Nine people were shot last night in DC, two of them fatally, in four separate shootings. The story doesn't mention a peep of the usual outrage from the standard cast of characters about how they're going to "get them," nor does it mention anything about prevention.
I'm not at all surprised.
As I've said before, this type of violence is practically called for by the people that live in that city.
When a community is plagued with violent criminals, traditionally able bodied members of the community bonded together and took care of business, often times working in unison with the local police to bring the peace. This is not 'vigilantism' at all, and suggesting so is disgusting. Cops are given special tools and powers by the people, and paid to commit to the task of finding violent people full time; whereas citizens, ultimately responsible for their own safety, would be hindered during their day to day affairs if they kept that full time responsibility. In the end, every soul is charged with protecting their gift of life as the protector of the last resort, but that is not to say that many souls cannot act as one to bring order to their community.
The mentality of DC citizens, from my point of view, shows that instead of using the strength of numbers to stop violent scumbags, they novate all responsibility to police and other government wholesale along with some of their rights. There are groups in DC that get mad and roam the streets in an attempt to prevent more attacks, but they lack the tools and the power to have any impact simply because they are so used to giving those things over to 'officials' in a uniform with a shiny thing on their chest. They can no longer see that they have a right to protect their person, their home, or their community, and that right is held by a higher form of law than any that are exercised by the courts.
The officials they gave powers to don't like it when the mortals take matters into their own hands, but the people are so scared of that implied authority that they are no longer able to challenge it. For that reason, I see much more bloodshed in the district's future. DC government has put themselves on the hook to provide relief from the violence, and to an extent they have done just that, but one needs only to look across the Potomac River to see how things are when people have the means and the attitude to not allow scumbags to operate with impunity.
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