The Solution Is Neither Obvious Nor Pleasant

     I keep seeing queries such as this:

What tool can store owners own to stop this from happening?! 🚨pic.twitter.com/cOKcoVFkZn

— Anti Left Memes (@AntiLeftMemes) November 5, 2025

     My first thought was for stores to invest in security doors. But storefronts almost all incorporate display windows; thieves that know they won’t be opposed by superior force will smash through them. It’s already been done several times, sometimes with a vehicle. Even armor glass will shatter under that kind of force. So that’s no solution.

     My second thought was for stores to close their retain storefronts and go “delivery only.” But a thief can follow a delivery truck, assault its driver wherever he stops to make a delivery, and make free with the truck’s contents. Once again, the absence of a superior opposing force is what matters.

     So there must be a superior opposing force. Such a force must possess lethal armament that it can and will use at need. A sufficiently high probability of death will deter most thieves, even those that travel in packs. But where are we to find such a force?

     Only the readiness to deal death to attackers has any prospect of success. But even that falls short of perfection. Armored cars with armed guards have been successfully attacked, too. If the thief (or gang of thieves) is heavily armed and willing to risk counterfire, he’ll take his chances.

     Amazon’s delivery trucks have been attacked many times. The driver is usually helpless before such an attack. He may even have been instructed not to resist. In a quiet residential neighborhood, most of its residents at their jobs, where would his protection come from?

     Perfection cannot be the standard. Even were all of us to go armed at all times, there would be some forcible thievery. Ironically, many states deem the protection of property an inadequate justification for the use of lethal force. In New York, a homeowner is forbidden to shoot a burglar unless he can convince a jury that his own life was in danger. Else he may spend several years in prison as the price for stopping the burglar. Never mind that such legal protection of the thief’s “right to life” practically licenses home invaders to do as they will.

     Rose Wilder Lane, in The Discovery of Freedom, noted that what protects most of us is other people’s respect for our rights, rather than the prospect of arrest, trial, and incarceration. But when that respect declines, so does the invisible defense of our persons and property it once provided.

     Americans must become a people in arms once again. Yes, there will be consequences. Some people will die – and some of those will be good people. But with the general understanding of and respect for rights of all kinds having declined so sharply, the time has come for Nemesis to return to the stage and teach the villains once again what follows from Hubris.