"I would, without any hesitation, shoot a violent criminal again"
About this Quote
The chill in Goetz's line is its casual certainty: "without any hesitation" is doing more moral work than the threat of the gun. It frames violence not as a tragic last resort but as a clean, repeatable decision - a rehearsed reflex. The word "again" lands like a stamp of approval on his past, collapsing any space for regret or nuance. Whatever legal complexity existed in the original case, he's offering a simpler story: I was right then, I'd be right now.
Context turns that simplicity into a cultural weapon. Goetz became a folk symbol in 1980s New York, when subway crime, racial anxiety, and political frustration were boiling. His 1984 shooting of four Black teenagers who approached him for money was treated by some as vigilante salvation and by others as an emblem of racialized fear dressed up as self-defense. In that environment, a statement like this isn't just personal bravado; it's a bid to control the narrative of who gets to be afraid, and whose fear counts as legitimate.
The subtext is transactional: society failed to protect me, so I reclaimed the right to punish. Calling the target a "violent criminal" isn't merely descriptive; it's preemptive absolution. It invites the listener to skip the uncomfortable questions - Was the threat immediate? Was the response proportional? - and to treat lethal force as common sense.
An engineer by profession, Goetz speaks in a tone that mimics rational calculation, but the quote is really about permission: permission to act first, to assume worst-case motives in strangers, and to have that assumption celebrated.
Context turns that simplicity into a cultural weapon. Goetz became a folk symbol in 1980s New York, when subway crime, racial anxiety, and political frustration were boiling. His 1984 shooting of four Black teenagers who approached him for money was treated by some as vigilante salvation and by others as an emblem of racialized fear dressed up as self-defense. In that environment, a statement like this isn't just personal bravado; it's a bid to control the narrative of who gets to be afraid, and whose fear counts as legitimate.
The subtext is transactional: society failed to protect me, so I reclaimed the right to punish. Calling the target a "violent criminal" isn't merely descriptive; it's preemptive absolution. It invites the listener to skip the uncomfortable questions - Was the threat immediate? Was the response proportional? - and to treat lethal force as common sense.
An engineer by profession, Goetz speaks in a tone that mimics rational calculation, but the quote is really about permission: permission to act first, to assume worst-case motives in strangers, and to have that assumption celebrated.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
|---|
More Quotes by Bernhard
Add to List
