Back in 2020, Kyle Rittenhouse became famous for shooting three people in Kenosha, Wisconsin. This took place during protests of the killing of Jacob Blake by police. While he was charged, he was found not guilty and even got to meet with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago in 2021.
My adopted city of Tallahassee also saw an armed response to protestors. Fortunately, the incident ended quickly without injury or death. The episode seems to have begun with a confrontation between the protestors and the armed person which escalated into shoving. The armed person then drew his weapon to deter the protestors and quickly surrendered to the police. He was seen as acting in legitimate self-defense: he felt threatened and drew his weapon to deter possible attackers. He might even be credited with showing restraint as Florida has a controversial stand your ground law that might have allowed him to legally shoot the protestors.
These two examples raise the issue of whether it is ethical to go armed to confront protestors. Since my expertise is not law, I will leave it to the lawyers, legislators, and judges to sort out the legal aspects and will focus on the moral issue.
To pre-empt likely straw person attacks, I will begin with the obvious: if protestors unjustly attack someone, they have the right to self-defense. For example, if Sally is standing in front of her store and protestors start throwing bricks at her, she has the right of self-defense. She has done nothing to warrant their attack, and they are acting wrongly to harm her.
As another example, if Bill engages protestors in a debate and the protestors start punching him, then he would have the moral right of self-defense. He has the moral right to be in public spaces and to express his views. As such, he would have done nothing that would warrant the attack and can rightfully defend himself.
At the other extreme there are cases in which it would be absurd to claim the right of self-defense. For example, if a person watches too much Fox News and is terrified of protestors and opens fire on a group of peaceful protestors walking past his property, he cannot claim the moral right of self-defense. Merely being afraid does not suffice to warrant self-defense; there must be a level of threat that a reasonable person would recognize. As another example, if a protestor was spray-painting protest slogans on the wall of a business, this would not morally warrant the owner shooting them as the offense does not merit the punishment of death. As with most moral issues, it is the land between the extremes where the meaningful debate usually takes place.
While many would see the Rittenhouse case as open and shut, it does raise a general point worth considering. Rather than focus on the specific case, this incident raises the moral question of whether a person has the moral right to intentionally travel to a place to defend the property or lives of others knowing that confrontation is likely. This is, of course, a case of an intentional, traveling vigilante. Since I have written vigilantism before, I will take my usual approach of using John Locke’s theory of self-defense.
Locke argues that when we are in the state of civil society, we still retain the right of self-defense and the right to protect others. But it must be “activated” before it can justly be used. What must occur is that a person must be temporarily removed from the state of civil society by an action that wrongly threatens life, liberty, or property. For this to occur, there must be no viable civil authority able or willing to intervene on the person’s behalf. If there is a viable and willing civil authority that can act effectively, the person remains in the state of civil society and does not have the right to use violence. To use an obvious example, if I am in a confrontation and someone punches me and a police officer immediately pins them to the ground, I do not have the right to attack them because the civil authority was present and acted effectively. But if the officer is fifty feet away while the person is trying to hit me, I have the moral right to engage them. But if the officer subdues them, I do not have the right to keep hitting them as civil society has been restored.
On the face of it, a travelling vigilante would be hard-pressed to invoke the right of self-defense: they must travel to a place to intentionally put themselves in danger when they could just stay home and remain safe. This is like running across a room to get in front of a punch aimed at someone else just so one can claim self-defense. That would be absurd. So, a travelling vigilante cannot justly claim self-defense: they could have defended themselves by staying away from the danger.
But Locke also allows, in the state of nature, people to rightfully defend others. So, if civil society has failed in a location, then people would have a moral right to go to that place to defend lives and property that are being wrongfully threatened. Specific cases would require sorting out whether the alleged threats were real and morally wrong. But if civil society has not failed in that location, then such an action would not be warranted: protecting life, liberty and property is the obligation of the state and vigilantes would not be warranted in using violence. As such, a travelling vigilante could be justified in cases in which civil authority has failed.
The other general sort of case involves a person going to a protest while armed, knowing that their planned actions or presence is likely to provoke a response. There are two main types of situations here. One is that the person is aware that their presence and actions might provoke a response, but they do not intend to instigate violence. If the person has a morally acceptable reason to go, even if it is just to exercise their right to be in a public space, then their going would seem to be acceptable. That said, a person should still consider the consequences of their actions: while they do have the right to be there, if they go knowing they will trigger a conflict, then they bear some responsibility if something happens. After all, they could avoid the conflict by not going. To use an analogy, if Sam’s ex is going to be at a party and Sam knows there will be an incident if he goes, while he still has the right to attend the party, he does have some responsibility for deciding to attend. But, of course, if he does not want an incident and his ex is the instigator, then the ex bears most of the responsibility.
The second is that the person intends to provoke a response so that they can engage in violence while claiming they are acting in self-defense. This is morally complicated. On the one hand, claiming self-defense after intentionally provoking the response would be morally problematic. To use an ex analogy, if Sam knows that his ex will create an incident and ruin the party if he shows up and provokes her and shows up intending to provoke her and ruin the party, then he bears some of the blame.
On the other hand, it can be argued that even if the person intends to provoke an incident, they can still claim self-defense if those provoked act wrongly. Using the ex-example, if Sam knows what his ex will do and goes with the intent of provoking her, if his provocation does not morally justify her response, he can still rightfully claim that she bears most of the responsibility. He can, rightfully, claim that she has no right to respond in that manner even though he knows what will happen when he goes and provokes her. So, if Joe attends a protest of Trump and Musk supporters and shouts “black lives matter” and “go home Elon” intending to provoke a violent response, then he would bear some responsibility if violence ensued. After all, but for his presence and actions, it would not have occurred. But he can also claim self-defense: the violent response was not warranted by his provocation. This does, of course, raise complicated moral questions about what sort of provocation warrants a violent response.