Neither are acceptable, so a third way must be found

I really do appreciate the sentiment, and in a flippant sense I agree, but if we're being real, the potential for harm to innocents, at least in the short/near term, is far greater if society devolves into vigilante mobs; study the Cultural Revolution if you want a realistic picture of some of the failure modes here. On the other hand, a period of chaos might be beneficial in the long term; that's the accelerationist position. Worth considering, but be careful with that mode of thinking. The ends justifying the means has gotten a great many people killed for ends that never manifested.