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“In the span of six days, seven people across the U.S. have been shot — one fatally — for making one of the most ordinary and unavoidable mistakes in everyday life: showing up at the wrong place…
“A North Carolina man shot a 6-year-old girl and her parents Tuesday night after children went to retrieve a basketball that had rolled into his yard, according to neighbors and the girl’s family. Earlier that day in Texas, a man shot two cheerleaders outside a supermarket after one of them mistakenly got into his car thinking it was her own, she said. A group looking for a friend’s house in upstate New York arrived in the wrong driveway only for one of them to be fatally shot Saturday night, authorities said…
“In Missouri last Thursday, a Kansas City teen was shot twice after going to the wrong home to pick up his younger brothers… Lester, who is white, told police he had just gotten in bed when he heard the doorbell. Before answering, he grabbed his revolver. Lester said he then saw Yarl, who is Black, pulling on the storm door handle, something Yarl disputes, according to the probable cause statement. Lester told police he thought the teen was attempting to break in and he was ‘scared to death,’ the statement said. Without saying a word, Lester fired twice.” AP News
The right is dismayed by the shootings, arguing that they are caused by a breakdown of trust in society.
“Missouri law is being criticized for the shooting, but the fact is that Missouri law does not permit Lester’s behavior… Opening fire through the door without knowing who is on the other side is reckless rather than reasonable behavior. Yarl had committed no crime and there is no evidence that he had exhibited any threatening behavior other than being black. For all Lester knew, Yarl could have been a delivery driver or a meter reader or a good samaritan letting him know his house was on fire…
“If Lester was truly in fear for his life, there are other courses of action that he could have taken that were short of opening fire. He could have pretended that he wasn’t home until Yarl went away. He could have talked to Yarl through the door while keeping his gun ready in case the confrontation became violent. He could have called the police to report a suspicious person. If Lester had chosen any of these options, Yarl would not have been wounded and Lester would not be in jail.”
David Thornton, Racket News
“The primary problem is that we are becoming a low-trust society… A functioning society — on the familial, local, or national level, or anything in between — is one in which people generally respect others, tell the truth, and don’t try to harm people. When this good behavior is expected, life is easier and happier. But if you think everyone is trying to pull one over on you, that everyone is a threat, your freedom and happiness are greatly limited…
“What is making America a low-trust society? A lot of things. We could talk about an elite that earned distrust and demagogues who fostered distrust, but the root is the deterioration of community institutions. Working, interacting, debating, praying, playing, and eating with others is how humans build social trust…
“The central institution of civil society in the United States has long been the church, particularly for the middle and working classes. The secularization of America has meant the deinstitutionalization of America. And it’s creating a low-trust America.”
Timothy P. Carney, Washington Examiner
“Americans are supposed to believe, as Yarl’s attorney put it, that ‘blackness is under attack.’ This is a lie… While most violent crime is intra-racial (white on white or black on black, for example), in cases in which blacks and whites have violent interaction, blacks are overwhelmingly the perpetrators…
“In 2019, there were 562,550 reported violent black/white incidents. 472,570 were black on white—84%. The media routinely ignore these facts, since they don’t fit the narrative. In fact, the media have a general tendency not to even mention the race of perpetrators of crimes if those perpetrators are black…
“Understanding the facts about interracial crime presents different solutions than the lies we hear about the prevalence of white-on-black violence. Those solutions include encouraging fatherhood in the home. Only 37% of black children are living in a home with their biological parents; 72% of black fathers aren’t married to the mother of their children… But such discussions never take place if we focus on a lie: the lie that black victims are disproportionately the victim of white evils.”
Ben Shapiro, Daily Signal
The left is dismayed by the shootings, arguing that they are caused by a culture suffused with guns and violence.
The left is dismayed by the shootings, arguing that they are caused by a culture suffused with guns and violence.
“The recent NRA convention in Indianapolis was touted by the group as ‘14 Acres of Guns & Gear!’ But it might as well have been ‘14 Acres of Guns & Fear!’ Former president Donald Trump told the crowd that liberals ‘want to take away your guns while throwing open the jailhouse doors and releasing bloodthirsty criminals into your communities.’ One speaker after another echoed that idea…
“That culture is saturated with stories of the heroic gun owner who fends off the monstrous threats of the outside world with deadly force. That will inevitably lead you, as a gun owner, to fantasize about using your guns in just this way. You will be primed and prepared. You will become like police officers who are trained to be terrified of the public and say the magic words ‘I feared for my life’ when they kill civilians. You will be ready…
“I’m afraid of mass shootings. I’m afraid of getting caught in the crossfire of some stupid beef. I’m afraid of gun-wielding, right-wing extremists. But increasingly, I’m also afraid of the people who believe themselves to be ‘good guys’ with guns, gripped with terror of the world around them and ready to kill.”
Paul Waldman, Washington Post
“Lester blamed his fright on the teenager’s size, he told police. I don’t know how big or small the teenager is, but being big doesn’t make an innocent person less so. And whatever size a Black boy, a Black teen or a Black man is, he often looms larger in the white imagination…
“People who know Yarl have been quick to tell the world what a great kid he is: that he’s a ‘gentle soul,’ that he’s a talented musician who’s been excelling at college-level courses and that he plans to study chemical engineering. It’s a shame they feel a need to describe his personality, his accomplishments and his ambitions in that way; it would have been just as awful if a Black teen with bad grades, less talent and no real ambition had been shot for ringing Lester’s doorbell… American racism in its most common expression dictates who gets the benefit of the doubt.”
Jarvis DeBerry, MSNBC
“Some of these shootings took place in states with so-called ‘stand your ground’ laws… [According to a study from Oxford] stand your ground laws are linked at the national level to an 8 to 11 percent increase in homicides per month, and to about 700 homicides per year… [The] study looked at 23 states that had implemented stand your ground laws by 2016, and found an increase in homicides across the board, but especially in the Southeast…
“[A different study] found a 75 percent uptick in legally justifiable homicides in Florida after the implementation of the state’s stand your ground law…
“Another troubling aspect of stand your ground laws is that they’ve exacerbated racial disparities in the criminal justice system, and appear more likely to be a successful defense in cases when the shooter is white. According to a 2013 Urban Institute analysis, 17 percent of homicides involving a white shooter and a Black victim were ruled justified in states with stand your ground laws, while 1 percent of homicides involving a Black shooter and a white victim were ruled justified in those same states.”
Li Zhou, Vox
