Leftists are able to organize armed security and kill bystanders without consequences

You are stupid if you ignore or minimize the threat that the Floyd Riot network still poses

Story out of Utah, where, as loyal readers of this Substack will remember, it took local prosecutors more than 3 years to charge a BLM gunman for shooting a driver in the head during a street blockade. As far as I can tell, the gunman was never charged. No conservative media outlet can be bothered to track these incidents and the anti-Trumpers who seem to be in charge of Utah’s Republican Party seem to be botching the situation very badly.

Apparently, in Salt Lake City yesterday, “peacekeepers” associated with the “No Kings” protests spotted a man pulling an AR-15 out of his bag. These “peacekeepers” proceeded to shoot at the man, killing a bystander in the process.

It’s not clear what actually happened. If you follow Antifa groups at all, you know that they are very disciplined about what they allow to be filmed and what they tell to police. What they say is often not true. The man with the AR-15 has been identified Arturo Gamboa, who had attended George Floyd protests sponsored by Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) in 2020. Elias Rodriguez, the leftist gunman who shot two Israeli embassy employees to death last month, was a member of the PSL.

This might have been a case of leftist friendly fire: Jumpy “peacekeepers” shoot another leftist, mistakenly believing he’s about to attack the crowd. Or maybe Gamboa was just crazy and decided to shoot up a leftist protest for whatever reason. It should not come as a surprise to anyone at this point that radical leftist groups attract violent and unstable people.

Yeesh

It should also not come as a surprise to you that leftist groups today are armed, trained, and experienced. They have procedures, communications, and lawyers on standby. People online consistently undersell this threat. Can you imagine this sequence of events happening with a rightwing group? No way. Rightwingers today could not hope to match the massive crowds and organization that went into the No Kings rallies.

Everyone should know that there are lots of armed people in these crowds. You might not see them, but they’re willing to show up and shoot people. They built political and legal infrastructure that allows them to shoot people and get away with it. We don’t even know what group the “peacekeepers” belonged to. That’s how disciplined they all know to be. Rightwingers who talk about civil war or national divorce all the time don’t take their rhetoric half as seriously as leftists do. Do not count on loudmouths to get us out of a jam. They will be at home tweeting “We have all the guns” when the Floyd network tries to shut down the country again.

It is very important to develop robust legal institutions to deal with leftist terrorism now, before the next round of large-scale rioting begins. Red states need clear laws that explicitly criminalize terroristic behavior deployed during leftist “protests,” political leadership that’s capable of responding effectively to crises, very large reserves of trained police, and a court system that’s capable of trying a flood of rioters very quickly and then willing to hand out harsh sentences upon conviction. These are tools that every Red state should be developing right now, while they can. The benefits are well worth the limited upfront investment required.

You do not want to be in a situation where leftists decide to shut down the road you’re driving on and when you try to go around them a “peacekeeper” shoots you in the head. This could happen to you, though. It could happen to anyone.

It is everyone’s responsibility to stop this. Things are not going to get better on their own.