Our morally superior betters in the media and among the fabulist grifters who run America’s Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex aren’t showing it, but behind the scenes, they’re panicked by photos like the one above.
That’s Stephanie the Suburban Soccer Mom dipping into her savings to buy a pistol, a shotgun, a case, and plenty of ammunition as a national emergency is declared and cities nationwide empty their jails. And the gun buying surge hasn’t slowed down much in recent weeks.
Imagine it being your job to tell her — and hundreds of thousands (millions?) of other middle-of-the-roaders — that having a firearm in her home is simply too dangerous a proposition for the average American family to consider.
Good luck with that.
What is far more likely, and what many “preppers” fear the most, is a societal breakdown that causes other citizens to become the biggest danger. That can happen during a civil war, an invasion, a natural disaster, or a pandemic.
This is not meant to scare you. I’m optimistic. I believe that times of crisis can, and usually do, bring out the best in people. But there’s certainly some chance of violent disruption, especially on a local level. One percent? One-tenth percent? Five percent? Who knows?
As B.J. Campbell of Open Source Defense has written, those living in floodplains face a similar calculus. The “100-year flood” is one that has a 1% chance of occurring in any given year, which equates to a 26% chance that a flood will happen within the time of a 30-year mortgage. If your house is in the zone, you should probably have flood insurance.
A society-disrupting event where a gun might be useful, if not needed, might be a 1,000-year event, whatever the cause. A 0.1% chance of it happening in any given year equates to a 92.3% chance it doesn’t occur within an 80-year lifespan. That, of course, leaves a 7.7% chance it does.
Of course, there are more things to consider than this simple math. This is not a time to simply say, “Checkmate, gun grabbers.” But the personal choice of whether to have a gun should change with the times and the situation. Some people will have a new view of the possible dangers in the world, and that will have to be weighed against the risks of owning a gun.
– Trevor Burrus in COVID-19 could change the gun control debate for a generation