I was thinking of people who enforce peace, not the law.Maybe even not the peace,but basically they make sure that the under belly of the world plays by some rules.A ganger kills a ganger.Nothing wrong with that.A ganger beats up a little kid.Big problem.A B&E shadowruner, nothing wrong with that line of work.A wet work shadowrunner.That could be a problem.

It would less about making the world safer for the normal people,and more about keeping the shadows out the light.

Like independent vigilante types?
Or organized X-Men types?

I've not played a character that does such things full time, but most of my characters have some sense of street justice, and will act on it under the right circumstances.

Most of my games have a strong moral twinge, so you'll see a lot of vigilantism, etc.

e.g. My group broke down a drug manufactory. They blew the equipment, but stole all the BTL's and other drugs. They couldn't sell it on the street (for various and sundry reasons), so the only human in the group took it to the local Humanis policlub and sold them for cut-rate prices.

i was thinking of running my players as lone star beat cops for a while
still would like to

I was thinking along the lines of something the DF may do.Or even an unspoken/low profile deal of some/all the megas.They know shadow runners are needed, crime will happen.But there is a line,witch you do not cross.

Gangers sinless, poor,drugies, chip heads.They don't really mater, and they are going to kill them selves sooner or later, so why waste money and resources on them, if they are not bothering anyone but people like them?

Shadow running is a good thing, and a bad thing, but who wants to pay all that money on death penetions/unnatural death law suits.Not to mention the press.. So, if shadowrunners do it right leave them alone.If they start getting noisy take them out.

In that case, you probably are looking more at corporate hit teams elimianting "problem" runners.

Interestingly enough, yes, I am - almost exactly as you describe it, Playing Games. He's a pragmatic type who recognises that the gangs have in effect become the law in his own neighbourhood (it's not like Lone Star will be able to do much good within the existing situation), and who has set out to define the parameters within which he won't interfere with the gangs' operation. Basically, this means that no one who is not actively seeking trouble out gets hurt. Ever.

While the concept of coerced protection money has gone completely by the wayside in that neighbourhood (how could they enforce it?), the residents and the local gangs have gradually been evolving a true symbiotic relationship. The gangs protect the residents from truly violent (and thus almost always external) influences - and thus in effect police the neighbourhood. The residents work as eyes-and-ears for the local gangers, and also do them the occasional favour (ie. free meal in any local eatery). And both groups now work as active allies of the original enforcer.

A small part of this is that any weapons the enforcer happens to acquire in the process of keeping the peace aren't ever going to be sold back to the streets ... which means there is an increasingly significant armoury in the back hall closet. He's been spending the past month upgrading security for it.

Yes, aside from GMing a campaign where the players were FedPol detectives, I played for years a character who started out as a ganger. When he became a successful shadowrunner he had more influence on the gang and (with help from a few contacts) the gang was transformed over a period of time into a sort of armed neighborhood watch. No criminal activities (aside from practicing security without a license and so forth).

Playing the bad guys gets boring quickly, and I don't find it fulfilling (I never wanted to be a bad guy). Accordingly, I tend to have most of my characters have some form of benevolent focus.

Not exactly. This random blue-collar guy's daughter overdoses from BTL's. A few months later he wins the lottery, takes the lump sum and sticks it in the Caymans. Waits a year or so carrying on with his job and then starts hiring people to track down his daughters dealer, his supplier, his supplier and then whack the bastards. Then starts an all out war against Seattle's chip market. Dealers, suppliers, whole gangs start going down in hails of bullets. Of course this pisses off everyone from the syndicates to Lonestar so he didn't last more than eight/nine months.

In a slightly similar vein, using this film as inspiration, figure it might be fun to play a rogue SWAT team. Just change it to a LS FRT. They decide that enough is enough, that the criminals have become too powerful be be taken down legitimately, and quietly start taking out middling underworld figures and working their way up.

I have/had two such campains. One very serious, one very silly. The serious one had the team of runners that survived the arcology shutdown, and Brainscan (with some heavy modifications) as well as several other runs, eventually went to work for the Grid Overwatch Division. It's a marvelous campaign, ongoing.
The silly one was lots of fun. His background was, this big troll character had, essentially, the worst day of his life. He was a police office, and in one day his partner died, his girl left him, he lost his job, etc. Really bad day. The next morning his clock radio woke him up to that "I need a hero" song, you know the one, and something in his brain snapped. He sold everything he had left, bought some cheap 'ware, and became a street super hero. That was a solo campaign, but it was lots of fun.

Ironic, isn't it?

I've always wanted to play a vigilante campaign based loosely on the classic movie Boondock Saints. I'd make a great William Dafoe.

Agent Smecker was one of my favorite characters in that movie. The man totally sends political correctness right out the window and just doesn't give a damned about it.