Panic (Bloodlands collection)

by Harold Schechter

A distinguishing feature of moral panics is that the fear they provoke is far out of proportion to any actual threat.

Empirical evidence, however, has little effect on irrational belief. A few terrible crimes are all it takes to set a moral panic in motion.

In the case of Ossido, McCartney made a suggestion that foreshadowed today’s heated debate about

“extreme vetting” of immigrants. “Ossido probably showed, fifteen years ago, that he was potentially a pervert,” McCartney observed. “He might have been weeded out by the immigration authorities when he presented himself for entrance into this country.”[10]

While praising Mayor La Guardia’s proposal as a “good, practicable and lawful plan”