The difference between a civilized society, a civil society, and a lawless uncivilized society is that we use a legal system and the rule of law to decide who is guilty, who is responsible for wrongs, with accountability and consequences.
It is the antithesis of people taking the law into their own hands, in executing people in taking revenge on people for wrongs real or imagined. That is why we have courts, it is why we have other people, at a remove from emotional involvement rendering a legal decision.
Commenters here have described this as 'outsourcing' our personal violence. That is the definition of civilization, it removes as much of the emotional components which escalate violence as possible. It allows for reparative, restorative justice rather than unfair, imbalanced, vengeful eye-for-an-eye retributive justice that occurs when people take justice into their own hands.
That includes many of the acts that people with guns try to bring under the umbrella of defensive violence, where the action is questionable or avoidable. We have too many people armed and not only willing, but eager to engage in violence, especially gun violence.
That violence DAILY spills over to make victims of other people. It makes us an immoral, violent, unjust, uncivilized society. We can being changing that by reducing the number of people with guns and the number of guns overall.
From NBC Chicago by way of MSNBC.com
2 Dead, 5 Injured in Restaurant Shooting
By Staff Report
Two people were killed and five wounded Tuesday in a shooting inside a Church's Fried Chicken restaurant on Chicago's south side.Police said the shooting, at South Halsted and West 66th streets, stemmed from an argument that started outside. Shortly before 7 p.m., the shooter chased his intended victim into the restaurant with a handgun and opened fire, striking seven people, police said.
First responders found two teens dead on the counter and five others injured outside the restaurant.
A 16-year-old boy and a 51-year-old man were both shot in the leg and taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County. A 17-year-old boy suffered a gunshot wound to the leg, and a 58-year-old man suffered multiple gunshots wounds and were both taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn.
The age and condition of the fifth victim wasn't immediately known, nor was it clear if the gunman's intended victim was among the dead and injured, police said.
As of Wednesday morning, one person was in critical condition, three in serious condition and one is in the good condition.
At least three people came to the crime scene Tuesday, wailing in tears, barely able to stand.
Latoia Brown said her 16-year-old daughter, Diamond, dated one of the teens who was killed. She describes the boy as a "good kid."
"This must have been an accident. They must have got the wrong person. He did nothing to nobody. It hurts. It hurts bad," she said.
No one was in custody Wednesday morning as police continue looking for the shooter.
