As most New York City residents could tell you, despite what conservative suburbanites would like to believe, riding the subway is much safer than driving. That's why Tuesday's mass shooting, in which 10 people were injured by gunfire, was so shocking. The crime, as terrible as it is, is the epitome of the word "anomaly." Indeed, it's nearly a miracle how rare mass shootings on subways are in a country awash with guns. As of this morning, there have been 131 mass shootings this year alone. They happen in schools, workplaces, homes, nightclubs, and on public streets, but with surprising infrequency on public transportation. As a New York Times headline tacitly admitted, a mass shooting on the subway is something "the city had long avoided."
Unfortunately, that a headline admits such events are rare is itself an anomaly. By and large, the mainstream media — especially the New York Times — fell right into the trap of using this shooting to feed a misleading right-wing narrative that paints cities as dangerous hellholes. Heaven help every urban-dwelling child of a Fox News addict who had to endure pressure to live out their parent's Hallmark movie fantasy. In truth, this crime says very little about cities being uniquely dangerous. Instead, it's a story about how America's failure to enact sensible gun control leads inevitably to senseless gun violence. But, to read the mainstream media coverage, one would think that this one bizarre crime was somehow indicative of a general trend of cities going to pot.
