Don’t look now, but we seem to have a moral panic on our hands.

The term moral panic, at least as a social science concept, is relatively modern. It was coined by Stanley Cohen in the 1972 book “Folk Devils and Moral Panics.” Moral panics emerge when large numbers of people start to freak out about something that doesn’t warrant the freak out.

When I was kid, there was a moral panic over Dungeons and Dragons, the role playing game. It was sparked by the tragic suicide of a gamer and quickly led to various Christian groups insisting, in the words of one Georgia pastor, that “the game is an occult tool that opens up young people to influence or possession by demons.”

Moral panics are seductive to journalists. CBS News’ “60 Minutes” host Ed Bradley interviewed Gary Gygax, the creator of the game, in 1985, asking “If you found 12 kids in murder suicide with one connecting factor in each of them, wouldn’t you question it?”

Gygax responded, “I would certainly do it in a scientific manner, and this is as unscientific as you can get. It’s nothing but a witch hunt!”

Gygax was right, but it took a while for people to realize it.

History is full of similar episodes. Some were........

© The Saratogian