Mobs of young men are going wilding in Chicago, attacking total strangers apparently for the fun of it.

First on the subway:

The teens had just stolen the man’s 27-year-old female friend’s iPhone 4S. She had dropped the phone, and a teen had picked it up and taken it for himself.

Near downtown, the group of teens got on, and by the time it was over, the man with the group had a broken bone near his eye and broken teeth, and he was bloodied.

Then against a doctor and another man:

In one attack, a 36-year-old man was attacked by a mob of 10 to 20 teenagers Sunday night as he was walking home from work along Dewitt Place, near the Museum of Contemporary Art. That man suffered a head injury, but was able to walk on his own after the attack. In the other attack, a doctor was assaulted by a group of youths as he was walking outside Prentice Women’s Hospital.

I have zero tolerance for thugs. These kids could have killed these people. As far as I’m concerned, my liberalism goes out the door when you decide that a fun afternoon is getting together with ten to twenty of your friends and beating the crap out of innocent strangers on the street. At that point, you deserve whatever comes to you.

I remember after I was violent mugged in DC (they tried to strangle me – well, they did, but fortunately I was able to break their grip and scream for help), being asked by the Gun Owners of America, for an article they were writing (they’re to the right of the NRA), if I didn’t wish that I had had a gun at the time I was attacked. I told them yes, I did. But the only problem is that had I tried to shoot the kids who attacked me, I might have missed them and hit the couple walking behind them.

I remember a few summers ago in Paris having dinner with our friends the Wests. They’re British, but their kids were born in Paris and are a fascinating mix of the best of England and France. Anyway, after dinner we were talking and the kids asked me if Washington, DC was really as “dangerous” as people say. I laughed and said, no, it’s not “dangerous” – at least not where I live – but you do need to watch yourself.

What do you mean, they asked.

Well, for example, I said, I wouldn’t walk home alone at 3am.

They gasped in horror.

I started mumbling, not sure how to respond.

You see, in Paris you can and do walk home alone at 3am and it’s no big deal – in almost every neighborhood you’re perfectly safe.

Life in America, I told them, was different.

These wilding kids deserve whatever happens to them with the public or the police, as far as I’m concerned – my only worry is how the public defends itself in a manner that doesn’t end up hurting even more innocents.