We're Living Through a Vigilante Era

Americans are so terrified of their neighbors that they’d rather shoot first and ask questions never.

(Photo by Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images)

Earlier this week, a man in Louisiana shot a 14-year-old girl who was playing hide and seek on his property in the head. According to ABC News, the 58-year-old neighbor saw “shadows outside his home” and went to retrieve his gun. When he came back outside, the local sheriff’s office said he saw “people running away from his property, at which time he began shooting at them and unknowingly hit the girl.” (Luckily, the girl lived, and was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries; the man was charged with aggravated assault and battery and the illegal discharge of a firearm.)

This is becoming something of a refrain in this broken country. Time after time, people are getting annoyed or angry about something and resorting to often lethal violence in response. I can’t help but interpret this as a vigilante era, one in which Americans are so terrified of their neighbors that they’d rather shoot first and ask questions never.

We have seen this pattern play out over and over again in the last few weeks alone.