Antifa, BLM, And Defund The Police - Nine Hundred Rounds A Minute And The Law Of Expected But Ignored Consequences

Now let's get the kids and pack up the car
Take that vacation we've been waiting for
Drive across this country, leave our worries far behind
Sing in four-part harmony to "Sweet Adeline"

'Cause I got these books and maps from Triple 'A'
And we'll visit friends and sites along the way
Bring the bikes and toys and diapers, pay the neighbor's sons
Call to stop the mail and honey, don't forget the guns

Don't forget the guns, you know exactly what I mean
Bring the pistols, bring the Uzi and the old AR-15
We don't look for trouble but by golly if we're in it
It's nice to know we're free to blow 900 rounds a minute

Cheryl Wheeler’s song ‘Don’t Forget The Guns’ has never been more popular. Anti-gun advocates see irony, satire, and the absurdity of the American gun culture.  Second Amendment defenders see a popular expression of what they have known for a long time – America has always been a violent place becoming more so – and that the need for armed self-defense is more necessary than ever.  Forget the cover to the playbook – that the Second Amendment is all about hunters’ rights.  The music is all about the pistols, the Uzis, and the AR-15s. 

This is a time of radical political upheaval.  The deaths in police custody of a number of black men have sparked riots reminiscent of those of the late 60s during which the centers of Washington, Los Angeles, Detroit, and Newark were torched, burned and vandalized.  A routine traffic stop in Watts, a black inner-city neighborhood of Los Angeles, in which stepbrothers Marquette and Ronald Frye were pulled over by a white California Highway Patrol officer while driving their mother’s car, quickly escalated.  Marquette failed a sobriety test and panicked as he was arrested; and a scuffle broke out between him and one of the police officers. Ronald joined in, followed by the boys’ mother.  The police attempted to arrest all three but the crowd which had gathered became abusive and violent.  By later in the evening the riot was in full force, with rocks, bottles and more being thrown at the buses and cars that had been stalled in traffic because of the escalating incident.  News of the incident spread quickly throughout the country, and soon similar violent street protests ensued. 

White Americans were shocked and disturbed.  Lyndon Johnson had just signed the Civil Rights Act five days before, and they had assumed that a period of racial harmony was about to begin.  They were unprepared for the outbreak of indiscriminate violence, attacks upon police and National Guard troops, and the random vandalism against public and private institutions, shops, and offices.  At the same time radical black activists like Stokely Carmichael, Rap Brown, and other members of the Black Panthers as well as Malcolm X publicly rejected the peaceful, non-violent philosophy of Martin Luther King; and threated even more violence and mayhem if white America did not pay attention. White America was put on notice.

The country in the mid-Sixties was far more conservative – even under the Presidency of Johnson – than it is now.  Although LBJ championed the cause of civil rights, welfare, and poverty reduction, it was within a collaborative, bi-partisan environment; and before radical white liberal progressivism was even thought of.  J Edgar Hoover, an arch-conservative and very hostile to black radical activism, moved to neuter the Black Panthers.  Members were exiled, arrested, and removed from public life. 

Black militancy never disappeared, however, and gained recognition within the now more general 60s social revolution, highlighted by largely white anti-war protests.  The decade of the Sixties after 1965 was one of turmoil, dissent, dissatisfaction, and dramatic social reform; and the repercussions of that open-ended political era are felt today.  Progressivism was born of the anti-social movements of the era, and after the Vietnam War ended and civil rights legislation took hold, white liberal activists took on women’s rights, gay rights, and ethnic rights.  The police, military, secret services, and the FBI were increasingly cast as the enemy of the people and impediments to their legitimate struggle for full equality.  Within the last few years, the culture of inclusivity and identity gave minority groups free rein.  It was racist and abusive to even assume that white, middle-class values should be applied to them.

It is no surprise that the urban violence of today resembles that of 1965.  In fact it is surprising that it didn’t happen sooner.

Just as the black activists of the Black Panthers and their white liberal and black supporters were energized by the Watts and Newark riots – shows of force, anger, and solidarity – so today’s Black Lives Matter and their white liberal supporters are equally energized; and have felt that time is right for systemic social change. Not only should police be chastised, warned, disciplined, and fined; they should disappear.  A socialist, Utopian state of populist rule should be created where citizens govern and police themselves.  Not only should the police be disbanded, but capitalism itself should be broken and replaced by an economic system more congenial to and supportive of the oppressed.

Most Americans are appalled by these events.  It is one thing to question police tactics; but another thing entirely to leave cities to the very vandals who are destroying them.  It was one thing to understand and sympathize with the plight of minorities whose economic and social progress has been far slower than anyone had expected and hoped; but another thing to scrap the system of enterprise and opportunity which has for two hundred years promoted prosperity, individual growth, and social strength.

Which brings us back to Cheryl Wheeler and ‘Don’t Forget The Guns’.  Arms sales not surprisingly have risen dramatically – so much so that there is now a shortage of ammunition.  Although progressives see this phenomenon as another expression of white racism, others see it as a natural reaction to the Law of Unintended Consequences; or, what do you expect when the police are defunded, disbanded, and eliminated at a time when urban crime is at its highest level in decades and when the streets are filled daily with violent protest?

America is fundamentally, collectively, and historically both a violent and individualistic nation.  The Wild West was a lawless, violent place where arming was the only way to assure some measure of safety and protection; and if the law was to be taken into individual hands, and if judgments were to be subjective and arbitrary, then arming made even more sense.  If liberal Democrats win the elections of 2020 and the extreme progressive platform on which they are running becomes reality, then a call to arms will be evident, immediate, and expected.  Progressives are rushing ahead with idealistic, impossible, divisive, and inflammatory programs, the consequences of which will be damaging and destabilizing.  Defunding, neutering, and eliminating the police will surely lead to more crime not less; and more violence, more disrespect, more incivility, and more mayhem.  Buying pistols, Uzis, and AR-15s is not the unexpected consequence of such policies and programs but the expected one.  Progressives who claim that white America is backward, ignorant, and retrograde are in fact encouraging the same code and principles of the Wild West they claim to hate.

Oh riding along we'll follow the signs
Over the mountains under the pines
Up to Boot Hill where they got what they gave
In the land of the free, you've got to be brave

Don't forget the guns, you know exactly what I mean
Bring the pistols, bring the Uzi and the old AR-15
We don't look for trouble but by golly if we're in it
It's nice to know we're free to blow 900 rounds a minute

Bring the pistols, bring the Uzi and the old AR-15
We don't look for trouble but by golly if we're in it
It's nice to know we're free to blow 900 rounds a minute