So, thanks to Facebook, not to mention our ability to feel "connected" with someone who has been memorialized ad nauseam on cable news, the number of people with this excuse is increasing despite the number of random murders decreasing?
Perhaps, although calling it an "excuse" is rather offending depending on who the person is and your relationship to them. I think anyone would feel upset if someone they knew of died. Facebook just helps you find out about it sooner rather than twenty years later.
It's okay if the families and friends of murder victims feel murder as a visceral reality in their lives. It's even okay if that completely unbalances their political opinions. If violent crime escalated to the point that such people were anything other than a small minority, drastic measures would be appropriate.
However, people have a tremendous appetite to vicariously live the dramas of others. The more dramatic, the better. The vast majority of the electorate turn on their televisions every day with an appetite, latent or manifest, to become emotionally involved, and television producers strive to feed that appetite. We can't allow that many people the privilege to say "the actual crime rate doesn't matter." They have a civic responsibility to (do their best to) choose appropriate policy approaches to violent crime. If everyone excuses themselves from their civic responsibilities because they were traumatized by CNN's coverage of Natalee Holloway, then our policies will be designed for a nonexistent hyperviolent world.
Obviously people should put their relationships in perspective, but they often prefer not to. If Ryan Seacrest is murdered today, will his millions of Twitter followers take a deep breath and say, "Well, you know, it's not as if he was really my friend." Of course not. People find it deeply satisfying to join in collective grief and outrage. They'll exaggerate their emotional connection for the sake of amplifying the drama. Nobody wants to be left out.
Of course, no one who is really grieving the loss of a close friend would react that way, but when they're outnumbered thousands or millions to one by voyeurs, do their reactions matter anymore?
In Milwaukee, someone I indirectly knew was murdered this summer. People in my town have been getting robbed more than ever based on reports from my parents. To me, the crime rate is higher than it was when I was younger, despite reports that it is actually going down over all.
When you were younger, you didn't know as many people and your parents probably didn't tell you about murders. Anecdotes do not overthrow statistics, as we've heard again and again.
I'm not saying they overthrow statistics, just that real things happen and suddenly statistics don't matter. One crime that hits close to home is more important to you than thousands that don't. And I'm not just talking about murders, I'm talking about simple burglary as well.
When I was in high school, I knew someone who later was imprisoned for participation in a slightly-notorious murder. (the murder of the University of Florida's "junk food professor", in some bizarre circumstances [1])
I no longer know this person. Thus, every murderer has been removed from my notice, and hence no one gets murdered anymore.
