Why Being a Good Bystander is Hard in the United States
Guns, knives, and outrageous medical bills make it risky to compassionately intervene.
Jordan Neely’s tragic death has sparked a lot of discussion about how it could have possibly been prevented. I’m in no position to assess what happened in that subway car — or whether Daniel Penny’s acquittal was correct — but I do have some thoughts about the suggestion that ordinary citizens should try to peacefully intervene more often when others are behaving erratically or issuing threats in public spaces (e.g. trains, buses, and parks). This expectation is common in left-wing discourses about how to handle anti-social behavior.
On X a few days ago, a United Kingdom-based author responded to an American’s post about the Neely incident by recounting her own peaceful intervention with a drunk and threatening man on a train. You can read it below, but basically she talked the disorderly guy down and he got off the train before police arrived. Apparently, her point seems to be that her intervention prevented a potentially violent or traumatic police interaction.
Offering my own thoughts on X, I applauded the author’s kindness, but noted that the United States context is entirely different when these kinds of things happen. How so?
In Europe and East Asia, guns and knives are strictly regulated. It is almost impossible to own a handgun in Britain or Japan. Here, however, there are over 400 million civilian guns and knife laws are basically non-existent. There are literally more guns than people! Because of this, a reasonable person will feel significantly safer approaching a chaotic individual in Edinburgh than Chicago. The chart below is instructive.
We live in a country where you have to assume anyone could have a gun at any time, even children. Given this reality, it’s rational to summon a police officer — despite our horrific, unacceptable issues with police brutality and racism that absolutely must be addressed — rather than attempt to act as a citizen peacemaker. (Of course, sadly, this is also why our policing tends to be more violent — just like regular citizens, officers assume that there’s a good chance someone engaging in disorderly or criminal behavior in public might have a gun or knife.)
But what if you could be assured your subway car with an unhinged individual was a weapons-free space? Well, fists can be weapons, too — and they can do a lot of damage.
In any country, it’s no fun to be injured — perhaps even in a life-altering way — but, if the person you’re attempting to talk down on the London Underground or Milan Metro chooses to respond with physical force instead of deescalation, the ambulance ride and emergency room will be free. In Los Angeles or New York, however, you’re looking at gigantic medical bills following your attempt at peacemaking, which could mean crushing debt or bankruptcy. Even if you have “good health insurance,” you might still be vulnerable to thousands of dollars in expenses from a night or two at the hospital, let alone potential follow-up care or physical therapy. And, no, the debt collector or hospital billing office isn’t going to care when you say “well, I had my jaw smashed, because I was trying to keep a man in crisis safe from police violence.”
To be clear, I wish we didn’t have to live like this. It’s upsetting to me that guns, knives, and the absence of universal health care make it harder to be a good bystander when others are struggling in public, struggles that are often a consequence of poverty and inadequate social policies. But we walk outside into the country we have, not the country we wish we had — and the potential risks and costs associated with deescalating fellow citizens in distress are dramatically higher here than elsewhere.
These stats are interesting in that the only thing being considered is the number of "weapons" that are available. There is no social commentary regarding what has led a country which has historically always had an armed citizenry to a societal place in which the willingness of people to engage in senseless violence has increased among the general populace. It would be interesting to compare these stats to a timeline in American history of the kinds of violence, by whom, to whom, etc. My father-n-law worked in the school system in New York City in the 1950's. He said the schools used to have gun ranges in the basement where the students were taught how to handle long rifles (I guess a society having just gone through a world war might feel that something like that was necessary) however there were no metal detectors on the doors and they did not have students killing each other in random shootings. I believe this analysis must go much deeper than merely how many people own guns.