by Adam Mill
This summer has answered the question, “why would somebody ever need an AR-15 or a high-capacity magazine?” As the Left continues to advocate for ending private ownership of military-style rifles, Americans can also see that powerful rifles are turning up in the possession of violent rioters and looters. In this video, one can clearly see Raz Simone, then a noted leader within Seattle’s “Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone”, handing out an expensive, tricked-out AR-15 to a complete stranger. Simone somehow went from an Airbnb host to a Tesla-driving, arsenal-distributing mogul in the space of a few weeks.
As shown in this video, a militant left-wing militia group called NFAC (literally, “Not Fucking Around Coalition”) staged an armed protest in Kentucky during which an accidental discharge wounded three people. Their black attire and paramilitary appearance bore a chilling resemblance to their predecessors-in-spirit from 1930s Italy.
Why do these leftist protestors suddenly have access to expensive weapons? One answer may be China.
In May, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized approximately 10,000 assault weapons parts in Kentucky. According to the Epoch Times, U.S. customs officials have seized a staggering 5,300 gun parts shipments from China in 2020, up from 31 shipments in 2019. For emphasis, that’s not 5,300 parts that were seized, but 5,300 shipments of parts that federal authorities intercepted.
On a bipartisan basis, law-abiding whites, blacks, Democrats, and Republicans see the rising violence as a threat to their families. In deep-blue Minnesota, for example, gun stores are emptying out, particularly of ammunition, as fearful citizens wait as long as four hours to purchase a gun. Across the nation, background checks, which were well on their way to an all-time record earlier this year, have almost doubled when compared to this time last year.
The AR-15 uses .223 caliber ammunition and manufacturers can’t keep up with the current demand. One out of every five firearms purchased in the United States is an AR-15. The National African American Gun Association (NAAGA) saw a surge in membership of approximately 5 percent in just 36 hours after the George Floyd video surfaced. In that same 36 hours, sales to NAAGA members of .223 caliber ammunition increased by 27 percent.
Then, of course, there is the McCloskey incident which seems to confirm that leftist politicians really do want to make citizens helpless in the face of the mob.
In June, protestors entered the private, gated community of Portland Place in St. Louis, Missouri. According to Mark McCloskey, protestors told him, “we would be killed, our home burned, and our dog killed.” Every part of the interior of Portland Place is private property. McCloskey ordered the trespassing protestors to leave. They didn’t. McCloskey invoked his rights under Missouri law to brandish a legally owned AR-15 to fortify his demand that they leave.
The George Soros-backed St. Louis prosecutor, Kim Gardner, seized the McCloskey guns – Mark McCloskey’s AR-15 and Patricia McCloskey’s nonfunctioning handgun – in a perverted application of a Missouri law making it a crime to use a gun to intimidate people. The law expressly exempts brandishing a gun to deter a persistent trespasser. To prove a violation of section 571.030(4) of the Missouri criminal code, Gardner must prove that both firearms were “readily capable of lethal use.”
According to a report by a local St. Louis television reporter, Gardner sent both firearms to a crime lab. When Patricia McCloskey’s small handgun proved inoperable, a member of Gardner’s staff, Assistant Circuit Attorney Chris Hinkley, requested that the firearm be reassembled so it could function correctly. The lab technicians complied. After the reassembled firearm proved operable, Gardner then charged Patricia McCloskey with a crime.
As the criminal statute requires proof that the weapon was, “readily capable of lethal use,” the tampering with the evidence as-seized constitutes a conscious attempt to defraud the court. Gardner will lose her case against the McCloskeys and, we can hope, she will face consequences for tampering with evidence in order to frame Mrs. McCloskey.
Americans clearly see local politicians ignoring or even encouraging rampaging mobs.
In Denver, a politicized city government ordered its police to withhold protection from peaceful pro-police demonstrators so that Antifa/BLM protesters could assault them without consequences. In Kirkland, Washington (near Seattle), private business owners brandished AR-15s and other weapons to protect their businesses from looters and rioters.
Just months ago, former Vice President Joe Biden, a beneficiary of taxpayer-funded secret service protection, lectured Americans that nobody needs an AR-15 and a high capacity magazine. Biden indicated he intended to appoint Beto O’Rourke to lead gun control efforts in a Biden Administration. O’Rourke famously promised to take away Americans’ AR-15s. “If I win, I’m coming for them,” Biden said of privately-owned AR-15s during his endorsement of O’Rourke’s gun confiscation policy.
Biden’s plan for a “buyback,” a euphemism for confiscating private guns, is a nonstarter. His plan will require all gun owners “who possess assault weapons or high-capacity magazines” to select from two options, either, “sell the weapons to the government, or register them under the National Firearms Act.”
Biden also plans to create a bureaucratic veto for all gun purchases. Currently, if the FBI fails to adjudicate a background check for a gun purchase in a timely manner, the dealer may complete the sale after three business days. Biden would close this “loophole,” which will allow the federal government to slow or veto individual gun sales simply by doing nothing. Biden would also eliminate all online sales of guns and ammunition.
Americans don’t feel safe. Paternalistic, privileged white liberals are terrifying middle and lower-income communities with calls to defund the police. There’s simply no way Americans will tolerate being disarmed in the face of soaring violent crime, riots, and neutered police force. When faced with a mob of arsonists and looters, the AR-15 with a standard capacity magazine is the appropriate tool to protect people and property.
This year has reminded us that the Second Amendment has nothing to do with hunting. Gun control is dead.
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Adam Mill is a pen name. He works in Kansas City, Missouri as an attorney specializing in labor and employment and public administration law. He graduated from the University of Kansas and has been admitted to practice in Kansas and Missouri. Mill has contributed to The Federalist, American Greatness, and The Daily Caller.
