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There is a possibly apocryphal story about an elderly lady interviewed by the media.  She was a gun owner, being well provisioned with rifles and handguns, and a shocked reporter asked: “what are you afraid of?”  She replied: “Not a damned thing.”

Regular readers, and others that have been mostly conscious for the last year, know Americans are buying guns at an unprecedented pace and in unprecedented numbers.  Despite Democrats/Socialists/Communists wailing that most of these new guns are being bought by systemically racist, white supremacist, domestic terrorist gun nuts who already own huge arsenals of “assault” everything, the truth won’t stay down.  Most new gun purchases are made by people who have never before owned guns: Black Americans, women, LGBTQWERTY types, Asians, Hispanics, you name the group; they’re buying guns—and ammo when they can find it.  The Washington Examiner reports:

As Democrats and President Joe Biden continue to promote gun control instead of targeting those who commit violent acts, people in May continued to flood gun stores, giving the month the record for FBI background checks.

The latest FBI data suggest that 2021 will be another record year for background checks and sales, topping the nearly 40 million checks in 2020.

One eye-popping statistic: 2021 looks to double the number of background checks and sales of 2015, when 23 million checks were conducted. While not a one-to-one match, background checks track gun sales. Background checks are also conducted in some instances for security clearances and concealed carry permits.

Keep in mind a single background check may indicate the sale of a single gun of any type, but many such checks are done for people buying multiple guns at the same time.  Ten background checks might account for 18 firearms or more.

Still, the record pace shows the growing popularity of weapons. Gun stores and industry officials said the surge is being driven by minorities and women concerned about their safety as they see violence, especially in urban areas, increase. [skip]

‘There has never, not once, been an accepted study that correlated increased violent crime with increased gun sales. In fact, it’s been proven over and over again that an armed populace is a polite populace. Criminals, for the most part, do not acquire their guns legally,’ said Justin Anderson, the marketing director for Hyatt Guns of Charlotte, North Carolina, one of the nation’s biggest gun stores and a regular gun analyst for Secrets.

By “accepted study,” Anderson means a scientifically valid, reproducible, study.  Actual science is being done by researchers in this area.

‘The reason gun sales are going through the roof is simple: Law-abiding citizens are afraid. They are afraid of violent crime. They are afraid of the lawlessness that has been spread by riotous criminals. They are afraid of an inept and tyrannous government. In essence, people are starting to realize what most gun owners have known for years: You are your own first responder and that when seconds count, the police are only minutes away,’ he added.

D/S/Cs often ridicule gun owners, and particularly first time gun buyers as driven by fear.  They do this as part of their narrative: “evil republicans are trying to make the public afraid.  Embrace the D/S/C agenda and we will deliver a fear free utopia, where perfect social justice–and equity of course–will reign!”  A part of this deranged, fairy dust and unicorn farts argument is to trust the police—the professionals—who will protect you.  Yes gentle readers, that would be the very police D/S/Cs are working every day to emasculate and abolish while simultaneously doing away with bail, opening the prisons, opening the borders to all manner of criminals, and generally refusing to prosecute criminals in the first place, particularly D/S/C rioters and other assorted vermin.

Fear, however, is not only a good thing–something to be embraced and mastered–it’s absolutely necessary.  Fear is a gift from God, part of our genetic endowment.  It is the engine of self-preservation, the warning that alerts us to danger.  It is only when we allow unreasoned and unreasonable fear to rule us—individually and collectively—that it becomes destructive.  We’ve all seen, for the last year or so, how that works, and just how eager D/S/C despots are to manipulate fear to deny us our liberties, indeed, decent, happy lives.

Learning I was a police officer, people often ask me if I was afraid.  Of course I was.  However, police officers are frightened so often they learn how to deal with it.  This too is a part of becoming an adult, a fully functioning human being: recognizing the fear response for what it is and controlling it rather than allowing it to control us.

