While the late Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens may have wanted to abolish the Second Amendment, new gun and ammunition sales numbers prove that the American people strongly disagree with that sentiment.
It appears as if the two developments that have dominated 2020, the coronavirus pandemic and the push to “defund the police” following the death of George Floyd, have motivated Americans to value their Second Amendment rights more than ever.
According to CNN, “Background checks for firearms purchases reached an all-time high in March and maintained record highs for April and May.”
According to data compiled by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, there were “more than 6.5 million NSSF-adjusted background checks in the first four months of 2020, up 48 percent from 4.4 million during the same period in 2019.” The surge in gun purchases is not limited to red states, extending into deep-blue California.
This has horrified a liberal writer for The Mercury News of San Jose, who penned an article with the headline “Gun sales are up in California, but a pandemic is not a time to buy firearms.” Clearly, many people disagree.
Because the movement to defund the police has caught a lot of steam, another epidemic may be on the horizon: a crime wave. In some parts of America, the breakdown of law and order is already painfully obvious.
For this reason, many Americans feel that they have no choice but to take matters into their own hands. They have made the calculation that if they no longer have access to the police, they will have to serve as their own line of defense.
This has already played out in St. Louis. Left-wing activists went on a rampage there over the weekend, targeting the statue of the city’s namesake for destruction and violently attacking Catholics gathered in the vicinity to pray for its protection.
The next day, another group of left-wing anarchists determined to go after the city’s mayor broke into a gated community. As they marched toward the mayor’s home, they encountered Mark and Patricia McCloskey.
The McCloskeys were concerned because “the group began yelling obscenities” and threatened them both with physical harm. After observing “multiple suspects who were armed,” the McCloskeys confronted the group of protesters with firearms as they walked by their home.
In perhaps the biggest irony of all, one of the protesters told the McCloskeys to “call the [expletive] cops.” In a world without police, which the most radical left-wing protesters want to create, the McCloskeys would have no such option.
While the police did in fact respond to the situation unfolding in St. Louis, it is not hard to imagine similar scenarios playing out across the nation.
After all, by the time the police came, irrevocable damage could have already been done either to the McCloskeys’ property or the couple themselves had they not responded the way they did.
Ultimately, the protesters may or may not have caused harm to the McCloskeys if the situation had played out differently. But based on what has happened in other parts of the country, the couple definitely had cause for concern. Similar left-wing protests have led to many lives lost and numerous businesses destroyed.
Other Americans seeking help from police in an effort to ward off left-wing protesters wreaking havoc have had no such luck.
Ken Schneider, a small business owner in Charleston, saw his wine bar vandalized during left-wing protests in the South Carolina city, WCSC-TV reported.
Schneider said he “cried for help 10 times to the police department, 911, and they showed up not a single time.”
No Americans want to find themselves in a situation like Schneider’s. It makes sense that many have decided to purchase firearms to ensure that the worst-case scenario never does play out.
The surge in firearm sales has exposed a paradox that surely frightens those on the far left: Their demands to get rid of the police, whom they cannot stand, have led more Americans to embrace guns, which they also cannot stand.
It looks like liberals can have a police-free society or a gun-free society, but they cannot have both.
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