"The hams in that community took matters into their own hands!"

And, they were lucky to live to tell about it.

"So, what do you all think about this issue?"

Not very much.

About a year ago, I observed the hunt for a 2 meter bootlegger in my 
area be nearly destroyed by one guy with a survivalist mentality who 
was within a few hours of attempting exactly what you described.


Self policing among hams has never been intended to mean busting down 
somebody's door.
Operators like that, and even those operators who call people down too 
harshly over the air give the ARRL's well intended, but much abused 
Official Observer program its very bad reputation.

As for there being no FCC enforcement, don't bet your ticket on that.

The people from the New Orleans office worked closely with us on the 
case I mentioned. Three of us knew that they had been in town twice, 
and were planning to return the next week to nail the guy. Litterly on 
the Friday before they were coming in on Tuesday, the guy dropped out 
of site, and has not been heard from since. The speculation among 
those of us who were pretty sure where he was operating from is that 
he was also posing as a private security person. Apparently the real 
security people caught him, and he vanished.