Responding to the recent cases of people being shot just for knocking on a door, Atrios wants to know what's going on. After all, it wasn't like this back when he was growing up:
Someone walking up the driveway wasn't threatening. Certainly pulling into a someone's drive to make a "u-turn" was standard practice.
Of course it's obscene that anyone is inspired to pull out a gun and start shooting over these things, but how did "someone at my door or in my driveway" start being seen as intrusive behavior at all?
I mean, people shouldn't be pulling out guns and shooting at every perceived threat, but how did these things start being seen as perceived threats?
I have a thought about this. Two thoughts, actually.
First, this might have been more common back in the day than Atrios thinks. Certainly we were all taught to be suspicious of strangers knocking on the door at night. And while I don't personally know of anyone being shot for this, that doesn't mean it never happened. Back then, before the rise of cable news and social media, this was the kind of local story that never went national.
More provocatively, though, I suspect there has been some change and it's largely due to a lagging effect of the great crime wave of the '70s and '80s. As that crime wave swelled, we steadily became acclimated to the idea that threats were everywhere. Eventually we became afraid of virtually any interaction with a young man (especially a young Black man), let alone a knock on the door late at night from one of these suspicious folks.
Over the past few decades this danger has largely abated. Crime is still around, of course, and it's still mostly the province of young men, but it's not much more common than it was in the '60s. We don't need to be reflexively scared of young men these days:¹
But we're scared regardless. Cops are. Families are. Teachers are. And when everyone is scared, bad things happen.
This is why I think the lead theory of crime is important. In one sense, it's strictly an explanation of past behavior: namely the rise and fall of crime between about 1965 and 2010. It's no help in explaining changes in crime rates today.
But it does explain why we should no longer be reflexively afraid of young men. It's because our original fear was driven by a generation of young men who were unusually aggressive and violent because they had been lead poisoned in childhood. Now, with the lead gone, they are back to normal and we don't have to be especially scared of them. It would be nice if people could truly internalize this.
¹The chart comes from Rick Nevin, and it's based on the latest data. More here.
You're forgetting the malign influence of the NRA and the gun industry. They're existence and continued profitability depend on the populace being scared shitless of everyone they see.
And the modus operandi of the Republican party....
Though violent crimes are down, gun violence is up--and it makes the news!!! Another day, another mass shooting or two.
Fox News probably deserves more blame than the NRA, although there's certainly some overlap in their business models (namely, scaring people for profit).
Yesyesyes. But also ‘if it bleeds, it leads’ media. Fearmongering for profit. A plague on both their houses.
Yes. Yes the NRA, Yes Fox News ... but before their big plays the local news always made a big point of their "crime reports to help keep you safe". No context, no probability, just fear fear and more fear.
It probably helped attract eyeballs (and alarm co advertisers) and seemed unbearably stupid.
This. That's all they talk about. Listening to the NRA/gun lobby rhetoric, you'd think something like 1 in 3 Americans will die in a home invasion robbery this year and the only thing standing between you and Mexican cartel gunning you down in your kitchen are the eleven handguns, shotgun, two AR-15s and the claymore in your basement.
I don't trust arrest rates. What do homicide rates over time look like?
They also went down from the 1990s to roughly 2015 then started inching upwards again. (You know, you can Google "US homicide rates for last 50 years" on your own... you don't have to wait for Kevin to spoonfeed you the alternative data you prefer... the webpage below took me 5 seconds to find.)
https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/USA/united-states/murder-homicide-rate
Fox News/OAN/News Max/local news (bleeds - leads), Republican Party, conservative talk radio. Note how the tech bro stabbing in SF fell off the news as soon as the perp turned out to be another tech bro and not a homeless person/POC.
Police live in fear. Fear of what? Perps with guns.
It’s in their mind at every encounter with a suspect. You’d think they would favor limiting access to such weapons….. but they don’t. Why? I can speculate but won’t and simply say I dunno.
A few — too few — have spoken out for better gun control. I think that it’s about how many of the people who become police officers were socialized.
Police USED TO favor gun controls. The question is, what happened to change their minds? When did they start approving of being outgunned by the criminals?
