Nah, you are wrong. It is cause it is a game and people are so detached that it doesn't work.
As a rapist you like to rape rapist more then normal people, crazy attracts crazy. Same reason as why in jail, child molester will suffer the ultimate punishment in jail. Nothing more satisfying, all humans essentially want to feel as if they make the world a better place, in games however, its all about taking your frustration of work/life out on others...
Depends on how people take games though.
The problem within most games is that their exists win states. An example being that when you call "check mate" in Chess, that means you have won. Most games have these types of win states which are known as explicit win states, but in games like Rust we have inexplicit win states.
I'd go as far as to say Rust has no win state outside of possibly getting all the blueprints in the game, and that it exists in a game type where win states are theoretically and physically impossible, but I digress.
In Rust, you are not explicitly or inexplicitly left with little or more options, you are left to your free-will and what is in the game mechanics. It's called the Butterfly Effect, and the entire concept is that you decide what you want to be known for. If you go around killing people because you want to blow off steam, then that's your own choice, but you are bound to have the whole, what goes around, comes around type thing happening with some people seeking retribution. At the same time you could also have players who act as charitably and are seen as being someone who helps others in their time in need.
One thing you can say though is that in Rust, people who act on paranoia will probably experience quiet a bit of cognitive dissonance about their actions, because theirs a belief that if you don't kill people, they'll kill you, but at the same time you have to realize that the people you shoot in this game are going to have a bad experience playing the game if you simply kill freely. Depending on the person you are, that could really send you in a morale quagmire.
I guess what I am trying to say could be summed up with one quote, "There are things men can do to one another that are sobering to the soul. It is one thing to reconcile these things with God, but another to square it with yourself."