LU’s Julie reported on Saturday that the death toll had gotten worse in the terror attack by Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez on Navy facilities in Chattanooga. In addition to the four Marines who died on Thursday, Navy Petty Officer Second Class Randall Smith succumbed to his injuries from the attack in the pre-dawn hours on Saturday morning.
They’re pretty jittery around the military recruiting center where Abdulazeez perpetrated so much carnage. They’re jittery at military facilities across the country, especially recruiting centers that are located in easily accessible places like strip malls. A handful of governors have already authorized their National Guard forces to arm those on active duty, which will affect some recruiting offices, although not the recruiters for the federal military departments.
In Winchester, Virginia, on Friday, recruiting personnel at the local center noticed an armed man standing outside their offices, and went to investigate. As the Blaze reports, what they found was a local citizen, carrying an AR-15, standing guard over them.
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The man, who wished to remain anonymous, told WTTG-TV that he wanted to make a statement on his day off.
“People need to call their congressmen, they need to call their senators, and they need to change the laws on the books so these guys can protect themselves,” he told the news station.
The man said he had been warmly welcomed from the individuals at the Winchester recruitment offices, telling WTTG that they had come to visit him, bringing lunch and thanking him for what he is doing.
“I was received with handshakes and thank you. They came by. And not only did they come by, their wives came by, in tears, thanking me for just being out here,” he told WTTG. “They brought cookies for me. They brought lunch.”
He said police had previously come by “doing their duty.”
“It was all good,” he said.
I’ll have more to say about this in the coming days. With the collapse of modern civilization effectively underway, the wisdom of the historical West’s emphasis on a self-armed yeoman citizenry is reasserting itself. It’s easier to see the bad stuff right now — the breakdown of the social compact, the confusion of disarmed and dependent people whose props are falling away — but the reemergence of the self-armed yeoman is visible if you look for it. In the West’s titanic struggles over principle, liberty, and truth, the self-armed yeoman has always found a way to reestablish himself against surges of imperialism, feudalism, and collectivism. There’s no question that the yeoman faces his greatest test in this age of a fully encompassed globe. But he has not yet begun to fight.
There: you knew this wouldn’t be a one-dimensional update on an armed citizen posting guard against “lone wolf” terrorism, right? I’ll be a little scarce over the coming week, but consider this a downpayment on a better convo to come.
Semper vigilans, shipmates.
