U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “High-Profile L.A. Crimes Spark Rush for Bullet-Proof Cars, Rolex Replicas and Safe Rooms,” The Hollywood Reporter observes. “Security agencies say wealthy clients are increasing protective measures: ‘They want someone who knows how to get them out of any situation.’”
“In addition to panic rooms, “…Hollywood clients are securing 24-7 security details, installing more cameras, adding barbed wire on top of fencing on their properties, and calling for armed security prepped in defensive driving to pick them up when their private jets touch down,” the report continues. “Some are taking firearm and self-defense classes while enrolling staff in security training.”
That tracks with a New York Post report documenting Beverly Hills residents arming up in spite of the anti-gun politicians they otherwise enable.
“I’ve always been anti-gun but I am right now in the process of getting myself shooting lessons because I now understand that there may be a need for me to know how to defend myself and my family,” the report quotes one Beverly Hills resident. “We’re living in fear.”
“Even hardcore leftist Democrats who said to me in the past, ‘I’ll never own a gun’ are calling me asking about firearms,” the report quotes one private security provider. “I’d say there has been an increase of 80 percent in the number of requests I’m getting this year.”
What’s that saying about “a mugged liberal”?
The thing is, we see no corresponding appreciable reconsideration of “progressive” priorities that results in a significant change in voting patterns. Voters in Los Angeles and its surrounding cities overwhelmingly elect Democrat gun-grabbers and seem oblivious to the cognitive dissonance that represents, even when their “wokeness” backfires on them.
Now they’re at risk because of “smash and grab” robberies and the like that are trending and spreading because the “authorities” fear to do what it takes to dissuade, repel and effectively prosecute them. When police in Beverly Hills responded to “a significant increase in calls for service in our business community,” they were embarrassed to find, according to a lawsuit for “egregious profiling,” that “99% of people arrested by [the] ‘safe streets’ unit were Black.”
There’s no easy out and plenty of reason to think things can and will get much worse. Those who lived there during the Los Angeles Riots (or “rebellion [and] defining moment,” depending on your point of view) saw whole sections of the city ceded to utter predatory anarchy for extended periods. We still shake our heads recalling seeing the mayor impose an emergency order ban on ammunition sales to the “law-abiding” and then watching criminals laugh at that and loot gun stores. The vast majority of Angelenos don’t seem to have learned a thing.
“Progressive” one-percenters may “feel” like their wealth will buy them safe passage when the cultural Marxism they are enabling blows up in everyone’s faces, but there’s really no historical precedent for making such assumptions. That’s just not the way such things play out in feeding frenzies. When we see symbolic (for now) pitchfork protests targeting Michael Bloomberg, it’s fair to ask at what point will security personnel be inclined to reassess who their primary loyalties are reserved for and say “Nuts to this”?
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
