U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “Smash-and-grab thieves attack stores around the country, California security guard shot dead as crime rages.” Fox News reports. “A former police officer was shot and killed while protecting a news crew reporting on a smash-and-grab incident.”
Part of it, The Hill reports, is facilitated by circumstances arising from Covid, because “[w]ith a significant portion of customers isolating in their homes and shifting to online shopping … perpetrators of organized retail crime are seizing the opportunity to sell stolen goods to a larger audience.”
There’s another factor making this attractive to predators.
“[A]sset protection professionals and law enforcement officials believe shifts in how shoplifting and other nonviolent crimes are prosecuted are factors in rising in-store theft in recent years,” The Hill explains. “According to the document, a number of states have increased the felony threshold for shoplifting due to overcrowding in prisons, which the report says is ‘effectively decriminalizing’ robberies in some areas.”
You can blame a lot of that in urban areas on “Soros prosecutors” who, per National Review, “are refusing to charge criminals for shoplifting, vagrancy, and entire categories of misdemeanors… In cities where they’ve taken office, progressive prosecutors coddle even violent, career criminals, often agreeing to sweetheart deals and routinely circumventing three-strikes laws.”
Yet in a neat bit of gaslighting, the public is being told that pointing out such truths equates with “the demonization of George Soros” and that any such criticism is “dripping with antisemitism.” That has the dual benefit of convincing much of the public that anyone who does is a hater and scaring most of the rest to just keep their mouths shut about it lest they be accused, ostracized and worse.
“Leniency” (that is, refusal to punish and excuse-making) on perpetrators is further encouraged and even justified by social influencers who equate it with legitimate protest in pursuit of social justice. No less a source than NPR, partially funded by Department of Education and Department of Commerce “grant” money, that is, repurposed tax plunder, and by “progressive” foundations overseen by billionaire elites, featured a sympathetic profile on In Defense of Looting, a book that argues “rioters who smash windows and take items from stores … are engaging in a powerful tactic that questions the justice of ‘law and order,’ and the distribution of property and wealth in an unequal society.”
NPR is hardly alone—more like they are parroting a narrative media elites and cultural Marxist agitators have succeeded in making a dominant one. A simple Google search yields headlines from major influencers, like The New York Times, asking, “What Kind of Society Values Property Over Black Lives?” and The Los Angeles Times echoing the “justifications” of “protestors” including “We’ve got no other way of showing people how angry we are,” almost immediately refuted by a fellow marauder admitting “We’re doing it because we can.”
You bet. Part of that is because the police can’t be there in time to stop it, and when they can be, they’re paralyzed to use the requisite force to stop it because they know the same leftist prosecutors who refuse to go after the looters and pillagers will put them behind bars if they do, as city “leaders” throw them under the bus, pay multimillion-dollar settlements, and pray their cities don’t burn.
That’s no way to run a constitutional Republic, and the Founders wouldn’t have stood for it. And there’s the rub.
Not only has the Militia of the whole people been deliberately kept from being, but the right of the people to keep and bear arms is also something no longer recognized in places like New York and L.A., and increasingly throughout the land.
Still, as “the newspaper (that’s intentional because it’s deserved) of record” asks, what kind of society values property over life? Or as the gun-grabber groups advise, if someone is using threats of violence to rob you, just give them what they want!
Once a threat of violence has been made, it’s no longer about just property. As for giving predators what they want, too often we’ve seen them brutally take the lives of victims who were trying to comply, leaving the only conclusion that that must have been what they wanted.
As an aside, old-timers will remember the story about Los Angeles watch store owner and jeweler Lance Thomas, who successfully defended his life and business against armed robbers on multiple occasions (I had the privilege of meeting him when he spoke at the Westside Los Angeles NRA Members Council meeting back in the 90s). We’ll get back to the rest of this column in a few minutes, but let’s take a break and watch this:
Anyway, back to the big rich stores being plundered: Yes, the businesses have insurance (which drives everybody’s costs up). And most of the big ones are “woke” anyway. True enough. It’s tough to not feel the karma for rope-selling capitalists. As for the smaller ones, the bourgeoisie as the Democrat Socialists of America call them, they’d better wake up and realize what the plan is for them, and that there’s nobody coming to help them.
That’s why it’s instructive to remind them of previous “struggles for justice” and to point out whose businesses weren’t looted and burned to the ground. As Townhall columnist Kurt Schlicter advocates, “We should all be ready to do our duty as American citizens and, when duty calls, each of us should embrace our inner Rooftop Korean.”
And naturally, the left has seized on citing this as another example of “white supremacism.”
You know what? They’re going to do that no matter what, so Americans who have earned what they have may as well defend it and stop caring what parasites and subversives say to prove their ignorance and/or advance the goals of despicable masters who hold themselves above the fray.
Just make sure to be able to prove you had no choice and be ready to be the next Kyle Rittenhouse. Still, as the saying goes, better to be judged by 12 than carried by six…
Despite that, the truth obvious to all but useful idiots for the violence monopolists is, a strong deterrent will minimize violence and loss of life, not to mention bring about real “social justice.” As Thomas Paine noted (and as too many have either forgotten or deliberately undermined):
“Thus the peaceable part of mankind will be continually overrun by the vile and abandoned, while they neglect the means of self defence. The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property … Horrid mischief would ensue were one half the world deprived of the use of them; for while avarice and ambition have a place in the heart of man, the weak will become a prey to the strong. The history of every age and nation establishes these truths, and facts need but little arguments when they prove themselves.”
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
