the nature of random violence considering our readiness to talk and worry about random violence, we give surprisingly little thought to what the term implies. warnings about the threat of random violence rarely define the term; instead, they illustrate the problem's nature with typifying examples. these examples can be highly melodramatic: there is an "ideal victim" - usually a respectable person engaged in some innocent activity - who suffers a sudden, unexpected, unprovoked, violent attack by an assailant with no connection to the victim, no good reason to hurt this person in this way. often the particular example chosen to illustrate the problem is especially horrifying. consider the first paragraph in a newsweek story on carjackings: pamela basu had no reason to believe she was in danger. the 34-year-old research chemist was driving her daughter, sarina, to pre-school on a warm morning last september when two young men approached her gold bmw at a stop sign one block from her suburban maryland home. they forced her from the car and sped away, but basu's left arm became ensnared in the harness strap of her seat belt. she was dragged for nearly two miles as her assailants swerved into a barbed-wire fence in an apparent attempt to dislodge her. before finally ridding themselves of the fatally injured woman, they stopped to toss her 22-month-old daughter from the car. she was found, miraculously unhurt, still strapped in her car seat. (turque 1992)
DEUS VULT