Opinion
Arizona -(Ammoland.com)- – On 24 November 2018, at 5783 East Limoges Drive in Columbia, Missouri, Ahmonta Harris was shot and killed. Harris was a popular community leader who considered politics as a career. He was 26 years old. From columbiamissourian.com:
“It takes action to get things done,” he was quoted as saying in a January 2017 article about community members working toward positive change.
He was involved with the plans to create a community center in the city’s north neighborhood, referring to himself as a community leader who knew the area, he said in a February 2017 article.
In 2012, Harris served as a panel member at a Silence the Violence forum in which he shared his experience with violence in Columbia. Harris aimed to be a role model for the city’s youth, he said in an article about residents coming together to promote awareness of crime in the city.
Most people in the United States believe human life has value; most think it is wrong to steal, rape, and murder. Those attitudes are the result of a long struggle against human nature, to build Western Civilization based on Judeo-Christian values. It is an outlier in human history. Yet, most of us take it for granted.
The most dangerous people are those who have not accepted the core values of our society. To them, people outside their inner circle have no value, except as a resource to be used and consumed. They camouflage themselves to look like “normal” people. They are looking for opportunities to prey on the unwary.
Massad Ayoob writes, in The Truth About Self Protection, the best analogy for career criminals is werewolves. From page 4-5, in my paperback edition:
To most of you, criminals are as alien as supernatural beings. The best analogy is with werewolves.
Werewolves look like an ordinary person in most circumstances. But inside is an extremely dangerous predator who will kill and victimize without conscience.
Ahmonta Harris was an exceptionally dangerous person. He was killed by his intended victim during an armed invasion of an occupied house. The second story window in the home had been left open 3-4 inches. Harris likely noticed this as an opportunity to victimize and steal. He waited for a dark night, parked his girlfriend’s car out of sight of the house, left his cell phone (turned off) and wallet in the car, put on black sweat pants and black hooded sweater, gloves, mask, and black sneakers.
Harris had no adult criminal record. Evidence was found where he had scaled the outside of the home to access the roof and the second story window. Missouri Weather on 18 November 2018, was overcast and drizzly. It would have been very dark at 11 p.m. The house is in the city; there may have been a little light from other lights in the neighborhood.
According to the Prosecutor’s report, Harris entered through the window, accosted the occupant of the bedroom, Deonte Gainwell, and demanded money while targeting Gainwell with the laser sight on Harris’ personal Glock 26 9mm handgun.
Records show Harris had purchased the Glock legally in 2017, at a gun shop in Columbia. Most criminals know not to use a firearm that can be traced back to them. In this case, it did not matter.
Harris’ victim, 20-Year-Old Deonte Gainwell, also had a pistol, a Glock 23, in .40 caliber. The bedroom was very dark. When Deonte told Harris he did not have any money; Harris worked the slide on his Glock 26. It may have been meant to intimidate Deonte. It was a clear and deadly threat. Instead, Deonte shot Harris multiple times, killing him.
On Harris’ Facebook page, Harris openly glorified crime and lawlessness.
From facebook.com/amonta.harris:
Y’all laughing at them for stealing $1,900 worth of merchandise from Hibbit but I’m low key pissed. I know them muthafuckas had some shit i can fit. I got love for good,fearless boosters. I say we chip in and bond those innocent citizens out. Not all heroes wear capes. They just wear stolen shit. Somebody tell Jabe that I’ll buy all them “one thangs” from em but the price go down since he in jail.
Less than two months later, on 17 January 2019, Deonte Gainwell, who defended himself from Harris, was murdered. Below, he defended himself from accusations he had murdered Harris. From columbiatribune.com:
Gainwell identified himself on Facebook as the shooter of Harris, during what he said was a self-defense killing during a home invasion Nov. 24 in the 5700 block of Limoges Drive.
“I set some shit up cuz mfs ran in my momma’s house thinking I was a (explicative)?” Gainwell wrote in a Dec. 5 post responding to accusations from Harris’ father. “Sorry that it had to be neighborhood hero but he shouldn’t have been in my momma’s house.”
“He was found dead in my mama’s shit with gloves on, blacked out outfit and a mask and gun next to his body,” Gainwell wrote. “Stop slandering my name. Buddy got caught with his hand in the wrong cookie jar.”
The Prosecutor released the report showing the extensive investigation that vindicated Deonte Gainwell’s self-defense shooting of Ahmonta Harris. The report was released on 23 January 2019, six days after Deonte had been murdered.
Ahmonta Harris was well liked in his community. His criminality was not well hidden; he openly admired criminals on his facebook page.
We will never know how many people Ahmonta Harris victimized without being caught. It is highly unlikely the home invasion/attempted robbery was his first rodeo. We know Harris will not victimize others in the future.
If you have many Ahmonta Harris types in a community, the rule of law is severely compromised. Private justice, the vendetta, and endless retaliatory violence predominate. Harris did not need to steal to eat. He had a decent job with the City of Columbia. He wrote that people leading the “thug life” should have life insurance, to make their families well off if they were killed. Maybe he didn’t know that life insurance policies routinely exclude deaths that happen while performing illegal activities.
Our society has been exceptionally successful at instilling respect for the rule of law. It is hard for most people to realize other people exist who do not value human life. People to whom others are simply prey to be used for whatever value they can gain. Historically, people who do not value others outside their tribe are not unusual. They are the default setting for the human condition. Throughout the vast experience of humanity, the willingness to prey upon, kill, rape, and enslave others outside your tribe, is the norm.
Every human child is a wild animal who must be taught the norms of civilization, family values, and morality if civilization is to endure. We destroy the time-proven institutions of family, church, and culture at our peril. When we do so, we produce more werewolves who do not value those outside their inner circle. In evolution, this comes from the instincts of the killer ape. In Christianity, it is an original sin. The werewolves and thugs are not products of our culture. They are failures of our culture to transmit values that made us the most successful culture on the planet.
“Thug culture” has its etymological origins in the cult of Thugee, which use to exist in the Indian subcontinent. The Thugs did not value human life outside of their circle. Humans who were not Thugs were merely prey, to be murdered and robbed with efficiency, as a religious duty, and as a sport. Thugs would befriend travelers until the most advantageous circumstance were arranged. They would murder groups of travelers with ruthless efficiency. Their religion required them to murder and steal.
One of the great achievements of British rule in India was the eradication of Thugee.
Inner city gangs are proto-tribes who do not value the lives of outsiders. Neighborhoods from which police are removed see murder rates skyrocket.
To protect yourself from the werewolves and thugs in our society, you need to realize they exist.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30-year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.