No one mentions it, but there has been a gigantic improvement in the reaction to crime on television. When I was young and snakes had feet, you would regularly see a family whose child had been brutally murdered tearfully talking about the poor murderer.

Granted a lot of parents weren’t that forgiving, but only the ones who were got on TV.

In the 1960s when the dog-trained, dog-faced WWII Generation was middle aged and at its height of power, anyone who protected himself with a gun was condemned. The few times when someone was shown resisting attack in any way, especially by having a gun, the whole reporting process stopped for a lecture on how only a guy in a police costume should resist violence.

In fact, like the families loving the killer of their child or daughter the standard fare of TV reporting would be astounding today. The police, in their costumes the WWII Generation worshiped, had a standard lecture that sounded like this: If a robber wants anything, give it to him. Grovel and grovel and grovel. Ask him to come home with you and rape your daughter.

The cops have UNIFORMS on. Only they are Magic.

Today they even suggest that, instead of giving your wallet to an armed robber, you should throw it under something so he has to dig for it while you get away. For TV in the 1960s this would have been pure heresy.

“Be NICE. Let the COPS handle violence against you. It’s none of your business.”

This is an area in which America and Europe are on opposite tracks. In Europe every year more judges and legislatures pass more laws making it clear that the citizen cannot object, cannot defend himself, cannot have a weapon.