There is a substantial difference, however, between being unreasonably fearful and rationally recognizing and preparing for actual threats.  Wearing a paper mask that cannot prevent the passage of viruses is unreasonable fear.  Recognizing that evil exists and exists to harm the good is not.  Crime rates, due to D/S/C policies which include advocating for criminals, hamstringing the police, and trying to establish a socialist/communist one-party state in general, are skyrocketing, particularly in D/S/C ruled states and cities.  Any fear about being victimized by criminals—to say nothing of politicians—particularly in those places, is as reasonable as it gets.

We must also be aware the police have no legal obligation to protect any individual citizen.  Go here for a 2011 article I wrote for PJ Media that explains that particular reality.  Yes, the police—when their political masters allow it—very much want to protect people, it’s a large part of why they took the job, but there are few of them—fewer all the time–many of us, and if the police could be sued for failing to protect everyone, what city could possibly afford a police force?  Who, knowing they’d be sued daily, would become a police officer?

Oh yes: D/S/Cs also want to remove any kind of immunity from police officers.  The only possible result: no sane person would ever become a police officer; it would be a back door abolishment of all police.  Why would anyone want that?  To establish a federal police force.  That’s really scary.

One should also be aware, as I wrote in 2017, the police, for the most part, are not highly competent with their weapons.  Many citizens, in training and practice, far outstrip the police in weapons competence.

The old saw: “when seconds count, the police are minutes away,” is unquestionably true, and even more so today.  In many cities, police response time to actual, life and death, emergencies is in the range of an hour–when they’re able to respond at all.  Keeping in mind that no police agency has the number of officers it actually needs, even in towns that aren’t suffering from far below necessary staffing levels, response time can be ridiculously long.  In rural areas, people are used to hour or longer response times.  There are very few deputies, fewer still highway patrolmen, and huge stretches of land to cover.

The truth is—the truth has always been—we’re on our own.  We can’t count on the police, or anyone else, to protect us.  Recognition of this reality isn’t a matter of unreasonable fear, but a matter of reasonable self-preservation.  What does this say about those that labor ceaselessly to disarm us?  Do our lives mean anything to them?  Should one of us die at the hands of a criminal due to insane D/S/C policies, will they feel badly?  Will their consciences be, for a moment, burdened by their role in our demise at the hands of vicious criminals?  Will they even recognize they had a role?

Of course not.  Government has no conscience.  It cares nothing for the life of any individual, and it has enacted laws that prevent survivors from holding them accountable for their malice and incompetence. It pretends to care for certain favored groups momentarily, politically helpful, but they too are thrown under the political bus when they’re no longer useful.  This is why Joe Biden welcomed the survivors of George Floyd, a convicted violent felon, addict and all around terrible human being, to the White House, and also why he would never so welcome the survivors of innocent victims of felonious violence.  Government is also outraged when its efforts to deny fundamental liberties are, no matter how temporarily, thwarted, as The Reload reports:

AR-15 Carbine variant

A federal judge ruled Friday [06-04-21] that California’s ‘assault weapons’ ban is unconstitutional.

The court found the state’s ban on the sale of AR-15s and other popular rifles violated the Second Amendment. Judge Roger Benitez ruled the guns targeted by California are in common use. He said the state ran afoul of the Constitution in restricting access to them.

‘This case is not about extraordinary weapons lying at the outer limits of Second Amendment protection,’ Benitez wrote. ‘The banned ‘assault weapons’ are not bazookas, howitzers, or machineguns. Those arms are dangerous and solely useful for military purposes. Instead, the firearms deemed ‘assault weapons’ are fairly ordinary, popular, modern rifles.’

‘This is an average case about average guns used in average ways for average purposes.’

Judge Benitez is referring to the language of the Heller decision (2008). California, long a single party state, is arguably the most aggressive and corrupt political entity in America trying to disarm citizens.

