Protecting children from predators is the job of attentive parents, law enforcement, parents, a community, and parents.


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it is the job of parents, period.

depending on law enforcement to do anything other than solve crimes is foolhardy. your personal safety is your responsibility, not law enforcement's.

one reason the US severed its currency relation to the gold standard.

Extremely rare, but i agree with Hikenbike 100%. I practice and have conceal carry because police are not usually timely in protecting my family in times of (extreme) need. However, i do not conceal carry to protect others outside my family circle unless extraordinary series of events somehow occurring right before my eyes leaving me no choice but to intervene on someone else behalf.

Parents are responsible for their children.
Police are responsible for enforcing the laws for everyone.
Community is not responsible for anything.

Who here is a parent? They should be the ones who are commenting. I know @Thai is and I raised two from birth to 24 and 21 yo currently. I know what it takes to do it right and this vigilante thing is not it. I agree with @hikenbike except the community part.

Now, I could see and encourage a concerned citizen reporting something to the police (white van handing out candy outside of school for example) and I would encourage that but police should take it from there.

i'm a parent, thus my comment that it is solely the parent's responsibility.

law enforcement is not helpful in protecting in most cases, only cleaning up and solving after the fact.

wally

In a perfect world....

In the real world not all parents are protecting their kids from this type of thing. As is evident from the number of kids that still fall victim.

I also don't think it's a coincidence that a disproportionate number of people who are abused as kids go on to become addicts or abusers themselves. Further perpetuating the cycle.

Obviously I don't disagree that their parents are responsible, but whether they aren't doing their job right or simply can't control their kids 100%, kids are still being abused today.

Do you have kids?

In all situations except something like kidnapping, the environment (friends, peers, parents, siblings, family) is what sets up the abuse.

It does not take a perfect world. As a matter of fact we have about 330M people down here and very few vigilante groups roaming the country looking for bad guys. Pretty sure if that dude started parent education groups in churches and shelters he would do a bigger service than what he is doing now. But wait, there is no recognition or notoriety doing that...

Good point, if you are gonna be a vigilante don't tell no one, "just do it"!

Confronting a mentally unstable person with unknown weapon load in a public setting will go real well...it always does, right?

And don't forget, if this confrontation goes wrong, then this guy/group will be in a world of trouble with nothing to protect them.

Whenever this guy or group do this, please do it far far away from where my family is....

Nope, no kids.

Don't need to have kids to know that this type of thing is happening all the time though. I'm not sure of your point on this. The environment is what sets up the abuse? Ok.... Thats good to know but not going to do anything to help the kids who are currently in a bad environment. It does not take a perfect world?...because you have 330M people and very few vigilante groups?? Not even sure what you are trying to say here. You also have more children being abused daily, and most likely more vigilante groups too.

I'm not denying the recognition/notoriety aspect of it. I'm not even really a supporter of this idea. I am merely playing devil's advocate for the purpose of this debate. Honestly this is the first forum that I have seen mostly negative feedback. It has mostly been a huge out pouring of support. These guys have done two or three TV interviews now and were on the news last night. While the story was warning of the risks of this type of vigilante justice, the comments section shows overwhelming support for what they are doing.

As I said I thought this was an interesting subject as I can really see both sides of the issue.



No doubt. There is certainly risk involved, but these guys are aware of it.

If one of these creeps attacks one of the catchers then they now have a good reason to lock him up, right? Another creep off the streets and I've heard prison life isn't so great for pedophiles.

I have two kids (11 and 6). I believe pedophiles to be the lowest of the lowest scum on the planet.

So my opinions on this issue:

• Vigilante "justice" is wrong. We have due process laws in this country for a reason. I can't count the number of social media lynch mobs I've witnessed that ultimately turned out to be in the wrong.
• Vigilante justice is dangerous. If you try to "detain" someone they could shoot you and justifiably claim self defense. By definition you assaulted them first. They may still be arrested for their other crimes, but you'd still be dead.
• There's a small but very real possibility that your target could himself be working for the police and you become the one in jail.
• About the only way to make this work would be to do it in cooperation with a legitimate police agency. Preferably as a sworn deputy. You would have to observe strict evidence gathering protocols, and you would not confront the perp yourself. You would pass along what you find to the real police and they would arrange the meet/arrest.

These guys are aware of the risks...i doubt it because they would think twice before doing this dumb stuff...

Let's play devil's advocate as you say...they are aware of risks, but is the public surrounding the confrontation area aware of the risks? These vigilantes are putting the public in harm's way by confronting these mentally unstable individuals without proper training and no support from proper authorities.

How about this...an off-duty officer (or conceal carry) sees a bunch of folks beating on a guy who is screaming for help...he/she then pulls his firearm to defend the "victim". That little no harm confrontation just escalated to high tension confrontation that is about to explode in bloodshed. That officer will not have the time to take notes and deciding who is the victim and who is right or wrong.

More that i think about this...the more that i think that these "creepcatchers" are a bunch of dumbasses.

Maybe because we're educated and use common sense, which is surprisingly lacking in today's society....

"beating on a guy"? Who is getting beat up in this hypothetical scenario?

This group, CreepCatchers, actually sets up rules for these guys to follow in how they go about this based off of advice from their attorney. They absolutely never engage physically.

Also, I'm not sure you understand 'playing devil's advocate' as all the points you made after were just continuation of your existing position...



This is similar to my personal position on this. However, I can also see the argument that even preventing just one of these guys from abusing a child is a win. People now know who these guys are if they are even seen around any local schools or other places were children are they are more likely to be spotted and reported. Not to mention the obvious social stigma that may make them think twice about trying something like this again.
I live in a fairly small town and honestly didnt' think this was as big of a problem as it seems to be. These guys have caught three of these creeps in three days.