Hero or Murderer?

[Positive Change]

This situation is rather complicated as whatever the conclusions to the question is based on pure assumption on our part which is also flawed. Such is samsara. To add my two cents here:

Patrick Drum acted not out of compassion but out of wanting to look good. It shows in his arrogance and also his whole body language. He seems to languish in the limelight that his actions created! If he had acted out of compassion he would have thought about the consequences and the families of those he had planned to murder.

He took the life of 2 people, whether or not they are innocent or deserving of retribution. This is heavy negative karma. Having said that, perhaps Patrick Drum, the two murdered men and their families are somehow linked karmically and that is why it has manifested this way. Not an excuse but merely an observation that everything we do will have its consequences and impacts whether in this or our next lives.

[RedLantern]

One of the five Buddhist precepts,the foundation of Buddhist ethics is to refrain from killing.Many Buddhist will tell you that it is bad karma ,as murderers go to one of the nastier Buddhist hell.
In Buddhism,we do not kill unless it is done as a calculated action of killing one person in exchange of saving many others.There will be a karma of killing incured not only by the person(s) who did the action of killing but also everyone else who authorized or rejoices in the killing.We suffer each karma distinctly,but not necessarily at separate time,good ones and bad ones.
In this case what is Patrick Drum's intention to the killings?Is it compassion for the victims or revenge?

[sonamdhargey]

He is not a Hero but a cold blooded murderer. He plan, stalked the convicted rapists and then killing them in the name of vengeance and justice does cannot be justfied. He did it because he thought what he did was correct and he will do it again. He carry wrong views and he is as dangerous as the rapists. The law has been meted out to the rapists convicted. They paid the price. Taking the laws into our hands does not mean we have the rights to imposed the punishment on others and definately won't make any of us a hero by doing so.

[Benny]

I totally agree with Sonamdhargey , that this man is a murderer . It is clear that his cold blooded execution of his victims without remorse shows his intention of handing out his version of justice. His act of vigilantism may just be so labelled so that he may carry out with passion his violent acts. What defines vigilantism is purely the concept of "an eye for an eye ", if this was condone there were to be no end to the killings. 

In recent years many scientists and some religionists have used the expressions like 'humane killing', 'mercy killing', 'gentle killing', vigilante killing and even 'painless killing' to justify the ending of a life. They argue that if the victim feels no pain, if the knife is sharp, killing is justified.

Buddhism can never accept these arguments because it is not how the killing occurs that is important, but the fact that a life of one being is terminated by another. No one has any right to do that for whatever reason.

[Tenzin K]

I disagree with his action to take matters on his own hand and assume he is doing justice by his own governance. Of course I do agree that the people he killed are bad person but doesn't mean that he can take action by his own. If everyone start doing so isn't that everyone will start kill everyone?

One point to think about, the victims have harm others and the killer kill them isn't that the killer harming others too? irregardless whether the person is a big time bad person but the intention to harm arises from desire, the anger and so forth will create negative karma and eventually bring us down.

[ilikeshugden]

This man is both a hero and a murderer. He is a hero in the sense that he 'removed' two bad people from this world. I also think that the karma of those who were killed was already there so they would have died one way or another. However, this man is also a murderer because he still killed two men. The karma will be extremely heavy and he will not only have to experience jail in this life but he will face suffering in his future lives.