In the Face of Lawlessness: Do What ??

Violence is climbing in several of our major cities, as you know, but it appears none more so than in Chicago.  Over the three-day Labor Day weekend, 51 people were shot with 10 of them dying, to include an 8-year-old girl innocently seated in an SUV at a stoplight. Then, the very next weekend, 54 people were shot in Chicago, leaving 12 dead including, this time, an 86-year-old person.

Since the vast majority of those in Chicago hit by gunfire were minorities, shot by each other, not by the police, it seems that all black lives don’t matter to BLM after all. If that organization really was concerned, then why wouldn’t they be doing a full-court-press on the target neighborhoods there to bring an end to the killing of, and by, their own?

Following “protesters” shutting down NYC’s George Washington Bridge over the weekend, and responding to the continuing violence around our nation, highly-respected former NYPD Commissioner Bernie Kerik had some, as always, very frank comments regarding, specifically, BLM: “This is an anti-government, anti-police Marxist movement that people are supporting because they’re ignorant.” We have to “educate the American public.  They have no conception of what this organization stands for.  They have no conception of who the leaders are, how they were inspired, what they believe. They have no idea.  So, the bottom line is you have to educate the American public on what (this) really is.”

Then, of course, came the attempted assassination of two LA County sheriff’s deputies as they sat in their patrol car, by an apparent lone gunman, “without warning or provocation.” Both deputies were hospitalized in critical condition, but thanks to the heroism of the female, also wounded, who somehow was quickly able to apply first aid to her partner, both are now expected to survive. The shooter was described only as a “dark skinned male.  An intense law enforcement search is on for the suspect.  Said LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva: “Every week across the nation, someone is losing their life in the line of duty.  It pisses me off, it dismays me at the same time. There’s no pretty way to say it.” Commenting, as well, on the LA deputies shooting, conservative activist Candace Owens was responding to a statement apparently made by Lebron James a couple of months ago, implying that black people are being “hunted” by white people, when she is reported to have said: “He’s (James) implying that white people are predators, that our law enforcement agents are predators, and that we are in a state of survival.  What we are seeing in LA is a natural progression of the left’s increasingly deranged rhetoric.  It breaks my heart.”

Now, in the midst of the ongoing violence and mayhem, and cries for de-funding, comes the first reported instance of the boomerang effect.  Surprise, surprise, in Minneapolis, where the protests-turned-to-riots first began, crime is on the increase, to include “daylight car-jackings, robberies, assaults, shootings and homicides, along with property crimes and arson.” And of course, then you have a chorus of residents demanding: “Where are the police?”

Well, if you’ll remember all the way back through our ever-menacing national dark cloud of municipal violence, the Minneapolis City Council, in their Progressive ‘wisdom,’ was the first to call for, and vote to approve, local police ‘defunding.’ Back in July, steps were taken there to begin the process of dismantling the city PD, including taking $1-million in budget dollars away from the police, and giving that money to the city’s health department to hire so-called “violence interrupters” who would be sent out in place of police officers to “defuse potentially violent situations.” Pretty sure those “interrupters” haven’t been fully hired and trained yet, but we do know that, for obvious reasons, several Minneapolis police officers have either taken leave or flat-out resigned from the force (to go and serve where they are wanted), just as the city has widely publicized plans to abandon them.

With citizens there now complaining in increasing number about the lack of police response, or even getting someone to answer their phone calls, predicted reality has hit the Minneapolis fan. Crimes up. Number of available police responders down. And who among the suggested social workers or clergy, amidst the city’s seriously clouded, make that, crazed thinking, would ever be willing to go out unarmed to “defuse potentially violent situations.” That politically driven pipe-dream would last only as long as it took for the first “interrupter” to be seriously injured or killed. It’s a pretty good bet that serious PD budget cuts, let alone defunding and abolishing the force (the raised-fist cry of leftist fools), will be put on hold as some element of common sense and/or the sharp-smack of reality occurs to Minneapolis’ city fathers, as well as to the public at large.

