that responding to state violence with stochastic violence is a win for the authoritarians who prefer to operate on these terms.
Responding to state violence by standing around and watching it happen has always worked out well in the past.
The choices are not just 1. doing nothing or 2. murder!
Also, using deadly force to prevent someone, from getting thrown in the back of a van by a masked gang of unidentifiable thugs, is legally justifiable.
Not just legally, Morally
But that's not what happened and not what we're talking about. We're talking about a *non-hypothetical situation* in which a group lured identifiable people outside to ambush and attempt to murder them. This prevented nothing bad from happening and caused nothing good to happen.
Oh boy do I feel stupid I didn’t dig deep enough into the thread. Yes, of course, ambush bad. Shooting at masked gangs who repeatedly decline to identify themselves while they drag people off into an unmarked vehicle, maybe not so bad imho
Most times, though, you have to punch a bully in the nose or he’ll keep on hitting you.
I am aware of this.