Distributed Defense: Millions Buy Guns for Defense as The State's Anti-Gun PsyOp Gets Reality Checked

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https://mises.org/wire/kenosha-and-minneapolis-burn-millions-americans-buy-guns

As Kenosha and Minneapolis Burn, Millions of Americans Buy Guns

Tags Big GovernmentThe Police State

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09/01/2020 Ryan McMaken

It’s increasingly clear to even the average American that if riots
come to your neighborhood, you’re on your own. The message received is
increasingly be this: if your plan is to wait until the police show up
to provide "protection," be prepared to wait a long time.
Consequently, as violence appears to surge in America's cities,
millions of Americans have become first-time gun owners.
Government Officials Aren't Keeping Us "Safe"

There are two trends at work which are making Americans doubt that
government law enforcement is reliable and effective.

On the one hand, the public is witnessing nightly displays of looting,
rioting, and general civil unrest. At the same time, many police
officers don't appear particularly able or willing to defend the
public against looters and rioters. Homicide rates in New York, for
example, have surged among accusations of a "police slowdown." A
number of police departments (including those in Los Angeles and
Atlanta) are rumored to be using strategies such as the "blue flu" in
which police personnel pretend to be ill as a negotiating tactic for
obtaining political favors from lawmakers. But even when police
personnel are able, there are not enough of them in most cases to
truly address the ongoing nightly violence in many cities. And in some
cases, elected officials, like in Portland and Chicago, appear
uninterested in confronting rioters with much enthusiasm at all.

It easy to see how ordinary Americans could look on current events
with increasing alarm. On August 29, a man was allegedly murdered by
at least one protestor among the many who have been protesting,
rioting, and looting in Portland for more than three months. Two weeks
ago, a truck driver sustained serious injuries, also in Portland, when
he was attacked by a group of “protestors” while reportedly attempting
to help a woman who was being robbed. Last week in Kenosha, protestors
were seen attacking a teenager who had been attempting to protect
businesses from looting and vandalism. The teen reportedly opened fire
in self-defense.  In Washington, DC, a mob threatened restaurant
patrons, and in Minneapolis, dozens of businesses have been burned and
looted.

But even before the current rash of arson, looting, and violence, the
police response to serious crime was never terribly impressive. For
violent crimes, studies have shown police may take up to an hour to
respond more than one-third of the time. (This summer, response times
fo rthe NYPD are up by four minutes compared to last year.) And if one
survives an attack from violent criminals, one shouldn’t assume
justice will be done. Fewer than half of violent crimes are ever
“solved” in the United States.
Gun Purchases Are Growing

Meanwhile, gun purchases have surged.

According to new estimates from the National Shooting Sports
Foundation (NSSF), using the FBI’s National Instant Background Check
System (NICS), “there were over 12 million guns bought in the first
seven months of 2020—up more than 70 percent over the same time span
in 2019. This number is likely to include nearly 5 million first-time
gun owners so far this year.”

Moreover, as noted in an unsigned editorial at the Wall Street Journal,

    The FBI’s most recent gun-sale figures are stunning. They show
that in July the bureau carried out 3.6 million background checks, the
third highest month on record. [T]his translates to 1.8 million gun
sales for July 2020—a 122% increase over July 2019. The 12,141,032 gun
sales through this July is just shy of the 13,199,172 sales for all of
2019.

Gun retailers saw a 95 percent increase in firearm sales and a 139
percent increase in ammunition sales in the first six months of this
year compared with the same period in 2019.

Statistically, it remains unclear that life for the average American
is much more dangerous this year than it has been over the past five
years. After all, in 2014, the homicide rate in America hit a 51-year
low. But the American public has never been one to sit back and
conclude everything is fine just because homicides are relatively low.

After all, gun purchases were already surging even before the apparent
killing of George Floyd touched off a wave of protests followed by
riots and looting. Gun purchases that had been fueled by general
uncertainty and anxiety over the covid-19 panic soon became gun
purchases fueled by far more immediate fears of violent crime.

Also notable is that many new gun owners are outside of groups known
as the usual suspects when it comes to gun purchases. The NSSF
reported that 58 percent of the new firearms purchases were by black
men and women, while “women comprised 40% of first-time gun buyers.”
Millions Aren't Buying the Usual Gun Control Claims

Needless to say, these trends are going very much against the grain of
the usual narrative employed by gun control advocates, a narrative
that generally employs several main tenets we’ve seen many times. They
include:

    Government police agencies provide better protection than a
private firearm ever could.
    If you’re in danger, it’s best to call 911 and then wait.
    If you buy a gun, the gun is more likely to kill someone you love
than to stop a criminal.
    America would be safer if fewer people had guns.
    People who buy guns are mostly just right-wing hayseeds. Hillary
Clinton calls these people "deplorables."

And while opponents of private gun ownership rarely say this
explicitly, the sum total of their narrative is this: only police and
military personnel should own guns. The basic idea here is that
private gun owners cannot be trusted, and that government officials
will keep us safe. But as so often occurs when there are riots—as
happened in Ferguson (in 2014) and as is happening in Kenosha police
officers and other government "public safety" personnel mostly just
protect government property. The private sector must just fend for
itself.

Many Americans appear to have gotten the message.