OK, now given these examples of continuing lawlessness and violence in numerous U.S. cities and the still-existing calls of the idiot-class to cut-back or eliminate the police, here comes the whopper, saved especially to round out this narrative dealing with just some of the mayhem that continues to plague way too many of our Progressively “led” cities.  If you have a seat belt, kindly fasten it now, because this next call for action, spoken by a prominent Progressive politician, defies belief.  Belted-in, here we go.  Massachusetts Democrat U.S. Senator Edward Markey reportedly has now actually called for moves that would effectively “disarm” the police!!  Wrote the Senator: “Portland police routinely attack peaceful protesters with brute force.  We must disarm these officers, and every police department in America, of weapons of war.”  He is also apparently supporting a ban on tear gas and the other non-lethal devices that police use for self-protection and for the protection of innocent community members who may be nearby. Along, then, with banning tear gas nationwide, he would also prohibit the use of “rubber bullets and bean bag rounds.”

Said the Senator: “Our streets are not meant to be battlefields, and law enforcement shouldn’t be using weapons of war against our protesters and other Americans. Law enforcement’s use of tear gas also compounds the effects of structural racism, because we know communities of color are already suffering disproportionately during this global respiratory pandemic.”

Do what??  Remove law enforcement’s defensive equipment and the established and proven non-lethal means for attempting to restrain and break-up out-of-control crowds? And who again, exactly, is turning our streets into “battlefields.”  It’s the out-of-control rioters, not the brave responding law enforcement officers!  As a brief aside, notice that he also seems to be suggesting that tear gas exposure (the fault of the radicals) somehow aggravates coronavirus symptoms within “communities of color?”  OK, back to the core issue: How exactly would he propose to restore community safety in the face of radical mobs who, around the country, have now moved well beyond the originally-portrayed “peaceful protester” stage?  He offers no suggestion for public protection.

To be polite, this is all absolute life-threatening nonsense.  And it gives you a preview of how a Progressive government would think and function: set aside the rule of law, clamp down on the citizenry.  Only the good people would lose their guns.  In essence, transition from citizen freedom to totalitarian power and control.

So here’s an idea for the Senator: First, have all of the guns, and other “weapons of war” removed from all the ‘bad guys’ and other lawless individuals across the nation and prevent them from ever becoming re-armed.  Second, prohibit guns from all non-federal politician and political-appointee security teams, and the same requirement (no guns) for all entertainer/celebrity private security personnel.  There, then we can discuss the status of protective weaponry in the hands of law-enforcing police officers and deputies, being used, legally, to protect themselves, as well as aiding in the prevention of public/private property destruction, along with, of course, assisting their fellow citizens in the face of danger.  Seems like we’re hearing crickets.

 

ADDENDUM #1 Minneapolis: Believe it or not, there apparently is a contained, occupied “autonomous zone” in the city (shades of Seattle).  According to a city statement: “The city is in negotiations with people occupying the zone and is working toward a phased reopening of the area sometime before winter.”  Negotiating to take back a part of their own city!  So charmingly Progressive.

ADDENDUM #2 Christine Todd Whitman: The former Republican governor of New Jersey, who would appear to be, despite her party affiliation, not a fan of President Trump. She is apparently not happy with the way the municipal riots have been handled. Said she: “The fact that we were actually deploying U.S. troops against U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, but were looking to use weapons, (that’s) the kind of thing that makes your skin feeling like it’s burning off. This is America.  This is not Russia.  This is not North Korea.  And we’re headed down that path.”  There’s your hyperbolic quote for the day.  We should note, as you know, that National Guard troop use must be initially authorized by the respective state governor, not the White House. An active duty Army unit was called up by the President on stand-by, but don’t believe those soldiers actually became engaged.  Siberian gulag here we come.

 

(Chicago Labor Day data via dailycaller.com, Jake Dima, 9-8-20; Chicago next weekend data via dailycaller.com, Jake Dima, 9-15-20; Kerik quote via foxnews.com, Angelica Stabile, 9-13-20; Villanueva quote via foxnews.com, Brie Stimson, 9-13-20; Owens quote via dailycaller.com, Scott Morefield, 9-15-20; Minneapolis defund data via foxnews.com, Megan Henney, 9-16-20; Markey quote via breitbart.com, Ashley Oliver, 9-14-20; Markey “battlefields” quote via justthenews.com, Sophie Mann, 9-14-20; Minneapolis ‘zone’ data via KSTP.com, Jay Kolls, 9-17-20;  Whitman quote via breitbart.com, Pam Key, 9-17-20).