Yeah, much has been written in the past week or two about how Oregon is misguided and it’s a knee jerk reaction. Similar to how a (relatively) small spike in violent crime recently has caused many states to introduce harsh penalties. Our crime rates are nothing like in the 80s anyway
The availability heuristic at work. Media attention (including social media) draw attention to more extreme examples of crime, and people then perceive these events as being more likely because they are more readily accessible to the mind.