Fear of jail is not a justification. In the olden times when people stood up for themselves, the consequence could be an armed feud. If you hit someone's kid for doing you wrong, they might disagree and call all of their friends on you, and people still did it, because that is what they believed in. Beliefs are only real if people enforce them, and people are all talk and no show. They act as if the police is omnipresent God.
