Today Instapundit posts several paragraphs of a Wall Street Journal article (behind their paywall) which reports budding vigilantism in Minneapolis, where the trouble started.
Minneapolis residents in some areas still recovering from rioting and unrest are forming community watch and security groups, some bearing firearms, to fight a surge of crime in the wake of the George Floyd killing in May. At least one neighborhood has put up barricades to keep away outsiders.Note the phrase "Police gave their approval." Half the time vigilantes are off-duty police who aren't allowed to act forcefully in uniform. It's often reported in developing countries like Brazil.
After a number of community meetings, neighbors began constructing a barrier to close off two blocks of their street, first with trash cans, then debris. For a while, a boat on a trailer protected one intersection. Eventually, a nearby iron maker constructed a permanent gate. Police gave their approval as long as emergency responders could get through if requested by the neighborhood.
Neighborhood men also began an armed patrol, kicking out anyone who didn’t belong on the block after dark.
Vigilantes don't run jails or prisons, they tend to be big on physical punishment, broken knees and the like. And deaths of course. Instapundit insists police exist to protect criminals from the citizenry, not the other way round.
Somewhere someone is writing a how-to book with a working title like "Turning your neighborhood into a gated community with armed security - a primer." It will include a chapter entitled "Pest Control" subtitled "Shoot, Shovel, and Shut Up."
Down this road lives feudalism. When security evaporates, civil order is lost and local warlords with muscle provide protection for serfs who support them. Let's not go there.