When people began to critique how they did their jobs more closely and some radicals began saying maybe they didn't need all the money they were budgeted, or all the surplus military equipment they were getting or maybe they're weren't trained or equipped to handle certain calls that often led to death. I support law enforcement in general as I'm sure most people do but sometimes they can adopt a defensive, almost "diva"-like attitude when it comes to how they do their job as if they don't realize who paying the fucking bills here. And when that started to happened they began to run into the arms of those who still said they supported them without questions and that was the NRA.
Well fine then. They can lobby the NRA itself to see if they can regulate the use of AR-15s and body armor by criminals because that's what they're going to face every day on the job until something's done to stop it.
1. If you marinate yourself in Fox every day, you believe the country is awash in blood from roving gangs of criminals.
2. In the 1960's, a gun required a permit. Now, any terrified nut can get one.
3. Fox, the evolution of the Republican party, culminating in Donald Trump have lowered the social barriers to offensive and violent behavior. In that demographic, it is now OK to be a racist. It is OK to have violent fantasies about executing your perceived enemies.
I think you whiffed on this question badly Kevin. The reason so many Americans are terrified of someone coming to the door, and prepared o kill any stranger is that the NRA, Fox News, and most Republican politicians have been screaming "They're coming to get you!" at the top of their lungs for at least the last 30 years
I'm sure some people got shot/killed for knocking while Black. We did have sundown towns, after all.
But aside from that, people coming to your door was pretty normal. I think the change was due to other factors than crime:
1) Increased use of phones, then internet for communication.
2) End of the door-to-door salesman as mail order and malls and big box stores took over.
3) Urban/suburban/exurban planning which deemphasized neighborhoods.
4) As door traffic diminished, the only people who would come to your door were scammers and religious nuts. They weren't seen as scary so much as annoying.
Over time, it became rare. But not a shooting offense. I'll chalk that up to Fox's fear mongering.
I like the way you think.
What confuses me is the lack of kids doing door-to-door selling anymore. When I was growing up, fundraising involved sending your kid around the neighborhood with an order sheet knocking on doors. Now, the parent posts a video to social media with a link to an order page.
And yet our area still does nighttime trick-or-treating.
"End of the door-to-door salesman as mail order and malls and big box stores took over."
If "mail order" includes "internet ordering," this actually has resulted in more strangers coming to my door than ever before. About once every other day someone is knocking on my door to deliver a box or pizza or something.
The true lull in "strangers coming to anybody's door" was probably between the end of door-to-door salespeople and the start of the internet. Ironically, this period was probably sometime in the 1990s, when crime was actually at its zenith (according to Kevin's stats as well as murder stats I had to research for Google-less James B. Shearer above).
Stop trying to look for excuses for why that 84-year-old heartless man shot that kid in the face. He's just a sick old fck whose mind turned to mush either watching Fox News and/or from dementia, and thus never should've had a gun in the house at all except Second Amendment Above All extremism. His ass needs to go to jail as a warning to other gun nuts to stop being assholes under Stand Your Ground laws.
But I don't have to answer the door. The knock/ring is to merely notify me that a package has arrived. I wait till they have left my porch.
Deliveries by UPS, USPS, Fed Ex, Amazon take place in most middle class neighborhoods all day, everyday now. There are a lot of 'strangers' walking up to homes front doors.
I think "day" is important. It seems that most of these unprovoked shootings of door knockers and strange people in the driveway happen at night. You don't expect the FedEx guy at your door at 10:00 pm.
Of course, being unparanoid my thought if someone knocks at my door at a late hour of night is that they're probably either in trouble or lost, and in either case could use some help rather than some high velocity lead.
"I suspect there has been some change and it's largely due to a lagging effect of the great crime wave of the '70s and '80s."
Very likely so. Of course (as Kevin himself has demonstrated in previous posts) we now also have Fox "News," and the rest of the right-wing media apparatus, grossly exaggerating the threat of violent crime for political reasons (especially during election season), which no doubt encourages the lag--especially among that part of the population most susceptible to this sort of thing via partisan identification.
But even among non-Fox addicted folks, I'm convinced the lag is real. The evidence is fairly plain, if you know where to look.
In response to 70s-80s peak crime, many urban neighborhoods turned themselves into quasi-fortresses. In my own SoCal, pre-War area virtually all of the houses sprouted bars on every window, and heavy "security doors" on every threshold that could afford them.
By the time we moved in (c. the mid-90s) this mindset had diminished considerably, based on the architectural evidence. It has diminished even further since, and the few houses still sporting peak-crime add-ons now look bizarrely out of place--relics of a distant past.
