Among others, rioters targeted businesses owned by Korean-Americans. These business owners sought police protection, but the LAPD did not provide sufficient protection for their businesses. To prevent vandalism, looting, and property destruction, Los Angeles' Korean-American community organized itself. Their protective tool of choice? Guns -- the only way that a relatively small immigrant community could protect itself against a much larger group of hostile rioters. [1]
Second point: Let's consider the American civil rights struggle of the middle 20th century. In popular legend, nonviolent protesters sat in lunch counters and marched on the bastions of racism, turning the other cheek and thus helping to end discrimination in America. But the situation, particularly regarding violence, is a bit more complex.
In reality, civil rights activists knew very well that once the media's cameras and lights turned away, local bigots would try to use physical force -- brutal physical force, at that, to bring African-Americans civil-rights activists and their allies back in line. The protesters also knew that, absent the media spotlight, local law enforcement would do nothing to protect them.
Again ... the solution was firearms, legally owned by civil rights activists and their allies. The message of these firearms was as vital as it was unsubtle: that the activists might not want to use violence to enact their political agenda, but that they would defend themselves if somebody else sought to use violence against themselves or their loved ones. [2]
These situations both illustrate why the individual right to keep and bear arms is of paramount importance: At times of crisis, you cannot count on the government to protect you. And when you cannot count on the government to protect you from malefactors -- then a firearm is the first, best way to defend yourself, your family, and your property.
[1]Wikipedia: 1992 Los Angeles Riots, citing Los Angeles Times: KING CASE AFTERMATH: A CITY IN CRISIS : Looters, Merchants Put Koreatown Under the Gun : Violence: Lacking confidence in the police, employees and others armed themselves to protect mini-mall.
[2] Volokh Conspiracy/Washington Post: <i>Negroes and the Gun</i>: Non-violent Winchesters and the fine art of concealed carry in the modern civil rights movement; see also, Volokh Conspiracy: How the right to arms saved the non-violent civil rights protesters - The Volokh Conspiracy; Volokh Conspiracy: This nonviolent stuff’ll get you killed.
Read other related questions on Quora:
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