California’s ban is one of the oldest and most aggressive in the country. It was instituted in 1989 but has been expanded multiple times in the decades since. The state added more guns and features to the ban. Eventually, it banned the possession of unregistered ‘assault weapons’ before the latest iteration of the ban was challenged by gun-rights groups in federal court.

Benitez said the AR-15’s versatility made it widely popular in the United States, and that popularity is part of what gives it protection under the Second Amendment. He compared the modular firearm to a ‘Swiss Army Knife’ and noted its use for home defense and civil defense.

‘Good for both home and battle, the AR-15 is the kind of versatile gun that lies at the intersection of the kinds of firearms protected under District of Columbia v. Heller and United States v. Miller,’ he said. ‘Yet, the State of California makes it a crime to have an AR15 type rifle. Therefore, this Court declares the California statutes to be unconstitutional.’

Gov. Gavin Newsom immediately sworn to appeal the decision to the 9th Circuit, the most blatantly leftist in the nation, and the Circuit most overruled by the Supreme Court.  There is little doubt the 9th Circuit will overrule Judge Benitez, which would send the case to the Supreme Court.  The Court has a case before it now that could further define the limitations of government restrictions on the Second Amendment, but if past practice is a guide, the Court will decide that case as narrowly as possible, and there is never a guarantee the Court will agree to hear any case.

At Bearing Arms, Cam Edwards quotes constitutional scholar Johnathan Turley on this decision.  Turley is a leftist, but a generally honest analyst of legal issues:

In Miller v. Bonta, U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez of San Diego found that the ban on weapons like the AR-15 are based on both a misunderstanding of the weapons and a misinterpretation of the Constitution.

Claims surrounding the AR-15 are often detached from the comparative realities of this and other weapons. The AR-15 and other weapons in its class use an intermediate cartridge that actually is less powerful than that used in a rifle. The appeal of guns like the AR-15 is due to that fact that they are modular and allow for different grips and barrels.

What Turley meant to say is the .223/5.56mm cartridge fired by the AR-15 is not a “high-powered” cartridge.  It is indeed a rifle cartridge in general, but one of relatively low power.  He also meant to say the modular nature of the AR-15 makes it easy to accessorize and adjust for people of all sizes.

Benitez noted many of the same issues in his decision. He held that the ban cannot satisfy any level of heightened scrutiny. He notes that the popularity of the AR-15 is due to its versatility. In the one controversial line of the opinion, he observed ‘Like the Swiss Army knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment. Good for both home and battle.’

The problem is that many politicians like California Gov. Gavin Newsom opposed the decision of the Supreme Court in 2008 in District of Columbia v. Heller affirming the right to bear arms is an individual right under the Second Amendment. The court has repeatedly reaffirmed that landmark decision. In 2010, the court ruled that this constitutional right applies to the states as it does to the federal government since it is one of those ‘fundamental rights necessary to our system of ordered liberty.’

For people who want to destroy the Constitution, who want to rule lawlessly, it’s easy to see why they so oppose the Second Amendment and hate those who insist on it.

These are difficult policies and difficult cases. Reasonable people can disagree, including on the meaning of the Second Amendment. What is troubling is the level of misleading and frankly disingenuous discussion of the issue. The public is constantly being told that electing certain politicians will result in sweeping gun control when the current case law directly contradicts such assertions.

Lecturing from an ivy tower perspective, Turley is correct.  However, just as allowing fear to rule us is unreasonable, so too is arguing against the plain meaning of the Second Amendment and its application in our lives.  To do so is not only to argue against the law, but against the very concept of self-defense.  Turley also believes the law must and inevitably will prevail against such people.  We are now discovering to what degree that may be true, because D/S/Cs do not consider themselves limited by any law, especially not the Constitution.

Fearing that anti-liberty/American imperative, and those that hold it, is for any normal, rational American an inherently reasonable fear.  That, as well as a clear understanding of human nature and history, is an eminently practical reason to arm oneself and to be well prepared.