But there are other old neighborhoods, to the east and south of us (that is, in the direction of less whiteness and lower incomes, of course), where security doors & barred windows are still somewhat common, if not quite the norm.
In other words, the process of adjusting mentally to a less-dangerous world takes time--quite a lot of time--and most especially in less-affluent areas that once bore the brunt elevated crime rates and where, typically, those rates have receded more slowly in reality as well.
This is why I still read comments. Almost all above suggested I might not be a complete idiot and I also learned things. My only "contribution" might be the extreme pervasiveness of media. When I was young our TV could get two local stations (30 and 60 miles away). If there were a killer in the area smoke signals might have been a more effective warning system. Recently, during the Trump administration, I had to stop listening to NPR just to stop hearing Trump stories. There was no refuge from bad news. It's profitable. And you can get a lot of it fast. Good news seems to happen over time. Who has the attention span for that?
The commenters above have a point about the malign effect of right wing focus on crime, especially crime by young black men.
But I think it's also that people learn something and can't get it out of their minds even after decades.
The fear of inflation from the late 1970s is one example. Here's another:
I'm a federal employee. I meet people all the time who think that we still retire at 65 on 80% of our salary. That hasn't been the case since 1985. I say this, even multiple times to relatives, and they look at me like I'm trying to hide a super good deal.
I wonder what I learned that is now false but I can't stop believing it?
This is definitely true. I have relatives who fled cities in the 1970-1980 period - participants in that widespread phenomenon called "white flight" - and to this day avoid going downtown for any reason, even though their downtowns are super nice today with lots of amenities they're missing out on in their boring-declining-and-not-so-safe-anymore inner ring suburbs. I cannot convince them to join me downtown for anything, even in broad daylight. They've been permanently scarred by what they learned about city life in the 1970-1980 period.
I live and work near one of the downtowns that was "burned to the ground" by BLM back in 2020. The pandemic has cut back on workers in the downtown core and there has been an increase in homelessness, fentanyl abuse and petty crime which is more obvious with the lack of workers. The think is though, the area is perfectly safe. People aren't being gunned down left and right and your children won't be kidnapped to be sold to Mexican cartels. But if you listen to the folks in the suburbs nearby and especially to folks in rural areas you stand a 50:50 chance of not making it out alive if you visit in broad daylight. It's just building on your point about the narrative from the 70-80's.
Guns, Guns, Guns, Guns, Heller Decision, Guns, Guns, Guns, Guns, Guns, Guns, Guns, Guns, Heller Decision, Guns, Guns, Guns, Guns, Guns, Guns, Guns, Guns, Heller Decision, Guns, Guns, Guns, Guns:
When is a politician, entertainer, internet influencer ging to come out and say....
Please, just kill yourself. This is what you are going to do anyhow, kill yourself before you harm someone else...raise the suicide rates in the US, please...and let me say, God will look kindly on you if you kill yourself before you harm your wife, your children, strangers, or work mates...God will smile on you blowing your brains out...seriously, do what is right.
Because of the nature of my business I deeply know how crazy people can be...and I know they justify it their own minds...but they are wrong, they need to kill themselves.
As a final little coda to this, Please kill yourself in private...taking a shotgun to your head in front of your children to punish your wife is not what I am suggesting, do this in private...thank you for listening to my Public Service Announcement.
Best Wishes, Traveller
"Please, just kill yourself."
This will never be said by a politician, entertainer, influencer, etc. whose name isn't Trump. Reason being, unless your name is Trump, you would immediately be inundated with lawsuits from the surviving relatives suing you for millions of dollars for encouraging their loved one to kill him-/herself. The liability in a country as litigious as ours is just too high to openly advocate certain people commit suicide.
(Only reason why Trump would be able to get away with it is that our legal system seems allergic to forcing him to face accountability for anything. This won't be true for almost all other potential litigants. Maybe people named Musk too are another exception.)
Your right. I think this every time a mass murder event happens. Geez, just kill yourself.
Good advice for US soldiers about to deploy to the killing fields.
Many of those who came of age in the 70s and 80s will never be able to move past that time.
It's the old "What you are is where you were when" theory. That one's experiences in certain "formative years" stick with people for the rest of their lives. This is the basis of the "Generation" obsession that the media clings to.
