Personally, when I hear “lawlessness” I don’t take it to mean that it’s thunder dome all over.

I think if it more in the sense of “are laws being enforced?”

And, like, sure it’s not like no laws are being enforced but enforcement is pretty darn minimal.

I live here, I go about my day, and I’m not particularly concerned about my personal safety, but are the cops gonna do anything to help my friend whose car got stolen? Nope. How about anything about the blatant drug dealing that’s been happening on the corner for years? Also nope. The smoking and drug use on the El? Nope. Has the person who car jacked my neighbor been caught? Nope. Have they arrested anyone for a majority of the homicides? Nope.

So like, do I expect to get shot or robbed or whatever when I take my family out for dinner tonight on a patio?

No, not really. It’s not non-stop murder out there (although matching the homicide rate if Cartagena, Colombia isn’t really a source of civic pride either.)

But…we all know that a ton of laws are not being enforced, and I don’t think “lawlessness” is that terribly of a word choice to express this situation of widespread non-enforcement of laws, even if it’s not total chaos and mayhem out on the streets.