Fighting the Fear of Public Space
After the latest spate of mass shootings, the world — and technology — is in danger of turning us into hermits. We can’t allow it.
Last week, a dirt bike backfired in Times Square. In another time or place, it may have registered as a brief diversion for New Yorkers, something that turns your head and distracts you while you walk. But in 2019, just days after mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso, it prompted fears of gunfire, and then a stampede. Hundreds of people scrambled to escape, running into nearby stores and theaters. “I accepted it was my time to die,” one person wrote on Twitter.
This kind of collective anxiety has become common. The incident was just one in a string of recent panics in California, Utah, Virginia, Texas, and Missouri, and even one two years ago in New York’s JFK airport. When there are nearly as many mass shootings as there are days in the year, the mind naturally assumes. And when seven of the 10 deadliest mass shootings in American history have happened since 2007, a growing unease about public spaces is eminently understandable. (Depending on how you define the term, mass shootings also occur frequently in private spaces, but those that are carried out in public tend to receive the most attention, and seem to provoke the most widespread fear.)
