Instead of getting riled up on stand your ground, how about we come back down to earth?
My local newspaper, the Times-Tribune actually ran a story, on the front page, speculating about what if maybe Missouri’s “stand your ground” law could make the Super Bowl parade shootings legal, or at least that seems to be the message sent here. Meanwhile the truth of the matter is multiple people have been charged with murder and weapons charges. I don’t know why news outlets are so anxious to send a loud message that shooting into crowds could wind up with the average person getting away with it, because that’s not the norm, not even in the 30 states with “stand your ground” laws. The sensationalist speculation is just lazy, and in today’s “political climate” – some dangerous speech deserves to be criticized.
Sorry to say the Times-Tribune in Scranton, PA, doesn’t agree with me on this critique as they decided NOT to publish my Letter to the Editor. But here it is.
There was a front page news story saying “Stand your ground” law applies to the shootings at the Super Bowl parade in Missouri, citing “experts” who say two men charged have good cases for self-defense. Why is this front page news in Scranton Pennsylvania? People ask me why I don’t go to crowded or busy places anymore, and my friends assume it’s because I don’t want to contract a detrimental virus, and that’s absolutely true, I don’t need to roll those dice. But I also don’t want to risk getting shot by someone who has been given a loud and clear message by people with authority that someone can shoot a gun in a crowd, hit innocent people, and then just say “I felt threatened” and maybe get away with a massacre. That won’t even be true most of the time, and people receiving this idea may in fact be throwing away their own lives, but that’s not the message repeated in the media. Over and over again I see reckless messaging conveying that violent reaction to real or perceived “enemies” is justifiable or even desirable and righteous, when there is no immediate physical danger. Maybe on the front page of the newspaper someone in leadership ought to be saying something like: “Listen, take the temperature down on the rhetoric, love thy neighbor, and don’t throw your life away because you’ve been ramped up by mercenary and witless media pundits, journalists, self-styled religious warriors, politicians, or PR hotshots, looking to get attention and sell sensationalist controversy.”
I think we need people to take the temperature down, and bring everybody straight back down to earth.