'An armed society is a polite society'

December 13, 1:56 PMDallas Libertarian ExaminerGarry Reed

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Poster from a-human-right.com (source: © Oleg Volk and A-Human-Right)

Alderman Charles Quincy Troupe told the citizens in his north St. Louis ward to arm themselves to protect their lives and property from escalating crime because police are “ineffective, outnumbered or don't care.” (original AP article here)

Troupe claims that when he and fellow residents approached a district police commander last year, "there was nothing he could do to protect us and the community ... that he didn't have the manpower."

Always, there is never enough money. Double, triple, quadruple the money and there will always never be enough money for bureaucrats to do their jobs. Just ask every inner city public school district in the United States over the past 50 years or so. Double, triple, quadruple the money and there is still always never enough money to educate your kids and protect them from violence.

But the city’s all-wise, all-knowing, all-important, politically correct officialdom lined up in immediate knee-jerkedly unison behind the district commander.

First, the Chief of Police told the Post-Dispatch that he doesn’t support citizens arming themselves because armed citizens are not a “recipe for a less violent community.”

No? It was libertarianism’s favorite classic science fiction writer, Robert A. Heinlein, who observed, “An armed society is a polite society.”

Or consider this from a New York Times column quoting Roger McGrath who studied dozens of Western mining camps and towns: "It was a rather polite and civil society enforced by armed men," Dr. McGrath said. "The rate of burglary and robbery was lower than in American cities today. Claim-jumping was rare. Rape was extraordinarily rare - you can argue it wasn't being reported, but I've never seen evidence hinting at that."

None of which prevented the Mayor from claiming, without offering any evidence, that “most violent crimes in Troupe’s ward are committed with guns stolen from law-abiding citizens.”

In other words, it’s the victim’s fault.

But if hizzoner’s claim is true, the answer is for law-abiding citizens to band together and teach one another gun-proficiency, like how to keep their guns on their person at all times, how to point and shoot quickly and accurately, how to spot potential thugs and be ready, physically and mentally, to protect themselves. If law-abiding citizens are having their guns stolen they just haven’t been trained properly.

But the Mayor’s great panacea is to urge residents to cooperate with investigating police officers (after they’ve been beaten, shot or knifed to death?), support activities for children, lobby legislators to increase funding for job training programs and economic development. All things, incidentally, that require doubling, tripling and quadrupling taxes.

This is the typical response of the socially sensitive whiners who think that ritualistically going through the communally approved motions of confronting the alleged “causes” of crime in society, (early potty training distressed my psyche, Daddy didn’t hug me often enough) will prevent crime. These are people who have never actually been beaten to a bloody pulp by a thug. Meanwhile, confronting a thug with a .45 slug or ten will actually work wonders.

The next politically correct civic leader, a local university criminologist, wisely propounded that arming citizens “is not likely to be effective.”

Really? Here’s just a small sampling of evidence to the contrary:

Arizona – A resident shot the suspected burglar twice after the suspect forced his way into the house by kicking the front door in.

Florida - A man and woman were sleeping inside the home when an intruder came in and startled them. The man took protective action and shot the intruder twice.

South Carolina - A man shot the burglar as he was coming through a bedroom window.

Texas - An off-duty Dallas police officer shot a man who broke into his house. A Fort Worth homeowner shot and killed a man who broke into a donut shop next to his house. A man suspected of burglary at a Deep Ellum business was fatally shot. A North Richland Hills man shot an intruder. A 76-year-old Oak Cliff man defended himself with a shotgun.

These examples are nationwide and endless.

Still, the Prof further illuminated the common rabble by claiming that a belief in “putting guns in the right hands will have an influence on criminals is a false hope. There's no evidence for that."

Perhaps the book, More Guns, Less Crime by Legal scholar John Lott, which "presents the most rigorous and comprehensive analysis ever done on crime statistics and right-to-carry laws" which "reaches a startling conclusion: more guns means less crime" should be required reading in our criminologist's classroom.

All of which begs this question: why does it always seem to take a libertarian to see through the B.S. and call it like it really is? The city of St. Louis, like all cities everywhere, are sending this message to its least important, throw-away residents:

“You must pay your taxes to us so we can protect you from crime, except of course we can’t protect you from crime since our money and manpower are being used to protect more important people elsewhere in the city, like District Commanders and Police Chiefs and Mayors and University Professors, and we certainly don’t want you to protect yourself because we are all hoplophobes* so what you should do is play useless warm fuzzy feel-good politician-approved games like creating activities for children and lobbying legislators and increasing funding for job training programs and economic development which serves only to perpetuate the myth that politicians are important but otherwise does absolutely nothing about today’s thugs who are beating and carjacking and robbing and raping you. And, by the way, you must keep paying your taxes to us so we can keep not protecting you.”

Maybe this will be a future news lead:

North Ward, St. Louis – When a vicious rapist with a gun burst into her home Marylou quickly wrote out a check to help fund children's activities and threw it at the intruder.

So here’s a challenge to the civic minded and socially responsible do-gooders of St. Louis: if you really want to help, start raising money to buy guns and ammo for the poor, and organize firearms training programs, and build a privately-funded Citizens Shooting Range in the heart of the north ward.

The crime rate will plummet and you’ll feel good about yourselves.

(*hoplophobe: A person who is afflicted with an irrational fear of firearms – The Urban Dictionary)