Apparently it’s not just young men that right wing gun nuts fear. It would seem to extend to white cheerleaders. I think there’s an entire subculture out there that’s armed to the teeth and looking for any opportunity to kill somebody.
I saw photos of the cheerleaders on the news last night - at least one of the group wasn't "white" in appearance - curly dark hair and medium complexion. But yes you are correct in your post otherwise.
An incident in NC the other day involved a kid chasing after a basketball.
People who own guns are despicable and there are quite a few of them these days. So even if a small percentage end up using their weapons, that's 10's of thousands of shootings every year.
In the semi-suburban area where I live, there are non-fatal shootings nearly every week. Another one last evening. Shots fired in the street and hit a guy in his home. It happens.
At this point I think of it as a semi-organized series of terrorist attacks led by the NRA and the gun industry and supported by friendly media hyping the violence to boost sales.
"People who own guns are despicable and there are quite a few of them these days."
What a moronic statement.
Thanks to both of you for your contributions on our country's collective journey to the depths of hell. I hope you're seated in first class, right next to each other.
What did I do?
Ditto! I've got (several); never shot anybody, never intend to, and for "protection", I keep a charged cell phone at the bedside, not a firearm. I associate with a good number of folks who similarly own, shoot, and reload, who would never hurt a fly. (Maybe a blowfly, but who wouldn't?)
Being despicable doesn't require access to a firearm.
+1
When I was young most people who owned handguns for personal protection had revolvers that had 5 or 6 bullets loaded. Nowadays most handguns are semi-automatics that have more than a dozen round magazines that are quickly replaceable. The amount of pressure required on the trigger to fire the weapon is far less than in the past leading to more accidents and less room for error.
In those days the NRA was far less a political force and had more programs on training and handling guns responsibly. Nowadays the focus seems to be on acquisition of high power weaponry for the “fun” of blowing up cans of Bud Light and dreaming of gunning down Libs. This is what leads to the impression that gun ownership is a sign of right wing lunacy.
Guns guns guns is right. Unfortunately, as someone who has walked Democratic Party petitions for our candidates for many years, and who lives in a deep red pro-gun County in New York State, I can safely predict that these highly publicized shootings are going to make it even harder to find people to walk into others' driveways to knock on doors for petition signatures. Our democracy will suffer.
We have two epidemics in this country - guns and anger. it's a deadly combination.
Agreed. Without the anger (an outgrowth of fear), the guns would be almost a non-issue. The rage is fueled by social media, of course, the mainstream news (if it bleeds, it leads!), wingnut news (Hi, Rupert!), and lots of for-profit industries.
We are forced to discount the "mental illness" factor that J3Amacker notes, because psychologists are constantly reassuring us that no mentally disturbed person has ever become violent.
But there's clearly something wrong with Americans. Why do we "need" so many mind-altering drugs, both legal and illegal?
No, psychologists do not say that ‘no mentally disturbed person has ever become violent.’ Here is information from the professional organization, the American Psychological Association:
https://www.apa.org/monitor/2021/04/ce-mental-illness
While I understand Kevin's analysis of lead and crime in the 70s and 80s, I don't buy into the idea that this fear and anger is a hold-over that people can't forget. I am not sure where I heard it (probably from Kevin) but the equation of not dealing with mental illness + flooding the streets with guns = a whole lot of sadness. These two issues are symbiotic in so far as crazy/homeless/unstable people are used to generate fear and provide reasons to sell more guns. I don't think that we can effectively deal with the gun issue until we deal with the mental illness issue. Having said that, if we magically were able to solve mental illness/homeless/unstable people, I bet immigrants or some other group would become the next excuse for fear/gun selling. This doesn't absolve us from solving the mental health issues anymore than it would have been an excuse to leave lead in gasoline.
One of the recent victims was a 20-yr old white girl. Saying people are scared of young black men doesn't encompass the whole problem. These kooks are apparently scared of anyone coming onto their property
I remember the good old days when crackpots who like shooting people lived out in the boonies. Antisocial nut cases.
It is Fox News, the NRA, and the rest of the gun nut right wing echo chamber that is the root cause of all this, continually pumping fear and loathing at their audience. Add to that the Heller decision whereby SCOTUS decided that the first 13 words of the 2nd Amendment was to be ignored, leading to the dismantling of reasonable local gun laws.
These gun nuts are taught that it is better to be tried by 12 than carried by 6.
