The Comment Factory

A news item caught my eye today. A young mother with her one-year-old was walking down to the park in Pasadena, CA, and was accosted by a woman who demanded money. She was dragged over to an SUV and pushed inside. A man drove to her bank, where she withdrew all the money she could. Then the nice couple drove to her home, where she went inside to get all the jewelry and other fenceable stuff she could easily carry while her child was held hostage. After she handed everything over, her child was released to her, unharmed.

I moved from that area in August. I lived there for more than a year. Reaching further back, I went to the elementary school which adjoins the park for three years. I played in that park. After elementary school, my brother went to high school across the street. I went through the park on my way to vote on Nov. 4. My ex-girlfriend used to take her granddaughter to the park to play.

The man and woman are Latino, which is not relevant to this essay, and the woman’s estimated weight is 200 pounds, which likely is relevant. The man is reported to be of similar size. It appears the woman was physically imposing enough to the mother to pose a credible threat to her and her child, and assure the mother’s compliance via threats, to extort money and valuables from her, and hold her defenseless child as ransom. The mother felt she and her child were at risk of harm if she didn’t comply with the demands.

The mother was a “good victim” and gave the criminals what they were satisfied with. She got away with losing some money and stuff, and maybe a year or two off her life wondering if her child would be harmed in the future. How long it will take this mother to recoup the loss of money and material was not addressed in the article. Will she wake up at night wondering if her baby is safe, her heart thundering, in a sweat? Will she go to a park again? Will she wonder why she came to be prey for such people, and start avoiding people or feeling panicky when someone speaks to her? Does anyone really care?

As a father, the thought of losing a child is unbearable, except that I would have to bear it. I have to survive to comfort my other two kids, continue to help them do the same.

I can’t hope to answer many of these questions, but why she became prey is pretty easy to speculate about. She was perceived to be weaker than the predators, and they were right.

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But why should the weak have to put up with such predation? There are several reasons.

First, passivity is encouraged by many “progressive” experts who figure mere survival is the best one can hope for if attacked. Their love of their fellow man is such they would happily arrange counseling for survivors as quickly as short jail term for the perp, who implicitly would have “excellent reasons” justifying a predatory lifestyle. The crime really doesn’t matter much, depending on the apologist … and for every crime there is an apologist.

Second, the predators could be well assured the mother would not be able to bridge the physical gap between her and them, even if she wasn’t inclined to be a good victim. The most effective solution for the mother would have been to carry a concealed firearm or other weapon of significance. This is not an option with regard to firearms in Pasadena, or LA County, for that matter. The mere chance you might run into predators is not justification to carry a concealed firearm.

If you sort concealed carry permits by zip code, you find that Beverly Hills must be quite crime-ridden. Pacific Palisades, Rolling Hills Estates. There is, apparently, no one, not a single person, in Compton or South LA who is exposed to crime or trustworthy enough (to the local political class) to carry, on the basis of permits issued.

If you sort violent and gun crime by zip code, you find a near perfect inversion compared to the issue of carry permits. Sort by race and income, it closely resembles how permits are allocated. Basically, the weak and less economically influential are disarmed, and most subject to predation. Those useful to the political class are favored. This illustrates the truth of the IL Governor Gambit … when there are favors to sell, the price goes up. Nameless mothers of 1 year-old kids need not apply.

If you really do your homework, you will find in the Founder’s writings that the 2nd Amendment was put in place to allow any citizen the right to self-defense against any predation, small or large. The militia argument is a hoax of poor construct. The Founders didn’t like the idea of the weak being unable to defend themselves. Then as now, firearms are the most effective way to accomplish this goal, but arming every person is neither necessary nor wise.

Some people should not carry firearms, for a variety of reasons, no disdain applied. Some people are capable of carrying firearms safely, and using them appropriately to deter or mitigate predation, even if they are not professional law enforcement. They treat the responsibility properly, and train, practice and practice more how to carry and use a firearm safely (except to a target). I have had a carry permit from Texas for nine years.

The simple uncertainty of whether someone is armed can deter a criminal from plying his trade. I lived in Texas, a shall-issue state, and yes, twice, direct eye contact was enough to change someone’s mind. I don’t pretend to be sure those people were intent on harming anyone. The way they suddenly but subtly lost interest in what I was doing is a clue, however.

In Southern California, there is a better than 99 percent chance any person on the street is unarmed. It is the culture, backed up by law. The weak therefore are more exposed to predation, by the way they have been trained by “humanists” and the way the political class sells the right to effective self-defense.

In 2007, a man walking on a major street in South LA was doused with gasoline and burned to death. In the middle of the afternoon. Literally, a hundred or more witnesses. Not one person has come forward to identify who burned this man. Is that your kind of civilization? Not mine, but as the United Kingdom and other countries prove so well, this is what happens when individuals cannot decide, unregulated by the local politicians, to see to their own self-defense.

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Two final points, one a matter of law and the other of simple experience:

• No police officer in the United States has any legal obligation to any particular citizen to preserve that citizen’s life. Effectively, this means, and has been supported in court, that a police officer can watch a person be executed by a deranged spouse, fail to intervene because they were too afraid, and bear no legal consequence.
• When seconds count, the police are only minutes away. This is not to malign police. Simply, more than 99% of the time police are responding, not preventing. As it was in the Founder’s time, and ever shall be.

There is no safe place. The examples of this truth are legion, and start with “gun-free” zones, a nice idea without any reality, clung to by the craven who also rarely are at risk.

Consider a Dianne Feinstein or Michael Bloomberg. Millions of dollars in personal wealth, to buy all the armed security they could possibly want, in addition to that provided by taxpayers. Do these people walk to a park with their one-year-old granddaughter in tow? I think not.

For the same people to tell me I don’t need the means to defend myself is comical, at best. At worst, it is racial and economic discrimination of the ugliest kind. After all, gun control, seizing all firearms from otherwise law-abiding citizens, was a favored method of the KKK to make their night rides safer. It made implementation of the “Final Solution” in 1940’s safer for Gestapo and SS personnel. KGB never had to worry about return fire when they came in the night to haul people off to the Gulags.

Now some savants tell me we are so enlightened we are “above violence” and don’t need to worry. I wonder if the same savants will reimburse the mother in Pasadena for her losses.