We admit, we\u2019re a little jittery approaching strangers after a surge in recent, seemingly random shootings. In April, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot twice after ringing the doorbell at the wrong house in Missouri as he was trying to pick up his siblings. In upstate New York, Kaylin Gillis was shot and killed after her boyfriend pulled into the wrong driveway as they searched for a friend\u2019s home. In Texas, two cheerleaders were shot after one accidentally got into a vehicle that she thought was her own. A North Carolina man allegedly shot a girl, 6, her parents and another neighbor after a basketball rolled into his yard.<\/p>\n
These shootings happened far from the Southwest. Nonetheless, we have some apprehension. It may not be as instinctual to move quickly to help a stranger in need as we once did. The cost of this fear could mean we\u2019ll lose our capacity to be good Samaritans.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re not even talking about assistance on a grand scale, but something smaller or even convenient for another person. A few recent opportunities revealed moments of our hesitation. Flagging down a driver with a wobbly wheel. Checking on passengers in a stalled vehicle in a cellphone dead zone. Dropping off a payment to a laborer on an unfamiliar street at an unknown house.<\/p>\n
What if we had startled armed residents \u2013 afraid of us \u2013 who were trigger-happy?<\/p>\n
Fear is oftentimes just that. Even if there\u2019s no real data to back up why it\u2019s there.<\/p>\n
From 1965 to 2021, Gallup polls have consistently found\u202fthat Americans believe crime is going up, whether or not it is. What has increased is the perception <\/em>that crime is pervasive. So, jacked-up fear without the actual crime.<\/p>\n Also, we don\u2019t have data that shows more guns keep people and communities safer. About 30 careful studies reviewed by Scientific American<\/em> in October 2017 linked more guns to more crime \u2013 not less.<\/p>\n Eighty-four-year-old Andrew D. Lester, who is white, shot Yarl, who is Black. According to Lester\u2019s grandson, the shooter immersed himself in a \u201c24-hour news cycle of fear and paranoia.\u201d Shoot first, figure it out later. Lester was probably afraid of Yarl.<\/p>\n Some key legal principles are likely to come up in shooting defendants\u2019 cases, including self-defense, the \u201ccastle doctrine\u201d and stand your ground.<\/p>\n To claim traditional self-defense, the defendant cannot be the first aggressor. There must be a duty to retreat, meaning a reasonable effort to avoid confrontation by de-escalation or getting the heck out of there.<\/p>\n The \u201ccastle doctrine\u201d differs from self-defense because there\u2019s no duty to retreat if you\u2019re in your castle \u2013 your home \u2013 where you can use deadly force.<\/p>\n The stand your ground law says you don\u2019t need to have a duty to retreat anywhere you are lawfully allowed to be. It\u2019s like taking the protection from prosecution in your home out onto the streets \u2013 a parking lot, grocery store. Anywhere. (Colorado does not have a stand your ground law.)<\/p>\n Stand your ground is the wild card. We\u2019ll watch for the outcomes. But mostly, this surge in random shootings brings up a basic question. How do we view our time on this planet? And whether we are here to be of service to each other \u2013 to help, comfort and support those we encounter, when we can. But, these days, is offering a helping hand worth the risk of taking a bullet?<\/p>\n The reasonable part of our minds says \u201cyes.\u201d Getting shot is unlikely. The connection is worthwhile.<\/p>\n Generally, we\u2019ve been missing connections with strangers in this country, which can stoke real or imagined concerns of impending danger. We\u2019re more isolated, alone and attached to our devices.<\/p>\n This week, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy will act on this state of our union by proposing a national framework to rebuild social connection and community. \u201cThe epidemic of loneliness and isolation has fueled other problems that are killing us and threaten to rip our country apart,\u201d Murthy wrote in The New York Times<\/em> on Sunday.<\/p>\n Including gun violence.<\/p>\n \u201cGiven these extraordinary costs, rebuilding social connection must be a top public health priority for our nation,\u201d Murthy said. \u201cIt will require reorienting ourselves, our communities, and our institutions to prioritize human connection and healthy relationships.<\/p>\n \u201cThe good news is we know how to do this.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" admit, we\u2019re a little jittery approaching strangers after a surge in recent, seemingly random shootings. In April, 16-year-old Ralph Yarl was shot twice after ringing the doorbell at the wrong house in Missouri as he was trying to pick up his siblings. In upstate New York, Kaylin Gillis was shot and killed after her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[125],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-34233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-newsletter-opinion"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34233\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34233"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=34233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}