The other networks and non-Fox local news outlets don’t follow “if it bleeds it leads?” …
It’s only on right wing media and when right wingers are interviewed on mainstream media that cites are described as crime ridden hellscapes with danger lurking around every corner and cartels waiting to gun down innocent Americans. That’s who’s generating the terror and paranoia.
Those people are also amplified on apps like Next Door. Every “suspicious” person in the neighborhood is breathlessly reported as a potential danger.
Another contributing factor, I think, is the large number of True Crime podcasts. People follow every detail of crimes that would otherwise be footnotes. It all gives the impression that danger is lurking and you must always be prepared.
The true crime genre is a worse danger to mental health than almost any other thing I could think of.
There are entire tv channels devoted to it disguised as news or current events.
I must live in a really safe Nextdoor area. We get an occasional post on a stranger in the neighborhood. It's usually about a car driving around aimlessly. Probably a lost person. I will say I'm in a gated 55+ community so there a lot of quite old people around.
Oh, and we're not shooting at these people. A police report is about as aggressive as we get.
That chart is for arrests, not the number of violent crimes committed.
While it is only a proxy, even the most progressive DAs couldn’t cover-up a rate of commission that remained high as arrests declined like that.
I agree there should be a high correlation. But, I find it hard to believe the number of violent crimes committed has dropped 75% to 85% in the last few decades. I don't have a theory on how actual crimes committed might vary from the arrest rates Kevin presented, but I'm somewhat skeptical of the inference.
What's hard to believe about that? There are a number of reasons in fact expect a decline. First off, the population has aged and crime is mostly a young man's game (the rise in crime rates in the 60s and 70s very much went hand in hand with the "pig in the python" baby boomer generation in their more crime prone years). Secondly the fact that cash use had declined a lot in favor of cards means that muggers and robbers are less likely to make off with bundles of bills and many don;'t see the danger of the crime as worth the reward. And higher crime rates also procured a fair amount of avoidance behaviors some of which have become normative: such as not walking places along late at night.
So, you'd rather believe your own paranoid narrative than accept data because it would interfere with your political beliefs. Fox News thanks you for your support.
I'm not disputing the data Kevin presented. (But, by the way, Kevin regularly disputes conclusions derived from data.) Rather, I am disputing the assumed correlation of arrests to crimes committed. That correlation is not data.
Well, I can think of several factors that would cause arrest rates per crime committed to increase: 1) greatly increased and improved surveillance — cameras are far cheaper, far more prolific and higher resolution; video storage is much cheaper. 2) improved forensics — DNA, obviously; gunpowder residue tests; probably a lot more a layman like me doesn’t know about.
Also, I believe that there is survey data of victimization rates, based on random or stratified sampling. I’m not going to Google that for you; you can get back to us after you bestir yourself to actually try to come to an informed conclusion. Or you can just keep believing what you want to believe.
SpaceX Starship just 'experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly'.
Film at 11.
Probably just needs another software update to correct the issue.
Did they try turning it off and turning it back on?
????
This is what happens when you insist on launching on 4/20.
!
Things were going wrong from the start of ignition. Starship did not launch straight up; it tilted about 10 degrees for about 15 seconds before correction and had lost 5 raptors long before the belly flip became a flip-flop-flip-flop-flip-flop-uh-oh-gotta-go-boom.
Maybe it's just me, but a lot of things went wrong. Have you seen the debris and everything that was destroyed at the launch facility, far away from where Starship blew up?
They have a lot of things to figure out.
No, I was watching the live feed and haven't seen the news since.
I saw some engines weren't firing and assumed I just didn't know what I was looking at, and then it started cartwheeling and they seemed to be saying it was supposed to do that, but it just kept going round and then ka-boom.
And then after it blows up everybody cheers.
I was very entertained and mystified.
In the LabPadre feed, go back into time to the launch, and watch as it continues the feed on the ground. There's visible damage and debris everywhere. Apparently, the launch has left a giant crater at the base of the launch, throwing chunks of concrete hundreds of yards away.
In the NSF video you can see the launch at a slightly pitched angle almost immediately after ignition.
It's a test, but there could be fundamental design issues that need to be reviewed, and not just some minor iterative changes.
An awful lot of junk went flying around on the ground, you'd think there would be more concern about having stuff around that could just fly off like that.
LabPadre posted video of the debris coming at their camera and a giant chunk of concrete flying into (I think) Everyday Astronaut's car.
