Watch Out!

WATCH OUT!

More than 30 states have “stand your ground” or “castle doctrine” laws that make it “difficult to prosecute homeowners who claim self-defense in a shooting.” Then there are “the deadly errors that occur in a country bristling with guns, anger and paranoia.”

Then there is the racism. So in Kansas City MO a Black 16-year-old trying to pick up his younger brothers was shot when he rang the doorbell at a house on NE 115 th Street instead of NE 115 th Terrace. In upstate New York a 20-year-old woman was killed when she and a companion turned into the wrong driveway looking for a friend. In Texas a father asked his neighbor to stop shooting his gun because his baby was trying to sleep: the neighbor grabbed his semiautomatic rifle and killed 5 people in the complainant’s house, including an 8-year-old boy.

And the tendency toward violent vigilante behavior does not require firearms. On a NYC subway an ex-Marine used a chokehold to kill a homeless, mentally ill man imitating Michael Jackson and acting aggressively, while passengers looked on passively.

It seems that social bonds are loosening everywhere, many feel threatened, violence is in the air, and it is all made worse by mass ownership of firearms.

Sources: The New York Times, 4/21, 23, and 5/5 2023.