Shadows and Tall Trees

The only thing worse than the bigoted media is the mechanism by which people begin to convince themselves that what it prostrates is a permissible representation of reality. It's a waltz of back and forth, a symbiotic relationship where ratings both feed from and manipulate the culture's perceptions. It is the mechanism whereby a fictional exaggeration, the 'bumbling dad' for instance, influences the cultural perception of the typical, and whereby a tragic accident by negligence inspires hyper-vigilance that in turn creates hazards out of harmlessness.

How many children will be caught in the crossfire of those poised on the rooftops to protect them by shooting at shadows?

Shadows are a flat, formless non-entity, false representation of the thing casting them, and depending on where the sun is located, they are either significantly shortened (and therefore less frightening than their owners), or they are exaggerations--significantly enlarged. When it comes to children, every peg that could cause them to trip in the high grass casts a ten foot shadow in the media realm as if the sun were resting eternally on the horizon. Even if humanity matched the size of their fear with the size of the thing being feared, it would still be nothing but a fear of a shadow--a formless entity.

As for the child's shadow, it's safe to assume it's a perpetual noon, as the shadow of the child (considerably larger than the peg), has been inherited its shadow's shortness. We over-estimate dangers and under-estimate resolve. Adults fear the impediments more than they do the relative effects of a peg coming into contact with a child, and this is done on the basis that because it has been oft repeated, it must be true. This is called a fallacy. A shadow is still just empty air, fearing it will not intimidate that which is casting it.