{"id":5877,"date":"2014-09-25T16:44:46","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T20:44:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/?p=5877"},"modified":"2015-01-30T23:55:39","modified_gmt":"2015-01-31T04:55:39","slug":"mass-shooting-hysteria-and-the-death-of-john-crawford","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/2014\/09\/mass-shooting-hysteria-and-the-death-of-john-crawford\/","title":{"rendered":"Mass shooting hysteria and the death of John Crawford"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/8434547_600x338.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-5879\" src=\"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/8434547_600x338-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"umbrella-or-gun\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/8434547_600x338-300x169.jpg 300w, http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/8434547_600x338-150x84.jpg 150w, http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/8434547_600x338-400x225.jpg 400w, http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/8434547_600x338.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;there may be unintended consequences to our oversaturated coverage of mass shootings and the widespread belief that they\u2019re increasing, even if neither produces a single new law. In 2010, there was an incident at a Las Vegas-area Costco that bears a striking resemblance to what happened in Ohio. Police gunned down Eric Scott, 38, outside the store after employees complained about the gun he was legally carrying. Though the Costco had a surveillance system, the store claimed that the cameras mysteriously malfunctioned at the time of the shooting. Scott was a West Point graduate with no criminal record. His family says he may have been agitated when hassled about a gun he was legally permitted to carry, but like Crawford\u2019s family, they find it hard to believe that a guy with no criminal history or emotional problems would have intentionally provoked the police into shooting him.<\/p>\n<p>It isn\u2019t difficult to see how the misconception that mass shootings are becoming ubiquitous might make us see threats and potential mass killers instead of, say, a guy checking out a pellet gun, or a Costco shopper with a legal sidearm. And it isn\u2019t difficult to see how a frightened witness might even exaggerate what he saw to get the police to take him seriously. Last month, the California State University San Marcos campus was put on lockdown and a SWAT team was sent in after someone mistook a staff member carrying an umbrella for a mass shooter. Umbrellas have caused similar lockdowns in Issaquah, Wash.;\u00a0 Fort Washington, Pa.; and Akron, Ohio.<\/p>\n<p>via <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/the-watch\/wp\/2014\/09\/25\/mass-shooting-hysteria-and-the-death-of-john-crawford\/\">Mass shooting hysteria and the death of John Crawford &#8211; The Washington Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8230;there may be unintended consequences to our oversaturated coverage of mass shootings and the widespread belief that they\u2019re increasing, even if neither produces a single new law. In 2010, there was an incident at a Las Vegas-area Costco that bears a striking resemblance to what happened in Ohio. Police gunned down Eric Scott, 38, outside&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,68,9],"tags":[274,1761,1760],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5877"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5877"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5880,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5877\/revisions\/5880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/therationalprogressive.com\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}