A changing tide?

Ms. Kang laments the fact that “very few people [on campus] seemed to care about the hundreds of country music fans that were injured and killed” by Paddock in Las Vegas (KANG: Selective progressivism, Nov. 29). She suggests that if the victims had been Muslims, there would have been more of a campus outcry. She sees this as “selective progressivism,” perhaps her polite way of accusing Yale liberals of hypocrisy. Whether hypocrisy or not, there is a very human, if lamentable, basis for not giving a damn when a crowd of country-western fans falls victim to uncontrolled guns — it’s the “they asked for it” syndrome, more commonly misapplied to victims of rape. However, the fact is that most country music fans oppose gun control, approve of the National Rifle Association’s lobbying efforts to keep guns flowing and firing, and the males of the species display their guns like peacock feathers while gathering in malls and fast-food joints. The good news is, as noted in several recent articles, that some of these fans are changing their minds now that they and their friends are the victims rather than inner-city black and brown people. As Balzac said, “Man is no angel. He is sometimes more of a hypocrite and sometimes less …”

James Luce ’66