[BrokenLinkage]

Believe it. It is real. Both the law, and the cultural value that says when you destroy my possessions, the work product of my life, it is like killing me a little. So expect the response to be along the same lines.
BTW, here in Alabama, they have to be breaking into your occupied house before you can freely shoot 'em without fear of legal repercussions. So if they are just flipping your car over, you can go back to bed and worry the next day, call the police and stay up all night filling out forms before dealing with it the next day, or confront them, in which case if they escalate with a weapon you can end the discussion immediately.

By way of economic illustration, lets say I make about minimum wage. So, after taxes but before I have a place to sleep, food to eat, car insurance, or any healthcare- I make just about enough in a year to afford one slightly used Smart car. In reality, it will probably take at least 5 yrs of savings to afford one, since these other things are not really optional. And some dude, just for laughs, comes along and flips it. Now I'm out the $500 deductible, the loss of work while I arrange a repair, the cost of a rental while it is being repaired, and about a $2k hit at trade-in for the "wreck" history on the Carfax. Oh, and I was late to work already twice this month, so missing that half day to deal with this, just got me fired. By my math, I've now done approximately one year of hard labor at whatever my job is, just so some joker could get his laugh on.

Or I could be one of 986's buddies from SanFran, who are apparently all earning 7 figures. In which case the cost goes up, b/c of valuable billable time wasted, but it is more trivial as a percent of income. Still a darned expensive laugh, maybe $4k.

While it would be nice if I as the minimum-wage victim could just extract restitution plus one year of the vandal's life in retribution, the fact is that if I am in a position to catch this crook in the act, I might in a heightened state of excitability just do a solid favor for his next 50 victims and go ahead and remove him from the social milieu, while at the same time reinforcing the importance of the cultural value of respect for private property, just in case any criminals-in-training were looking.

But what is lacking from the above hypothetical example is the fact that the money doesn't matter, it is the principle that counts. It doesn't matter if I make enough to buy a car every 5 minutes or every 5 years, once bought it is mine, not yours to play with, not the government's to loan me at its discretion, not the corporate motor pool workhorse, but mine. If you need to borrow it, ask. If you have a political point to make, convince me and I might support your cause with a bullhorn and door sign, but don't steal or destroy my property to support your end.
And if the end that would drive you to destroy someone else's property is something so unredeeming as your own amusement or notoriety, then you frankly are probably never going to be more than a poorly socialized or even anti-social misfit.

Nine8Six- at the risk of being redundant, you really don't get it. Or perhaps from your perspective, we don't get it. Either way, I still like you but there is a gulf that I doubt we'll ever bridge, so I plan to exit the thread after this post.
I suspect you think this car flipping stunt is socially acceptable because it is funny and nobody got hurt...much. For me there has to be a whole lot more funny and a whole lot less harm to cross that bar. And I don't think I'm alone.

And yes, many of us will defend what is ours. After all, it is the work product of our lives. Would I shoot somebody for crapping their dog in my yard... no. What if they were defacing a multimillion dollar antique car that was the focus of my life effort for 7 years?... Well, hopefully he would make the choice more easy by supplying some mitigating circumstance, or directly threatening me or my family, or maybe just by insulting me really bad (JK), but there are a lot a shades of gray, and death is just one of the risks voluntarily assumed by that criminal.
But the fact is, that the crime is to be a willful and unrepentant vandal in the first place, and they would both be criminals bearing whatever risk the law allows, the risk of extra-legal response, and hopefully social sanction against their actions as well.

And this last item, the social sanction, is what you don't seem to get. If you don't say in absolute terms that it is "bad," whether because you haven't fully thought out the implications (categorical imperative) , or because you can't resolve this with a self-image haunted by some similar past action of your own, or because you are so wealthy that the cost of a Smart car seems as trivial to you as the cost of my lunch, or whatever, then for many of us it is hard to relate to you.
Most of our lives are marked by a struggle to accumulate capital as a token of security in this world, and now you are saying in essence that this effort should not be respected, nor for that matter even defended, that it is ok to attack an individual's ability to accumulate wealth and security, just for a laugh. There is a cultural disconnect here (regarding personal discipline and social fealty in a free society) that appears bigger than the pictured U-lock on the Smart Cars.

Oh, Will that lock thing mount on the Boxster RTS?

Peace and Goodwill