All that hydrogen flowing from a half-dozen spots seems to look like a bunch of leaks from damaged lines/tanks.
♪~ ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ
I don't think this is true of all gun owners, but a LOT of them really really want to be called on to use one of their guns for real. It's what they got the gun for in the first place, after all. The fantasy is that you will be called on to kill someone and be a hero.
How else to explain how any untrained civilian in any real life situation can quickly go for their gun? In their hearts the are excited about the prospect of killing and are waiting for that special moment.
Nobody who owns a gun is a hero. The best they can manage is that they're non-prosecutable.
I think you mean "uses a gun to kill someone", not mere ownership. Perhaps you are unaware that target shooting is an Olympic sport and the US has a team? And they don't practice their marksmanship on innocent civilians?
These blanket condemnations just make us Lefties look stupid.
I mean that gun possession of any kind is inherently wrong. You might call it a necessary evil, but it's hardly necessary. Unless you live in Syria there is no reason at all to have one.
If I had a container of nerve gas, what would you think?
I couldn't agree more cld. It's the guns, never had one in my house growing up and will never ever own one or live in a house with them.
Why?
Guns are for killing and I do not kill. I have smoke detectors alarms, locks and dogs to keep my house safe. The point was really driven home for me when my then neighbor in the winter of 2010 had a mental crisis and tried to take his entire family with him to heaven. Fortunately all he had was a kitchen knife, not a gun so the family was able to escape to the neighbors on the other side but the father committed suicide before the cops arrived. The story would have been a helluva lot more tragic had there been a gun in the house.
What an ignorant comment. As salamandar stated, its comments like that that make lefties look stupid.
What do you think is wrong with owning a gun for hunting or sport shooting? When my mother was growing up if her father and brothers didn't have guns they would have gone hungry.
And back then nobody worried about the radium colored hair dye.
What do you think is wrong with heroin or methamphetamine? They're a lot less harmful than guns.
Heroine is less harmful than guns? How do you figure?
US gun deaths in 2021: 48,830,
https://usafacts.org/data/topics/security-safety/crime-and-justice/firearms/firearm-deaths/
US annual heroin deaths: 14,000,
https://drugabusestatistics.org/heroin-statistics/
Firearms are the leading cause of death among children,
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2201761
And you think that's a good thing?
There's a lot more households with guns in them then there are people doing heroine.
There's more guns than there are people, and an increasing percentage of people who want to use them on someone else.
Nobody wants to use heroin on someone else.
"Not all gun owners"
That depends on your point of view. The people under discussion are heroes in their own imaginations, and long for the opportunity that will get them recognition as heroes.
Fox News is a key driver of mental illness.
Channels like this, and the true crime genre, aren't providing information about current events, they're selling and maintaining a paranoid and doom aesthetic.
Kevin and commenters mention several factors that are probably important - the crime wave the NRA, Fox News, general exacerbation of racism, etc. but there is one specific thing that seems to come into play more and more often: "stand your ground" laws. This is being interpreted as essentially a license to kill anyone with whom you have any kind of dispute or might feel threatened by. And a reason to buy more guns.
Is it fear? Or is it some other motivation: generalized anger at others, the desire to be a vigilante "hero," an entitled view of the world that can't stand even the most minor inconvenience/intrusion into their space?
We don't have great data on shootings that we can mine, so it is really hard to know if this spate of shootings of confused/lost people is unusual. As a longtime reader of the small stories in my local newspaper, I can say that I remember reading many accounts that are somewhat similar to these. They typically involve young family members coming home late, only to be shot by dad or grandpa, although many elderly men also threaten visitors with guns - they just don't always shoot the Meal on Wheels delivery person. I actually doubt most of the stories would have gotten much press coverage, except for the racism in the first one. Racist attacks are a guaranteed eyeball grabber these days. Once that story was out, similar shootings without the racial component suddenly become more interesting to the public. We have too many stupid shootings in the US for every one to show up on CNN. They pick and choose based on what gets attention, and that often means trendiness matters.
There are a lot of gun owners who dream of being the "hero." Our gun culture also promotes that idea. One other thing I have learned from the daily newspaper: the guy who shoots a mugger in self defense often ends up in jail a few years later for a completely unjustified shooting. Either getting off for self defense makes them bolder, or they were always a huge safety risk and by chance their first shooting just happened to be legally justified.
