Reasonable fear, self defense, and murder

An article in the CSMonitor reviews the state of stand-your-ground laws in the U.S. Here’s a salient quotation from criminologist and gun policy expert Edward Leddy, professor emeritus at St. Leo University in Florida:

“If somebody breaks into your house in the middle of the night, the presumption is you have the right to assume that they are armed and intend to do you harm. How reasonable is that presumption? The problem is there’s no clear-cut answer to that. It depends on the situation and the reasonableness of the person’s fear.”

If gun rights fundamentalists have their way, and turn the U.S. into a nation where an ever-larger percentage of the populace owns guns, the fear that an random person is armed will become ever more reasonable. This will in turn provide racists, xenophobes, and other vigilantes the justification they need to commit state-condoned murder.

A worldview based on fear is self-fulfilling.

Juan Williams and FOX News deserve each other

Juan Williams was fired from NPR for stating that seeing Muslim people on an airplane made him nervous. His comment surely resonated with many Americans, an erstwhile diverse and freedom-minded bunch of people, who have nonetheless fallen victim in recent years to a propaganda campaign of fear. Americans these days can be a twitchy folk, easily made nervous by people who are different. If many Americans are made nervous by Muslims, then the neocons at FOX News are to blame for spreading fear rather than understanding.

A reporter’s duty is to report facts, not to stoke fears. At best, Williams’ comment and his unapologetic defense since then show an insensitivity toward Muslim Americans; at worst, they expose a deliberate and self-serving ploy to improve his salary by moving to FOX. That’s where all the other fear mongers are, after all.

The fear mongers have always found a group of others, to stoke fears and control public opinion. It was not too many years ago that the average American would have been nervous upon meeting a black person on the street. If Mr. Williams is aware of the irony of his position, he has hidden it well.