Back to Vigilantism?

Tom Kando 

 The other day, my wife and I walked by one of the movie theaters at the Galleria shopping mall, the Caremark theaters. We were stunned when we saw a sign posted at the entrance, stating in big black letters: “Do not bring in your own food, drink or fire arm.” 

That’s it, I thought. This country is going back to the days of Tombstone and the O. K. Corral. The Wild West is coming back. It’ll soon be Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday against the Clanton brothers. Except that it won’t be clear who is Wyatt Earp and who is Billy Clanton. 

Lead by states such as Texas, more and more states are now “open-carry.” This means that we all have the right to run around while visibly packing pistols. Vigilantism is on the rise. it is increasingly accepted and even encouraged. Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted after murdering two men, as was George Zimmerman in 2012 after executing Trayvon Martin. As in many other cases, self-defense was the winning argument. 

The self-defense chimera is what drives this country’s insane proliferation of fire arms. Americans are becoming universally armed. Vigilantism is on the rise. “Stand-your-ground” laws are increasingly used to justify murder under the guise of self-defense. 

In fact, death is more likely to happen when both the aggressor and the victim are armed than when the victim is unarmed. You are more likely to be shot to death if you own a firearm than if you don’t. Some protection! 

This is not to deny that crime has been rising, both violent and property. A recent worrisome fad is smash-and-grab: large groups of people storm shopping malls, invade upscale stores such as Nordstrom and jewelry stores, grab merchandise and quickly disappear. No question about it: The country is moving in the wrong direction 

In the 19th century, lawlessness in the Wild West was confronted with measures such as Posse Comitatus: The sheriff mobilized citizens on the spot to suppress lawlessness. Or a group of citizens marched on the local jailhouse and demanded that the sheriff hand over the hated suspect for a swift hanging without trial. And of course, when it came to black people, there was the abomination of massive amounts of lynchings, more often than not that of innocent people. This is the direction in which we seem to be moving.

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