Is it ever right for people to take the law into their own hands?

For those of you who are unaware of this story, the group posed as young girls talking to older men online. These men then sent the 'girls' explicit messages and arranged to meet. Upon arriving at the agreed meeting point, the men were set upon by the adults who had posed as the girls online.

This kind of entrapment has been done in the past by others, most notably by Stinson Hunter.

However, this has resulted in the suspected paedophiles been handed over to the police, rather than been physically attacked.

I use the word 'suspected' but it seems fairly obvious to me, that these people are, or at least would be, paedophiles if given the opportunity. Personally, I would never strike up a conversation with an unknown child online. I also wouldn't consider posting vile messages to a child, then arranging to meet up, neither would anyone else, unless they were a paedophile. If these people were not trickedonline, they may well have been talking to and arranging meet ups with real children instead.

So, having established that these were not innocent people being beaten up for no reason, I have to ask if it's right to attack them.

I can't bring myself to feel sorry for them. Protecting children has to come before protecting these sick individuals. It may not be the ideal way to solve the problem by tricking them then attacking them, but as I suggested, no normal person would get themselves into the kind of situation where this would happen to them. I prefer Stinson Hunter's methods of handing them over to the police, minus the beating, however, I won't be suffering sleepless nights worrying about the suffering of a paedophile.

Maybe the police need to be doing more to deal with the abuse or potential abuse of a child from the side of these people and in turn, the courts need to be imposing harsher sentences.

I can see the reasoning behind the police wanting to find the vigilante group, but assuming they do, whatever punishment is given to them, it should not be more severe than the punishment given to the paedophiles. This could only make the situation worse and may make certain members of the public more likely to take matters into their own hands in the future.