It has been over a month since George Floyd was killed in what by all accounts looks like an unwarranted case of police brutality.
Yet the violence hasn’t abated. Black Lives Matter demonstrations are still going on and some of them are still turning violent. Granted, there have been others who have died since Floyd’s death, which have helped to fan the flames; but much like the Ferguson demonstrations, after the death of Michael Brown, this doesn’t seem to be going away anytime soon.
I think it’s important to note that the violence that we’re seeing isn’t coming from the legitimate protesters. It seems rather clear that there have been agitators intentionally embedded in with the protesters, for the intent of turning things ugly. There have been rumors and reports of people being paid to be professional agitators, hired by organizations with connections to none other than George Soros, the billionaire who has vowed to bring the United States down.
This isn’t to say that those paid agitators are the only ones culpable in the riots. They are trained to get the crowd riled up, get the looting and destruction started, and then to slink away before they can get caught. So while they are the ones who are most guilty, they are rarely the ones who are caught.
According to the psychology of mob mentality, there’s something that happens to people in that type of environment, causing them to lose their individuality and replace their identity with that of the mob. When that happens, they do what the mob does, even if that goes against their normal inclination. Thus, many of the looters are first-time offenders, who have never been arrested for any crime before.
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Likewise, once the violence and destruction start, people will pick up on it and join in, even if they didn’t have any intention of participating in that violence. Some of that is a fear of not fitting in and being singled out by the mob and part of it is deep-rooted anger that was buried in the heart of the individual. It doesn’t even have to be anger over whatever the protest is about. The anger around them is contagious, sparking their anger into taking action.
Is it Revolution or Not?
There are many things going on in our nation today, which are revolutionary in nature. Tearing down of statues, renaming landmarks, destroying history, and breaking down traditional values are all common to revolutions. The question is, whether or not this is the beginning of a revolution or whether it is something else.
Just like there’s a difference between the demonstrators and the rioters, there’s also a difference between “black lives matter” and “Black Lives Matter.” The first, without capitals, is a cry of anguish, coming from the mouths of people who feel that their voice isn’t being heard and that their lives are being cut short by police brutality. While it may sound like an exclusionary statement to those of us who hear it shouted in anger, it isn’t. The implied “only” we hear at the beginning of the statement isn’t there. Rather, there is an implied “too” at the end of that statement, which we aren’t hearing.
Because of that, we respond to “black lives matter” with “all lives matter.” The voices crying in anguish don’t argue that, even though they aren’t articulating it well. They’re actually just asking that the rest of us acknowledge that they matter. The two cases mentioned above, those of George Floyd and Michael Brown, as well as the case of Trayvon Martin have made them feel like black lives don’t matter.
The BLM Organization
But as I said, “black lives matter” isn’t the same as “Black Lives Matter.” The first, as I mentioned is a cry of anguish; the second is the name of an organization. That organization, and its beliefs, are not the same as many of the people who are turning out for the demonstrations. Take a look at their statement of beliefs sometimes, it’s a real eye-opener; something to be concerned about.
If the organization has its way, we might very well see a revolution. Rumors have come out that the founders of the organization are trained Marxists. If that tidbit of information is true, then they could very well be collaborating with the violent element that is turning the protests into riots, while hiding that from the bulk of the protesters.
Some of the things in their mission statement support those rumors, specifically that they want to destroy the patriarchal practice and the nuclear family. According to a lot of statistical evidence, children of single-parent homes are five times more likely to end up in jail, five times more likely to commit suicide, nine times more likely to drop out of school, and 10 times more likely to become addicted to drugs. How can any organization which supports any group of people also support actions which will ultimately destroy them?
ANTIFA
Then there’s ANTIFA, the supposed anti-fascists who act like fascists. They’re a little harder to pin down than Black Lives Matter is, because they are a highly decentralized organization. That’s interesting in itself because it is a long-standing tactic of revolutionaries and terrorists. Establishing a cellular organization, without a central leadership that anyone can point to, makes the group much harder to battle against and destroy.
The ideas that ANTIFA espouses are anarchism, anti-authoritarianism, anti-capitalism, autonomism, communism, and socialism, according to the Wikipedia page about them. This clearly puts them at odds with the United States government, as well as the principles this nation was founded upon.
ANTIFA is actually the group that has fomented most of the violence we’ve seen in the protests. Ever since they raised their ugly heads, supposedly as a spinoff from the BLM movement, they have been involved in a constant string of violence, from riots to acts against individuals, many of whom were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The sad and funny thing about this is that ANTIFA is actually a fascist organization, demanding conformity. While ANTIFA and the political left, in general, have attributed fascism to the political right, it has always been the left which has pushed fascist policies, rather than the right. The left is the side that demands conformity, especially in ideas and speech, even though classic liberalism (which is distinctly different than progressivism) strongly supports the idea of freedom of speech.
