ARMED AMERICANS DID IT: Ferguson looting tamed thanks to good guy civilians with guns

We posted last week that if government “authorities” didn’t get a handle on the looting and rioting in St. Louis, law-abiding gun owners would step up and take care of it.  We received some criticism for “chest thumping”, even from gun owners.

Well, guess what?

Everyday armed Americans showed up in Ferguson and surrounding communities to volunteer to safeguard businesses from rioters, looters and arsonists. 

Imagine that.

America’s gun owners came with their police patrol-type rifles, extra magazines and a willingness to do the right thing in the face of America’s criminal class running wild.   Some beat cops were saying that the Democrat party leaders were ordering police to sit on their hands.

Good guys with guns came to protect the businesses and property of people they didn’t even know.

And business owners welcomed them with hugs.

From the Post-Dispatch:

Another leader, who would give only his first name, Sam, described himself as a weapons engineer from the St. Louis area who has done security contracting for the U.S. government. He said he was motivated to help after seeing a CNN story featuring extensive damage to Natalie’s Cake’s & More, which also helped generate thousands of dollars in donations for the small business.

Sam said he contacted owner Natalie Dubose and told her he was going to secure her store and others.

“She started crying,” Sam said.

And for those who see everything through the prism of race, it wasn’t just white guys showing up.

Black guys showed up.

Gun owners of every race protected businesses, regardless of the race of the owner. One particular instance that saw some coverage involved a group of black guys who protected a white-owned business.  How many of you saw this story on the CBS Evening News or CNN?

In Ferguson, black residents stand guard at white-owned store

(Reuters) – Since looting first erupted following the August police shooting of black teenager Michael Brown, nearly all the businesses in a 2 square mile area of this St Louis suburb have had to board up. One exception – a Conoco gas station and convenience store.

…On Tuesday night, as police and soldiers took up positions in the parking lots of virtually every strip mall and big box store around it, the forecourt of the brightly lit gas station was busy with customers.

One, a six feet, eight-inch tall man named Derrick Jordan – “Stretch,” as friends call him – whisked an AR-15 assault rifle out from a pickup truck parked near the entrance.

…Jordan and the others guarding the gas station are all black. The station’s owner is white.

…they chased away several groups of teenagers rampaging through the area.

But they have also had a close brush with soldiers from the Missouri National Guard, who mistook them for looters, he said. The guardsmen, rifles raised, had handcuffed one man before Merello came outside the store to explain that the residents were trying to help, not hurt.

And after volunteers started patrolling from the roofs and parking lots, guess what?  Suddenly the incidents of looting and arson plummeted.  Funny how that works.

Even the New York Times had a report about it – albeit right next to the cake recipes on page 142.  (I exaggerate, but you get the idea.)

Ferguson, Mo. — When Sam Andrews awoke on Tuesday morning, he found his wife watching a television interview with a woman whose bakery had been vandalized during the violent unrest here on Monday.

“She said, ‘You’ve got to go help her,’ ” Mr. Andrews said in an interview on Saturday morning.

And so Mr. Andrews, a former Defense Department contractor who is now a weapons engineer in the St. Louis area, set to work. Under the auspices of a national group called the Oath Keepers, Mr. Andrews accelerated plans to recruit and organize private security details for businesses in Ferguson, which are receiving the services for free. The volunteers, who are sometimes described as a citizen militia — but do not call themselves that — have taken up armed positions on rooftops here on recent nights.

…But the St. Louis County police, Mr. Andrews said, and other law enforcement officials have expressed misgivings.

“When we hear information that someone, or a group, is providing security without a license, our department has to investigate the issue,” a police spokesman, Shawn McGuire, said in an email on Saturday.

Yeah, so police won’t stand between violent hooligans and private property, and at the same time they think they can intimidate volunteers from helping out.  It’s going to be a hard time to prosecute a volunteer for providing security without a license.

There’s no shortage of business owners who eagerly embrace volunteer guardian angels.  A Post-Dispatch article quoted one dentist:

Victor Clark, a dentist at Ferguson Dental on South Florissant Road, said he was happy to have the Oath Keepers’ free assistance. He wants to reopen his business soon. On Monday, rioters shattered the front door and window, and stole dental needles and anesthetic.

Then Oath Keepers showed up out of the blue. “We gave them our keys,” he said. “We didn’t know that much about them, but we got a feeling of trust. You have to do something to protect our building.”

It wasn’t just Ferguson either.

Another strip mall just north Ferguson had a high-profile presence of men with guns discouraging would-be looters.  From the Post-Dispatch:

Along West Florissant just north of 270, in Greystone Plaza, about 20 men with handguns and AR-15 rifles stood around the perimeter of the parking lot, guarding the dozen or so stores.

They estimated that 100 cars had come by throughout the night, seemingly to check the place out, but turned away.

Mike Cross, the owner of St. Louis Ink at the plaza, said: “There’s nothing in this strip mall open, so you’re going to get scrutinized.”

The strip mall had been hit by vandals soon after the shooting in August.

If a couple of dozen gun owner volunteers can tame rioters in the Ferguson area, why couldn’t a thousand or more police officers?

We think we know:  The cops were on orders from Democrat politicians – from Barack Hussein Obama down to the local St. Louis Mayor Frank Slay to not use force against America’s criminal class out causing mayhem.