Hacker News Reader

Comment by gotoeleven | Hacker News Reader

The legal system is largely to protect criminals from "extra-legal" law enforcement by wronged parties. When the legal system can't function properly, for whatever reason, it is criminals who are ultimately in the most danger.

In the US, if police are given stand-down orders during mostly peaceful lootings and riots then a lot of looters are going to get shot.

View on HN

That's definitely a large component of the legal system but I disagree with your implication that it is a primary purpose and assertion that the criminals are most endangered when enforcement is scant.

On a per-capita basis, I’d expect criminals would be at more risk in a devolution towards lawlessness.

On a population-wide basis, non-criminals have much more to lose.

Be careful with that thinking. It has undertones of ignorance and a blind faith in violence. The law is there to uphold the social contract of peace. For every crime, 'just' punishment.

Looters don't carry guns because they don't intend on murdering anyone. They are petty thieves. The moment we start to think everyone should have a gun, the unscrupulous - who would be a harmless petty thieves otherwise - can be transformed into the devils you imagined.

Tread carefully.

I was in Bolivia a few years ago and I saw a big sign at a town that said "Thief found, thief hanged". The person guiding me said that the people there actually believed in that.

Lynching is what happens when there is no police and justice system.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com