OPINION:
Read the headlines for the last few weeks, few months, and it’s pretty steadfast: Gun sales are surging, first over fears about the coronavirus, then over fears about lawlessness and protests in the streets and police being pushed to the side for political expediency.
It’s a jungle out there. And if you’re a law-abiding American citizen — or even if you’re not — you must be counting blessings and praising founders right now for a little thing called the Second Amendment.
The more civil unrest grows, the more sensible the Second Amendment becomes.
“About 2 Million Guns Were Sold in the US as Virus Fears Spread,” The New York Times reported way back in April.
“Gun sales amid coronavirus pandemic spike 71% in April, Fox Business reported in May.
And from all the way across the ocean, the BBC, also in April: “How the coronavirus led to the highest-ever spike in US gun sales.”
It’s really very simple, you see.
“Americans grappling with the rapidly-spreading coronavirus purchased more guns last month than at any other point since the FBI began collecting data over 20 years ago,” the BBC wrote. “Why? … The first is the concern that civil society — fire, police and health services — could be severely ’eroded’ … leading to a breakdown in law and order. … The second reason is concerns over so-called big government infringing on American freedoms.”
Good reasons.
Sound reasons.
And now comes the third: Seattle. Democrats. CHOP. Get the picture?
Democrats in leadership positions are actually allowing civil unrest to foster, and violence and mayhem to go forth — even when they have tools at their disposal to put a stop to such chaos.
Even when they’re in positions of control and could send in police.
Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan, about the sorriest excuse for a mayor ever, actually sat and watched as thugs took over her city streets, drove out police, defaced the local police department building, installed cement barricades around a Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone and established an armed guard presence to keep out the undesirables, i.e., police — and then had the audacity, after people were shot and killed and injured within the lawless area, to say she was going to send the protesters packing but only by peace plan. No police allowed; no force, no tear gas, only talk.
Predictably, headlines then rang, “CHOP remains in place Sunday, protesters say they aren’t moving until demands met,” KOMO News wrote.
Richly, in a tit-for-tat, get-what-you-deserve kind of way, headlines then rang, “Protesters march to Seattle Mayor Durkan’s house as ’CHOP’ scene continues,” King5 NBC News wrote.
With such Keystone Cops — or Keystone Kops, as the fictional humorous incompetents are traditionally known — in charge like Durkan, no wonder gun sales are rising.
Hiking. Surging.
If police can’t keep law and order because the loony leftists are actively supporting the anarchists in the streets, what’s a poor law-abiding home- or business-owner to do?
That’s in large part what the Second Amendment is for, after all. The ultimate of citizens’ personal protections. The great equalizer. The right that puts the teeth to all the others — the private property protections, the right to be secure in self and home, the right to freely assemble and so forth.
“Gun and ammunition sales soar as defund-the-police movement grows,” The Mercury News reported, just a few days ago.
Quite right.
Comfort. Blessing.
When law and order break down, and civil society becomes anything but — Americans aren’t going to sit idly by and wait for the Democrats to finish their discussions with the anarchists. If anything speaks loud and clear on behalf of the Second Amendment right now, it’s the ongoing chaos in the streets.
Without the Second Amendment, all of America would be at the mercy of the anarchists.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
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