by There was a shooting at the Greenwood Park Mall in Indianapolis, Indiana area on Sunday. Reportedly, the killer had hidden in the bathroom adjacent to the food court with a number of firearms in his backpack. As the mall was preparing to close, he entered the food court and killed three individuals as well as wounding two others. He might have killed more but he was stopped by 22 y.o. Elisjsha Dicken who was legally armed. Mr. Dicken was legally carrying concealed without a permit as was his right under Indiana’s recently passed permitless carry bill.
While the mall was posted as a so-called gun free zone, they have no force of law in Indiana. It would only be an offense if the carrier was asked to leave and refused. In that case, the concealed carrier could be arrested for criminal trespass.
Even though the mall was posted against carry by its owners the Simon Property Group, they had this to say about Mr. Dicken.
We are grateful for the strong response of the first responders, including the heroic actions of the Good Samaritan who stopped the suspect.
Contrast this dignified response with that of two of the leaders of the gun prohibition industry: Shannon Watts and Kris Brown.
First, Mrs. Watts who resided in the Indy area for many years until she left for more progressive pastures in the People’s Republic of Boulder and thence to California. She later deleted it.
Deleted pic.twitter.com/IPOiMFKaUt
— Rob Romano (@2Aupdates) July 18, 2022
And now Kris Brown, president of Brady United, who referred to Mr. Dicken as a “vigilante”.
Here's what we're not going to do: continue to uplift the NRA myth of a "good guy with a gun."
— Kris Brown | President, bradyunited.org (@KrisB_Brown) July 18, 2022
Let me be clear: If more guns made us safer, America would be the safest country in the WORLD.
We need sensible gun laws, not vigilante safety nets. #GreenwoodMall #GunReformNow
Many on the progressive Left believe that government should hold the monopoly on violence. In other words, self-defense on behalf of yourself or others would be against the law and that any defense of a person should come from agents of the state, i.e., the police. If you respond like Mr. Dicken, then you are just as culpable in the eyes of the law as the killer.
Michael Bane discussed this at length in his MBTV On The Radio podcast last week. His example was that of the bodega worker who was being charged with first degree murder for protecting himself against a felon out on parole. This episode is well worth a listen.
We know that Mrs. Watts and Ms. Brown are anti-gun. It also appears that they are against self-defense. I am of the belief that as elitists, they fear firearms in the hands of the great unwashed. In other words, thee and me. They want the monopoly of violence – and the tools with which to secure it – to be in the hands of the state. This fits in directly with what Chairman Mao’s speech to the Chinese Communist Party said in 1938.
Every Communist must grasp the truth, “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party… All things grow out of the barrel of a gun.
The founders of the United States, by contrast, were greatly influenced by the works of English philosopher John Locke. He was a proponent of natural law. One tenet of natural law is that you have a natural right to life and you have a right to defend this life.
From Locke’s Second Treatise on Government, Chapter II, Section 16:
it being reasonable and just, I should have a right to destroy that which threatens me with destruction: for, by the fundamental law of nature, man being to be preserved as much as possible, when all cannot be preserved, the safety of the innocent is to be preferred: and one may destroy a man who makes war upon him, or has discovered an enmity to his being, for the same reason that he may kill a wolf or a lion; because such men are not under the ties of the commonlaw of reason, have no other rule, but that of force and violence, and so may be treated as beasts of prey, those dangerous and noxious creatures, that will be sure to destroy him whenever he falls into their power.
Most countries of the world, whether they be communist, socialist, capitalist, authoritarian, democratic, or some other variant, do not recognize the individual’s right to self-defense. It doesn’t matter whether you are in China or Canada, the monopoly of violence remains in the hands of the state.
The United States, however, does recognize an individual’s right to self-defense. Whether by common law or codified law, it is a right recognized in all 50 states plus the District of Columbia. This is true even in the most progressive of states.
That Mrs. Watts and Ms. Brown reject the right of self-defense puts them, not us, outside the mainstream. It is a right that must be defended at all costs because without it we are slaves.