Victim Shaming Shaming Has Gone Too Far

Victim shaming is one of those phrases that has entered regular American vernacular over the last decade, and for good reason. Women should be free to wear whatever they want, but shaming someone for blaming the victim shouldn't extend to every case of crime. I'll give you an example.

I was perusing one of the Oklahoma gun forums recently where some old Gen-Xer was complaining about how someone stole his lawn mower. That's understandable, criminals suck and that's an expensive piece of yardwork hardware to replace... but then more details came out about his experience.

As it turns out, it wasn't a sophisticated career criminal pulling a Mission Impossible-esque heist of his mower out of his locked shed or secure garage... it was left in the half-finished front yard "for a few days."

Of course someone snatched it up, this is Lawton, Oklahoma. With a crime rate that's growing at the same pace as national inflation, you should know that you can't have **** in Lawton. There are just too many petty-theft criminals and meth heads rolling these streets looking for their next easy score.

Shockingly, when someone mentioned this fact coupled with a casual "You shouldn't have left it in your front yard..." a shocking number of people chimed in about how that's victim shaming and not kosher at all... on a gun forum... filled with mostly hardcore anti-politically correct conservatives.

I was floored.

As the old saying goes, if you play stupid games you'll win stupid prizes. Surely you've heard something to that effect in your life. It's just true.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the sentiment of the people defending dumb. It's his property on his property, he has every right to expect his property will be right where he left it... but we live in Lawton. If a thief can score a quick buck, they will, especially during the summer when schools are out.

While it's easy to ask more of our small police department, that's not their job. No police department in America is in the business of preventing crime. You're thinking of the Minority Report. The name of their game isn't "Protect & Serve," that's just a lesser-known Twilight Zone quote. Their job is to observe and report.

The obvious answer is to relinquish the idea that someone else is responsible for your stuff. Personal responsibility is a cornerstone concept of being free, how is this particular case anyone's fault other than the rightful owner of the stolen mower?

Victim shaming shaming has, in this very specific case, grown to the point we need to rein it in a little bit. Watching a grown man cry about how his property isn't his responsibility is everything that is going wrong with this country.