Traditionally, the majority of people that choose to own a gun for domestic protection, did so in anticipation of a trespass by perpetrators that were usually perceived to be local, acting as desperate loner individuals, or a small team of criminal opportunists. Most people understand that they are small targets in an endless sprawling big ‘pond’ of would-be victims; they store little of true value, and they do not engage in the level of high stakes personal interactions that would require defense against a blood vendetta. Consequently, the level of gun acquisition was a known statis. So why are gun sales up approximately 70% in 2020 and why are there 15 million new gun owners, all just this year? Whatever was true from 2019 and prior is no longer true in 2020. The fundamental equation by which Americans assess their own physical safety against violence has undergone a seismic shift in the nano-second of less than one year.
Of course, most people except those in the ‘bluest’ of political and cultural cul-de-sacs already know and have sort of experienced the reason for the uptick in some form. The George Floyd event happened. I wrote about it at the time, but this alone was but a gateway for other players to ramp up their operation and appropriate that unfortunate event for their own ends. Black Lives Matter, a questionable and divided organization even in the best light, was absconded from within by radicals and from without by even more extreme radicals. George Soros and company, always there in the background before, was openly identified as an underwriter. The riots and looting that occurred became different than all that had occurred before. These were supported, sponsored, and even held up as a legitimate social movement by none other than Democrats leaders and candidates. Mayors and Governors from Seattle and Portland, to Chicago and D.C. and hundreds of other ‘blue’ jurisdictions openly endorsed violent activism in the name of George Floyd and BLM. Martin Luther King died a second death in 2020.
When you look at a red-blue electoral map, you’ll discover an obvious feature; most of it is colored red, essentially, the jurisdictions embracing conservatism. Even maps programed to show more accurate mixes as purple still glow hot red as most of the purple counties only provide a fuzzy buffer around hard-blue urban areas. It’s simplistic, but red is pro-gun, blue is gun skeptical, augmented by Democrat urban areas attempting severe restrictions. Gun acceptance is an issue where geography is more important than demographics.
Red America has heard several messages loud and clear:
Government, or what it is becoming, cannot and will not protect you
Not only will government not protect you, they will openly enable those that will commit crimes against you
The police, chartered to protect you, will themselves be attacked, diminished, defunded, and demonized
Suddenly, those factors that kept a lot of people on the fence in 2019 and prior, like being small fish in a big pond of random crime, these were no longer relevant. Your business could be looted (even if you were black and Democrat) and your attackers would be excused as even more oppressed. Your car could be stopped and burned on the street and well, that’s your dumb luck. You could be assailed at a restaurant or even shot at attending your own peaceful protest, even if you were just a senior citizen, and while your assailants might be apprehended, the media, academia, and radical Democrats would laud them as heroes and martyrs. Just as important as all of these, there are no clear signals or limits on when and how the radical and state sponsored crime will ever be reined in. We The People are staring down into a bottomless black hole.
Progressives made a huge miscalculation in 2020. They spent decades slowing prying firearms out of your hands, one finger at a time, one city and state government at a time, and then they sponsored 2020 anarchy.….this genie isn’t going back in the bottle.
Democrats sent a clear signal, a ‘whistle’ in in political parlance, when they signaled to BLM-antifa-Soros financed migrant agitators, that they’ll receive special protected status when they come to your neighborhood to loot your main street small businesses, topple your statues of historic white men, assault your customers dining out on the sidewalk beside your little bistro, and deface huge swaths of the town you live in. We The People responded. New normal? Absolutely. There’s no going back.