Violent crime peaked in 1993 within the United States. Since then, it has trended downward due in great part to the “broken windows” style, proactive police work, video surveillance everywhere, and the increase of concealed carriers. In 2020, the year of the Covid 19 lockdowns, crime spiked again in the wake of the rioting surrounding a particular incident of police action.
What has followed since is an increase in lawlessness. The combination of police being afraid to do their jobs due to progressives seeking to prosecute them even when they do everything right, along with progressive prosecutors who confuse justice reform with simply not prosecuting violent offenders, has led to a complete breakdown of law and order in urban areas.
Police retirement is at an all-time high, and recruitment is at an all-time low. The movement to defund and hamstring police while simultaneously not prosecuting violent offenders is a social suicide pact that is gleefully embraced by large cities, so here we are.
For many years, the leaders in the self-defense community have warned, “You are on your own; nobody is coming to save you.” While it has always been true in the sense that the police simply cannot arrive on time to stop an in-progress assault, now it is quite literally true that police may never come at all. Response times are at a low, and many departments are running on skeleton crews, so depending on where you live, you may get no response, no matter what the situation is.
Ironically, most who have driven this political agenda of defunding the police are also entirely on board with civilian disarmament. Make no mistake, this faction wants you unarmed and helpless and wants to ensure that there are no police to protect you either, from the criminals that they intentionally set loose on your streets.
Those who support such policies remain willfully foolish until the point that their own door gets smashed in or they get carjacked, personally, even though they think such things only happen on the other side of town, not in their gentrified neighborhood.
Emboldened Criminal Actors
The soft-on-crime policies of big cities have created a cascading effect of emboldened bad actors ranging from violent assault and predation to far lesser crime. With the rampant stupidity, or, more likely, the intentional social destabilization of soft-on-crime policies, activities such as shoplifting and petty theft remain at record highs in certain vicinities.
San Francisco, once a great city to visit, is so rife with theft that residents were leaving their car trunks open so that thieves would not damage the car while breaking into it. The district attorney in that city publicly declared that any property theft of less than 950 dollars in value would not be prosecuted at all. Is it any wonder that lawlessness reigns when such asinine policy, masquerading as social justice, is in place?
Yet, make no mistake, those who attempt to protect their places of business are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Many examples of this have manifested in the past several years. A bodega owner in New York City who was robbed by a thug with a knife was imprisoned after defending himself for a long period until charges were dropped. Likewise, many individuals who protected their businesses and shops from rioters and looters in the summer of 2020 found themselves charged for having the audacity to confront lawless thugs.
Prosecutors in blue cities are squarely and unequivocally on the side of the criminal, and the concealed carrier should have no delusions otherwise. Such prosecutors and politicians protect criminal actors and vehemently work towards disarming law-abiding citizens, but the populations in such dreadful places keep voting for such people, so here we are. Callus? No, reality.
Self-Defense Considerations
The foremost advice to be given to law-abiding armed citizens is literally to spend as little time in these cities as possible. Easier said than done, perhaps, but that is the best advice. The people who live in such places either enjoy the lawlessness or are too foolish to vote for those who would put an end to it, so just steer clear of such cesspools when possible.
Second, don’t intervene. Certainly, DO NOT confront criminals over property theft. First of all, you have no legal right to start an altercation that could lead to somebody dying over the property. Second, why would you jeopardize everything to stop someone from stealing from a retail outfit that is likely complicit in the policies that have fostered such behavior?
There have been several incidents in which citizens have chased down shoplifters who steal from big box outlet stores and wind up in trouble for it. How foolish. Let the big box stores close down in these urban locations. The elitist CEOs of such establishments fully embrace the social justice that fosters such lawlessness, so why would you intervene to save such companies money?
Third, know the law intimately and don’t do something foolish that will allow a progressive prosecutor to ruin your life. Avoidance is best, but if you find yourself facing a threat, you better act well within the law. No drawing guns on people because you “felt scared.” No fighting over parking spaces. You need to act so prudently that you leave no room for a nefarious prosecution, and if prosecuted anyway, you want a clear case of legal self-defense for a jury to see.
This is the age of lawlessness, and until so many in our nation tire of living in it and start voting differently, this remains our sad reality.