Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
There can be some strange thinking at work in this country, especially lately. In particular, the idea that the best way to protest what you see as an unjust action and protect your community is to burn it to the ground.
I’m never really going to understand that one.
To be fair, nothing about the video that has surfaced paints the Minneapolis Police Department in a positive light, nor should it. However, people rampaging through the city isn’t likely to improve the situation in the long run.
Yet it’s not the first time we’ve seen riots, especially over perceived racial injustice. Recently, we’ve seen rioting in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, but for me, the definitive riot of my lifetime were the L.A. riots following the Rodney King incident. One of the memes that still survives to this day are the “Roof Koreans.” Those were men and women who used their Second Amendment rights to protect their businesses from rioters.
Well, not everyone in Minneapolis was rioting. Some were making a stand not unlike the Korean shop owners in L.A.
That’s right, good guys with guns tried to protect businesses.
Two men decided to utilize their Second Amendment rights to prevent people from looting nearby stores.
“Basically, you’ve seen the records the cops keep and the cops are a lot less likely to tread on people’s rights when there’s other armed Americans with them. So we figured it’s about damn time – or at least I figure it’s about damn time – for some heavily armed rednecks stood with fellow citizens,” the one man explained.
The two men were asked why they were protecting the particular businesses they were in front of. They said they had been patrolling businesses nearby and ended up in that parking lot because the smoke shop was closed but the owners were having the defend their business.
“We heard that and figured ‘Well, we better get up and go see if these guys need help,’” the second man said, pointing to the smoke shop behind him. “It turns out these guys are out here with machetes and trying to keep looters out of their business because the cops can’t get out here. And so, I figured, before there were cops there were Americans. So here we are.”
Here’s a video of the gentlemen in question.
WATCH: Armed citizens are attempting to stop looters in Minneapolis
“Before there were cops, there were just Americans. So, here we are.”
“Justice for Floyd but we don’t support looting…”@maxnesterak
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) May 28, 2020
These two armed citizens make it clear that they don’t actually disagree with the protests. They think what happened to George Floyd was uncalled for and unjust. They support justice for what transpired.
They just don’t agree with looting and destroying businesses.
Sorry, but I can’t really find anything wrong with that. Especially since my take as that they’d be willing to protect the protestors too.
“Leave it to the cops,” some might say, which is fine. Where are they? As noted in the video, the police can’t make it out there. So just how are they going to stop anyone from doing anything? You can’t leave it to the cops when there aren’t any cops around to leave it to.
Frankly, I’m glad these guys were there and were able to provide at least some protection for those businesses. As it is, we’ve got a virus doing enough damage to the economy that the last thing we need is to destroy small businesses already reeling from disaster.
Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/
https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2020/05/28/armed-citizens-minneapolis/