Burn, Loot, Murder
Praxis Against Mob Actions
Ladies and gentlemen, in this brief piece we will be taking a look back at what we saw in 2020 in order to learn from history that it might not repeat itself.
In the summer of 2020, the “Summer of Love,” or “Floyd Rebellion,” as some would have it, we witnessed a country alight, not in the sense of the shining city on a hill, but in the burning spirit of hellfire.
In this time - only a few months long - several dozen people were murdered in clear, obvious actions directly associated with the riots (many, many more if you’re willing to add even a single degree of separation).
We saw charred bodies discovered in burned out buildings’ days later. We saw drivers targeted for their skin color (white, at the time), and dragged from their vehicles and beat to within an inch of their lives - unconscious, bloodied, and broken in the streets. (Today we see this same phenomenon, though the targeting has shifted in significant degree to those of Asian heritage, as, mostly, young black men and boys have enacted targeted violence on a historic scale).
We saw a retired, black police officer gunned down by a mob over a stolen television, and we watched him take his last breaths on a news cycle that couldn’t hold this enraging event even for a couple hours.
We watched as mobs shuttered highways, surrounded vehicles occupied by families, shattered windows, hurled slurs and threats, employed incendiary and explosive devices, burned and beat men and women, and, occasionally, we saw such a mob rioter suffer the predictable consequences of dressing black bloc at night on a highway by catching the last flight to their forever home.
Then, over and over again, we watched as prosecutors sprung rioters and charged those guilty only of attempting to defend themselves, thereby putting good for evil, and evil for good.
This cannot be allowed to repeat. The laws must change to recognize the inherent right to self-defense, and defense of the innocent inherent to natural and Constitutional law. They must change to recognize the current reality of paramilitary mob dynamics, and escalations starting from mid-level violence. People must be free to defend themselves without fear of malicious prosecution. To that end, I offer the following text to empower would-be defenders of the innocent.
The Text
It shall be lawful to display a firearm, or other deadly weapon, to deter any person engaged in a criminal action involving the use of force, real, threatened, or implied, but shall remain unlawful to use a deadly weapon in a manner likely to cause death or great bodily harm unless a reasonably perceived threat of imminent death or great bodily harm to oneself or an innocent person, or attempted arson of a possibly occupied structure exists.
It shall be lawful to employ deadly force, utilize a firearm, strike persons with motor vehicles, or to use any less-than-lethal chemical or agent or electronic device to deter or neutralize any persons engaged in an unlawful mob action involving the use of force, verbal threats of great bodily harm or death, from which projectiles emanate, utilizing incendiary or explosive devices, brandishing weapons, obstructing or surrounding an occupied vehicle, under such circumstances as would place a reasonable person in fear of imminent great bodily harm or death, or place a reasonable person in such fear for other innocent persons. A voluntary presence among such a mob shall be sufficient to count such a person as engaged in the mob action.