Not that I'm advocating this, but it's pretty easy to pick up a police band scanner. But that'd be ignoring the whole vigilante bit, which... well, that mask ain't gonna protect him when he zaps someone with that stun-stick he was so proud of. Sure, he might be acquitted of criminal charges, but he's going to get sued into oblivion.
So, it's inherently stupid to be any sort of vigilante, really.
That aside, the thing that irritates me about the whole RL Superhero schtick is that most of them seem to be nothing more than attention hounds. If they want to be "heroes", then actually DO something, dammit. Dressing up and pretending to go on patrol is not doing anything. Building your website talking about your (undoubtedly fictional) heroic deeds is real-life fanfiction. And it cheapens the word 'hero', in my opinion.
If you want to feed your ego and legitimately call yourself a hero, wear the costume and go drive for Meals on Wheels. Visit sick kids in the hospital and distribute free comics to them. (Our local comic book store donates a TON of comics for us to do exactly this, in fact, and the kids love it.) Help your neighborhood watch program. If you want to go on patrol, fine, go ahead, but don't get physically involved. A cell phone and video camera would go a lot farther to help halt crime than waving your possibly illegal tazer around.
If this guy had simply whipped out his cell phone and called the cops (instead of chasing the burglar away), he'd *still* have done more than most of the rest of them, is what I'm getting at. So, superhero, no, but a sort-of hero? Yeah, he's doing better than most.
(Though I fully expect to see him in the news again, now. Probably under arrest. This will only encourage him, sadly.)
--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs
So, it's inherently stupid to be any sort of vigilante, really.
That aside, the thing that irritates me about the whole RL Superhero schtick is that most of them seem to be nothing more than attention hounds. If they want to be "heroes", then actually DO something, dammit. Dressing up and pretending to go on patrol is not doing anything. Building your website talking about your (undoubtedly fictional) heroic deeds is real-life fanfiction. And it cheapens the word 'hero', in my opinion.
If you want to feed your ego and legitimately call yourself a hero, wear the costume and go drive for Meals on Wheels. Visit sick kids in the hospital and distribute free comics to them. (Our local comic book store donates a TON of comics for us to do exactly this, in fact, and the kids love it.) Help your neighborhood watch program. If you want to go on patrol, fine, go ahead, but don't get physically involved. A cell phone and video camera would go a lot farther to help halt crime than waving your possibly illegal tazer around.
If this guy had simply whipped out his cell phone and called the cops (instead of chasing the burglar away), he'd *still* have done more than most of the rest of them, is what I'm getting at. So, superhero, no, but a sort-of hero? Yeah, he's doing better than most.
(Though I fully expect to see him in the news again, now. Probably under arrest. This will only encourage him, sadly.)
--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs