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Social Responsibility, Boise Style
Every now and then something happens that reaffirms your faith in America and its citizenry.
Recently in Boise, Antifa decided they would conduct another of their “peaceful protests” which normally include peacefully rioting and peacefully burning down occupied buildings. Throw in beating a few honest citizens or storekeepers that complain, and that’s your typical Antifa “rally” or “march.”
What better place to do this, they must have thought. Idaho las long been known (inaccurately) for being home to the worst of America’s white supremacists. Surely a bunch of black-hoodie-clad mutants wearing hardhats, goggles, and bandanas must strike fear into the heart of people who … let’s see … defend themselves against bears and wolves, and who hunt and live in one of the most remote areas in the US. Yeah, that’s the ticket. People who survive six months of winter must be easy prey, right?
So the soy boys from Antifa announced their plans and guess what. They were not met by a bunch of police officers. The police officers did not get pelted with rocks, doused with urine, or set fire by Molotov cocktails. A win for Antifa? Not exactly.
Did the police even show up?
Well, yeah, but mostly to laugh and point fingers at the intellectually challenged.
You see, when the loyal residents of Boise heard there was a party they were not invited to attend, and that involved burning their stores, looting their goods, and generally making merry over their destruction, they decided that they were not going to let that happen. Not today, Satan!
So, what did happen?
Hundreds of people armed with AR-15s (you know, those scary black rifles that nobody “needs” to hunt with), AK-47s, shotguns, hunting rifles, openly-carried pistols, and a whole heck of a lot of attitude showed up and lined the streets. When the soy boys started showing up to get pipes, umbrellas, bottles, and other things out of the trunks of their mother’s 2013 Prius, armed civilians walked up and said “we’ll take those.” With dozens of gun barrels poking out, the hoodie boys gave up their improvised weapons and even admitted on Twitter that they were outnumbered five-to-one.
No one stopped them from marching. Their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble was intact.
But a whole bunch of citizens stopped them from rioting while the local media looked on in horror. First Amendment! Protesting is Good! All the usual stuff. And protesting is good when it sets its sights on a laudable goal. Here the media was simply claiming it was a white-supremacists’ wet dream with all those guns being used to intimidate the same people who just days earlier had participated in the seizure and secession of part of Seattle. It wasn’t an expression of white supremacy. People of all races were out there protecting what was theirs. It was people channeling their western heritage.
Funny thing about western heritage. Unlike the South, where confederate generals and soldiers got monuments to their unsuccessful attempt to wrestle control from Washington, the western states never erected monuments to the settlers who settled the plains and far west. But those who live there know their history.
When the James Brothers and Cole Younger went riding into Northfield, MN, to rob the local bank, it wasn’t the police or sheriff that stopped them. It was an armed citizenry protecting what was theirs. When they rode out of town trying to get away, a posse was formed and took out after them.
That’s the way it was in the western states. The sheriff or marshal took care of the day-to-day garden variety drunks and crazies, but the sheriff could create a posse and go after any bad guy or gang that made off with the bank’s deposits. Lots of bank robbers and thieves wound up with “suspended sentences” in those days in the form of dangling by ropes from trees. But in those days, there was right and wrong, and you knew what happened if you crossed the line.
I love seeing the citizenry in Idaho reminding the local lunatics that there is a right and wrong, and what will happen if they cross that line.
Here’s what’s interesting about this encounter. First, it demonstrates that the citizenry took it upon themselves to adjudge what would be acceptable behavior and what would not. They did not stop the march, they stopped the violence that was planned. No one could claim they were the victim of police violence because the overwhelming show of force was sufficient to deter the violence. This is like what the Florida sheriff did recently in Clay County telling Antifa that if they showed up, he’d deputize every legal gun owner in the county if he had to.
Second, it also provides a stark contrast between the citizenry just 6.1 degrees of longitude west of Boise who let their town be wrecked by Antifa, and allowed an entire six-block area to be seized by a similar collection of mutants. Seattle cops were chastised for using pepper spray and flashbang grenades to disperse crowds. In Boise, no one got to the point of considering seizure a realistic possibility because the citizens voted with their bodies and their modern sporting rifles to defend their piece of America.
Now, the anti-gun crowd has been busy wetting its panties over what “could have” happened. People could have been shot! Oh no! Gosh, people were shot in Seattle, and the mutants controlling CHOP wouldn’t let the police in. The same people who said not a word about radical extremists carrying AR-15s in Seattle and shooting to death at least two people, throw a grapefruit-size blood clot when they see people peacefully saying “don’t mess with me,” while openly carrying the tools necessary to ensure their personal defense.
In fact, what happened in Boise is the ultimate form of social responsibility. It’s neighbor protecting neighbor. It’s the posse looking to help out the sheriff. It’s the kind of community response that ensures that when people start looking to cause trouble, they look elsewhere (like Seattle) because Idaho is a hardened target.
Good job, Boise! Stay strong!
Published in Guns
There’s alway room here for good news.
You, sir, are on a roll. Don’t stop.
That and the shortage of parking.
Love this. Are there any links or media for this?
I’d heard some rumblings that an influx of Californians was making Idaho “bluer.” Hopefully, this is a sign that those rumors are exaggerated.
Links? I live in the Boise area. I believe the actions you’re talking about happened up in Coeur d’Alene in the panhandle.
There have been BLM marches here in Treasure Valley, in the 500 – 2,000 person range, plus some counter-protests. Almost entirely peaceful, a bit of vandalism of government buildings which is being prosecuted. By word of mouth, there were local militia members and Proud Boys who ‘made themselves visible’ to some small groups that looked like they might be Antifa scouts, and nothing happened as result.
(Really NOT a good place for outsiders to try trashing things. Idaho had something like 10% of adults registered for CCW before we went Constitutional carry a few years ago and the local gun shops and trainers have been doing a steady business since.)
There have been some attempts to figure that out. It appears the overall effect is neutral to slightly red. What is definitely the case is that those immigrants who lean blue sort into local enclaves that are already blue – Boise North End and downtown, Blaine County – and those spots are becoming woke islands in a purple and red sea.
The last Boise municipal elections put a couple wokesters into office, while the state has now mandated district rather than at-large city elections. Should be some really interesting local politics in the next few years…. (I live in a suburb outside Boise, so I can watch with some level of detached amusement.)
I have so much more to say… no worries.
I met a fellow today on my bike ride who just pulled in from moving from California like 15 minutes before. He was walking his three huskies. He was wearing a MAGA hat. He spent 50 years there and just got fed up. I welcomed him to South Carolina.
We have a short list of places to move now that our area is no longer blue-ish but BLOOOO. Greenville is one of them because they have a Red Sox farm team.
Yes. Both on YouTube and on Twitter.
Heavens! Let’s hope so.
What I saw on YouTube said Boise, but maybe the guy didn’t know where he was.
Primary source linkage is considered a good thing around here. Just saying because I see you’re new.
Yes, I’d like to read about this and send the links to my friends . . .
I visited Idaho way back when with my mother and stepfather. My stepdad was born and raised in Hope, Idaho, and we stayed with his old, childhood friend and his wife. Fell in love with the place . . .
I love this story and hope to see and hear this play out in more areas that are threatened by these destructive groups.
Presumably not real AK-47s, since those are illegal, because they are full-auto rifles.
Any AK-47s visible were likely of one or another of the many variants available with the selective fire option omitted, so that they’re semi-automatic only. (Whether or not those are real is perhaps a matter of semantics.)
I have it on good authority from friends that Boise is pretty much blue. The rest of the state – no. An incredible percentage of officers retiring from this county’s largest police department are immediately moving to the Nampa area. “Blue” would have a different meaning to them.
One of my best friends, a retired park ranger, also lives in Nampa. He isn’t exactly red. More like infrared.
Pretty good summary. Boise fringes still tend red, the core and old urban districts are getting more blue and woke by the year. Rest of the Treasure Valley is red in some shade or another.
A great story.
How have the district attorneys and politicians in those areas responded? The reason that sort of thing doesn’t happen in big cities is not because citizens with sense and guts don’t reside in cities but rather because those people know the left-leaning political class will order police to arrest them.
Protecting your own person, your own family, and your own private property in a Democrat-run city is legally hazardous regardless of the US Constitution. One must love whatever one is protecting more than one’s freedom because the DA will prosecute self-defense claims and tort lawyers will pursue damages for harming an aggressor.
Protecting one’s neighbor or public property, when politicians violate that fundamental duty by ordering police to stand down, is even more legally hazardous. And if few conservatives are willing to risk great hazards even to speak their minds, of course few will gather publicly with weapons to guard a city (hoping that the jobless vandals won’t show up again the next day or the next week).
Unfortunately, the mayor of Boise is a progressive Democrat with a whacked out agenda.
I was concerned because of the issue about linking in the code of conduct. Thanks for your thoughtful response.
I think this is a fair point.
I am hopeful that will change. Even Democrats want to be safe in their homes and neighborhoods.
Oh yeah. By all means link away. You can even quote from the content. Just don’t reproduce the entire thing. Even with a link, that is heavily frowned on.
Also alert the reader if at the link there’s a noticeable amount of vulgar language (videos seem particularly prone to that).
But, yes, we love to dissect original sources for additional background and to help us understand and analyze the analysis by the original Ricochet poster.
Interesting local political situation in this case: The previous long time mayor tried to ram through some big capital projects (new town library, downtown stadium) with little citizen input, and active fought against voter initiatives to require citizen approval. That didn’t go down well, and the small/responsive government voters effectively united with the progs to chuck him out; the new mayor was essentially the most popular of the possible replacements.
It remains to be seen how she will do as she annoys the small government voters and conservatives with her wokeism. Judging by the recall petitions filed against her and one wacko city councilwoman, she may have problems. Next election should be interesting.