Comment by p-e-w
2 years ago
> what to do about Richard Ramirez, Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Phillip Garrido, or Brian Mitchell
Nothing. Those people are one-in-a-million anomalies. If it weren't for the media hype surrounding them, their impact on society would be comparable to the impact of deaths from lightning strikes. What do we do about people being struck by lightning? Nothing.
That’s nuts. Even if you were correct about that, and I’m not admitting any such thing, it isn’t how people work. If the state doesn’t provide justice, then the mob will.
"Justice" is an incredibly malleable idea that is largely shaped by what people are told. Until very, very recently, nobody gave a fuck about serial killers, or even knew they existed. If the hype stopped, there wouldn't be any mobs to worry about.
Define recently. There is plenty of historical hysteria around them. Ever heard of Jack the Ripper?
That's not true. We have things in place to protect people and objects from lightning strikes. For example, lightning protection systems on tall buildings.
Those protect the building, not individual people. Nobody carries around mobile lightning rods, even though they were invented centuries ago.
It protects the people in the building. Likewise, arresting a serial killer protects anyone they would have killed next.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightning_rod https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Static_wick