If you’ve been paying attention to folks supporting the black lives matters activity in recent months — both the peaceful and non peaceful protests — at this point, you’re likely to have seen the articles pointing to the study that concludes most of the protests are peaceful. Personally, I think its great that we can say most of them are peaceful because, after all, that is citizens utilizing their first amendment rights appropriately and is something to be celebrated as parts of our constitution are exercised and working for we, the people. One such supporter put this note in my feed recently:
“The study, officially titled “Demonstrations & Political Violence in America: New Data for Summer 2020” tracked “more than 10,600 demonstration events across the country” between late May and the end of August. It found that “over 10,100 of these — or nearly 95% — involve peaceful protesters. Fewer than 570 — or approximately 5% — involve demonstrators engaging in violence.”
What’s more, the report concluded that “in many urban areas like Portland, Oregon, for example, which has seen sustained unrest since [George] Floyd’s killing, violent demonstrations are largely confined to specific blocks, rather than dispersed throughout the city.”
To the point of bemoaning the violent protests, I have already written about the ways in which I perceive non peaceful protests do undermine the causes they assert they are supporting and how peaceful protestors ought to distance themselves from the non peaceful ones because it is not just the media or GOP who find this behavior concerning. Yes — surely it’s a fantastic thing to see that about 10,100 protests were peaceful and in alignment with our values as a country. This is a fantastic example of how our system really does work and allow an opportunity for the people to step up and make their voices heard en masse and, in my opinion, is one of the cornerstones of this fantastic country.
That said, I find myself disturbed that more people are not disturbed that 5% of 10,600 protests weren’t peaceful. Consider the math for a moment. The protests occurred between the end of May and August, thus in roughly a 3 month period. The numbers in this study indicate that over 500 protests in 3 months were non peaceful protests and were in some way not in accordance with our constitution and laws.
5% may not seem like a large number, and I would say that is a relative and subjective perspective. Comparatively, in the USA, gun deaths by so called “assault weapons” comprise less than 5% of the homicides each year and yet people — typically on the same side of the aisle supporting these non peaceful protests — want so called common sense gun laws to include bans on these weapons. In fact, looking at the 2018 homicide numbers, rifles — not all of which are of the variety that are labeled at “assault weapons” — account for 297 out of the 14,123 deaths. 297 (as compared to 500) vs 14,123 (as compared to 10,600) has enough outrage that laws are made against the rifles in one case while people are condoning the non peaceful protests, clamoring they are mostly peaceful. What’s worse is that the 2018 rifle statistics are for a full year and the protest numbers are for a mere 3 months. 
From my perspective, the concern seems understandable. To frame it as a republican issue or talking point seems to show a lack of consistency from the left who on the one hand want to limit these rifles which are objectively causing less incidents while they concurrently want to sit there and condone the non peaceful protests. I said as much to my friend who unfortunately had nothing substantial to contribute in response:
I responded again pointing out another instance where citizens show concern for numbers even smaller than 5%: The San Francisco shut down put 1300 of 2500 store fronts out of business and caused 194,000+ people to be unemployed (so far and we aren’t even close to being out of lockdowns yet) to protect a smaller percent of the population. It’s also evident in San Francisco when you consider the impact of the needle exchange program which is designed to “protect” less than 3% of the population from IV drug use and HIV spreading in that manner and yet, the consequences led to a reduced quality of life for the entire city as well as an increase in homelessness and biohazardous waste.
Our subjective thresholds for what isn’t and is acceptable will vary. While some people may be comfortable with 500 non peaceful protests, that doesn’t mean other people will have the same comfort and certainly doesn’t relegate the concern to media or GOP hype.
I found it odd my friend characterized my response as he did — to call it cognitive dissonance to have concerns about more violent protests than there are days in the year and at this point more than 2 per day during the days in which they occured seems equally like cognitive dissonance to me. Such a strange world we live in where the same statistics can lead two people to the opposite conclusions while both see the other’s response as cognitive dissonance.