An Old Lesson We Keep Re-Learning
I am taking a moment to look back at a couple of relevant excerpts from Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War. One is a piece written written in in the aftermath of Hurricane Hugo, which raked the East Coast in 1989. The piece became what Dad used to call an “evergreen” piece that is always current.
The second was written in the middle of the Los Angeles riots of 1992. This one became especially relevant when Philadelphia announced that arrests for certain low-level crimes would be “delayed” during the current virus outbreak, and in almost the same breath, that firearms purchase checks would not be acted on by police.
It was in the Los Angeles madness that police gave rare acknowledgement to the fact that you, Dear Citizen, own your own security, defense, and survival. It is not the police department’s job to protect you personally. It was in those riots that the “Roof Korean” meme embedded itself in gun lore.
I included both pieces in Neal Knox – The Gun Rights War because they both bring such a simple, yet apparently hard-to-learn lesson: The Second Amendment exists to protect the security of a free state. To accomplish that end, the individuals who make up that state must be able to individually bear arms in defense of themselves, their family, and ultimately, their nation. To infringe on the right to arms — especially in a time of imminent threat — infringes on a human’s right to exist.
As I post this, we face a pandemic. At the moment, we are in a surreal calm before … something. No one knows how it will turn out. Our contingency playbooks are mostly geared toward localized, or at most, regional disasters. The only ones who had really thought about a global pandemic were those crazy preppers. You can tell them by their smug smiles as they watch the panic buying.
No one knows how this will play out because no one has been through it. We are fortunate to have power and communications, and the stores that are open with only spot shortages — for now. No one I know has gotten sick — yet. And, while I am doing my part to make sure I don’t get sick, I am less concerned about being sick than I am about people being stupid.
The really big concern for me is what stupid people may do when faced with a serious problem — such as store shelves that stay empty for a couple of weeks.
And that’s why, along with the modest inventory of extra groceries my wife and I have laid in against a contingency, I have also set aside a few extra boxes of ammo and keep a piece of hardware accessible. I hope you’re doing the same, and I especially hope that if you’ve made the decision to keep and bear arms, that you have also gotten the training to do it safely and effectively.
God bless us all, our nation, and the rest of the world. We will get through this. Let’s learn from the experience.