The Move to Defund the Police
All this brings us to the current move to defund the police, something that has grown out of the recent protests. It appears this came from the Black Lives Matter movement, but did it really? Could it be that this movement actually came from the Marxist part of the BLM organization, rather than the organization itself? Could ANTIFA actually be the ones who are pushing it, rather than BLM? After all, ANTIFA is supposed to be the anarchists, not BLM. Or could there be more of a connection between the two organizations than I’m seeing?
One thing is clear; removing the police is a key component of anarchy. We’ve already seen that in Seattle. The mayor of the city went along with CHAZ, ordering the police to abandon their station. Anarchy instantly ensued and a warlord rose up to take control. It wasn’t until after the second murder and fourth shooting in CHAZ, by then renamed CHOP, that the mayor ordered the police back in.
Nature abhors a vacuum and anyone thinking that we can remove authority from our lives, without some other authority taking over, is a bit out of touch with reality. The big problem is that the authority which is likely to rise up in the absence of civil authority is not a benevolent authority by any means.
While not everyone who is calling for defunding the police is saying to disband the police, there are enough who are to be of concern. The City Council of Minneapolis has already voted to disband the police, seeking ways of replacing them with social workers and other services. In a similar vein, the city of Los Angeles has voted to reduce the police budget by $150 million.
Defunding the police will most likely hurt the people it is supposed to help, reducing community support in poorer parts of the city, the very same types of areas where the Michael Browns of the world come from. Violence will increase and people are already preparing for it.
The Consequences are Already Happening
The cries to defund the police may not be being heard in the halls of power, but they are being heard in streets and homes. June has broken all records for gun sales, with nearly four million background checks for the purchase of firearms. Many of these background checks have been for first-time gun buyers, some of whom have stated that they had previously been anti-gun, but have decided to buy guns because they felt that they weren’t safe and they needed to protect themselves.
While I applaud these people’s decision to take their personal protection into their own hands, it bothers me as well. From reports I’m hearing, few of those people know how to handle a gun safely, let alone how to shoot it accurately enough to defend themselves that they don’t put innocent bystanders in jeopardy.
Yet we live in a time when it is clear that we need to be ready to defend ourselves. According to the latest tally I’ve seen, 17 people have died due to the recent riots. I have no idea how many have been hospitalized. But it is clear that as long as we are going to have protests turn into riots, we are going to have people whose lives are in danger, usually innocent bystanders.
We see this in the case of the couple in St. Louis, Missouri who stood in front of their home, armed, to protect it from a group of several hundred protesters who broke down the gate of their private community in order to protest at the mayor’s house.
According to their own testimony, that couple, who have been dubbed “Ken and Karen” by the media, were afraid that their home was going to be burnt and they were going to be killed. They felt that they had to defend their very lives from that crowd of protesters. According to the law, their actions were in self-defense and therefore perfectly fine, although I personally disagree with the woman pointing her pistol at the crowd with her finger inside the trigger guard. That could have turned disastrous.
The reality is, that situation could easily have turned deadly for that couple. From what I could see from the pictures and what I read from the accounts, there were a number of the protesters who were angry with them for guarding their home. At least one of the protesters were armed, as indicated by him having loaded magazines in his hand. Chances are; others were armed as well.
This is the nation we live in today. None of us know when violence might erupt around us, and in the midst of this, there are those who want to take out Second Amendment rights away from us, while disbanding or at least defunding the organizations which are supposed to protect us. There can be only two possible motivations for this: to destroy the nation or to control it. Neither will work out well for us, the citizens of this great land.
I doubt the violence is going to end anytime soon. Hopefully, it won’t escalate more than it has, but there is no guarantee of that. Things could end up getting much worse before they get better. As long as there are those who are fanning the flames, the fire isn’t going to go out.
Add defunding the police to that, and you’ve got a very dangerous situation. One in which violent crime may run rapidly in some of our cities. At this point, there’s no way of telling how it will go. All we can do is make sure we’re ready for whatever happens. That means being ready to defend home and family.
If you aren’t already armed, you should be. If you don’t have enough ammo, buy some more. But more than anything, spend enough time at your local shooting range to become proficient. Once you’ve done that, then get some tactical training, so that you know how to move, how to act and how to react to the movement and actions of those who might be attacking you.
There’s a lot more to using a gun in self-defense than just picking it up and shooting. Knowing what to do and how to do it is much harder to learn than just learning how to shoot. But there’s no sense learning it until you can shoot and shoot well.
The other thing you need to do is decide if you really could shoot in such a situation. That’s mostly a mental exercise, but it’s one that you need to go through. If you don’t know that you can pull the trigger to defend your family, then you don’t want to be armed. Guns aren’t things to threaten people with, tying to intimidate them. Trying to do so is a good way to have your gun taken away from you and used against you. That’s definitely not what you want.