We should also remember that a lot of old guys were kids during higher lead times, and many suffer from cognitive issues that may affect their impulse control. A lifetime of drinking or smoking doesn't help, either.
That was an awful lot of words, Kevin. You only needed two: Fox News. I live in a red area. When I go to the gym, there are 4 televisions up front and inevitably one will be tuned to Fox News and one will be tuned to Fox Business News. Both feature practically non-stop scare chyrons, either telling us that Democrats are doing something terrible or - and this is reinforced by b-roll - black people are engaging in murder, rape, and mayhem.
Sure, regular television isn't a whole lot better - "If it bleeds, it leads" - but Fox almost has me looking warily over my shoulder for Blacks. Democrats. BLACK DEMOCRATS!
One of the huge changes now is that everyone is armed to the teeth. Shoot first and ask questions later. We are one sick society.
Of course everyone is afraid. Afraid of being the next one shot, for no reason at all. Be afraid, very afraid and try to get guns off the street and out of the hands of idiots. Of course, this is one way of culling the herd....
Sticker on the car ahead of me yesterday in a blue state. "Are you just going to lie there and bleed or are you going to arm yourself."
The effort to interpret the 2nd Amendment as a right for all citizens to own guns has transitioned into a right for all citizens to use deadly force. The right to kill has been adopted not just by the cops but by all the gun zealots.
Why are so many young adults of color being shot for making innocent errors? Permissive laws such as Stand Your Ground (and fallacious interpretations of 2A) at the crossroads with the growing belief that racism is protected by 1A.
You have to prove to me that the people doin the shootin were old enough to have lived through violence of the 70s and 80s and see that through the lens of "what the hell is wrong with these violent kids". And then, you have to show me how white kids and young adults are being shot because they made similar errors of knocking on the wrong door, etc.
People using SYG as a cognizable defense at trial even while they're shooting at unarmed individuals should be a red flag. That they're getting away with it should be flashing red lights and sirens blaring.
Do the same percentage of young white men and young black men commit violent crimes? If they do (or it's very close), you can properly invoke racism. But if a young black man is significantly more likely to have committed a violent crime, its not racism, its common sense.
Old white men seem to be the biggest concern when it comes to random, unjustified shootings. Maybe they are the problem. That's just common sense. Tell me, what criminal act was the kid who went to the wrong door committing. Knocking while being black. I'm sure that's a capital offense in your mind.
What data are you looking at that says old white men are the biggest concern?
I never said the kid who went to the wrong door was committing a crime. Are you confusing me with someone else? Although, I read that he was not just knocking but trying to open the door. If that is correct, I would think that would exonerate the homeowner. This is a tragic case and the kid should not have been shot. But, it's a totally different situation from that idiot who shot the girls that had just pulled into his driveway.
No, it wouldn’t exonerate the shooter, even if it actually happened, which is not established. Trying to open a storm door (which it apparently was) is something I’ve done when I couldn’t be sure a bell was working, because knocking on a storm door is likely inaudible to occupants, you need to knock on the solid door. It certainly doesn’t amount to a threat of imminent bodily harm.
I avoid replying to guys like that, but you can if you want. They are obviously so far down the rabbit hole that they can’t see daylight.
He actually said with a straight face that if someone rings my doorbell and then jiggles the door handle I can legally murder them. We don’t even know if that is the case here, but what an insane thing to think in general. So if one of my kids invites a friend over, they ring my doorbell and then jiggle the handle, I can open the door and murder them. Just an accident. For that matter, I could invite a friend over, but they are wearing a hood and I can’t see their face, so I shoot them. Just an accident. I’m not a dangerous murderer who needs to be put away. Just someone who’s accident prone.
Without getting into the numbers, by your standard, there should also be an accompanying, measurable ratio of deadly encounters with white people who accidentally knock on the wrong door, correct?
As for your premise, it's not possible to do a perfect comparison, on account that the FBI's UCR's race tracking isn't aligned with the Census.
"But we're scared regardless. Cops are. Families are. Teachers are. And when everyone is scared, bad things happen."
Are we though? And who is we? I'm not saying fear of young males hasn't increased, or fear of crime in general, but i'd like to see some data and some demographic and geographic breakdowns. I think it's likely some of "we" are, but who? Just proclaiming "We're scared" isn't particularly helpful or insightful.