The Man With No Eyes Looks At Street Mobs
Let’s look at street mobs the way cops look at perps—coldly, analytically, always watching the hands. So, readers, put on your mirrored sunglasses, the ones cops use. Just as for The Man with No Eyes, they will enable you to see clearly:
Right Wing Extremists
Stars and Bars, swastikas, gnarly beards; ARs and AKs; tac vests hung with ammo mags, Ka-bars and Bowie knives; boots, buzz cuts—in the media, right-wing rioters seem to infest every part of America west of The Hamptons and east of Big Sur. But as street mobs, how effective are they?
1. Outré outfits make each protester stand out from others and easy to identify in photo arrays, facial recognition databases and lineups.
2. Lack of masks and goggles creates vulnerability to tear gas and pepper spray.
3. Carbines on slings can tangle up rioters and be used as takedown levers by opponents. (The proper weapons for street fighting are two-edged daggers, compact, double-action pistols and short truncheons.)
4. Backpacks turn the nimble into klutzes. What are these guys carrying anyway, lunch and a Pepsi?
5. Plywood shields are laughable.
6. Since the 1950s, right-wing groups have been infiltrated by law enforcement. How serious can the racist, nativist Proud Boys be when their chairman is a black, Hispanic cop snitch?
So how did right-wing mobs do in the last several years?
Their confirmed kills are fewer than the body count in Chicago on a Saturday night. Politically they’re nugatory since they repulse rather than attract conservative voters. They best serve as useful Boogeymen whom The Left use to inflame the media and browbeat political opponents. The January 6, 2021, scramble over the walls and into the U.S. Capitol was an unmitigated disaster, never mind that, in 1983, a leftist mob exploded a bomb inside the Senate and nearly aced several of The Honorables therein.
Antifa
Antifa/Black Lives Matter have confirmed kills in the dozens, possibly 50 or more. Exact counts are impossible due to cops juking the stats and meretricious fact checkers reclassifying every corpse. Politically, they’re astonishingly successful. Antifa/BLM occupied center-city Seattle for weeks and declared a Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone free from cops, prosecution and civil liability. City employees provided food, water, snacks and medicines, removed dead bodies and raped women, and emptied honey buckets and port-a-potties.
Tactically, they’re a step up:
1. Black clothes, headwraps, goggles and masks make individuals difficult to spray, gas, identify or prosecute. Gloves keep fingerprints off weapons.
2. Shields of steel or Lexan/plastic composite can withstand a police baton whack, block pepper balls and partially deflect bullets.
3. As revealed by hidden-camera, Antifa often egg on non-affiliated rioters to charge at cops and get arrested while Antifa inciters ease back then vanish. By contrast, the rightist mobs are in your face, in your camera, and in your jail.
4. Antifa often do not carry firearms, which reduces their criminal liability. The rightists’ guns subject them to harsh minimum mandatories in state and federal prisons.
5. Unlike right-wing goons, Antifa do not carry cellphones, which can be traced by “Stingray” cellphone tower replicators and data-dumped by the cops’ Cellebrite extractors.
6. Left-wing non-profits pay for Antifa’s transportation, lawyers, bail bonds and getaway vehicles. Right-wingers make do with their savings and the girlfriend’s credit card.
7. Antifa/BLM enjoy near immunity from prosecution. Left-wing rioters often are issued paper tickets for “breaking curfew”; right-wingers are booked into jails on felony rioting, assault, battery on a law enforcement officer and firearms charges with the customary add-ons of conspiracy and lying to a police officer.
Many politicians are excited by Antifa/BLM rioters and encourage them with unsubtle, coded pronouncements. Some rushed to join the rioters and strut before media microphones and cameras. Alas for them, Antifa/BLM have become non-political rage-heads and slipped the leashes of officials who, in their imaginations, fancied themselves Antifa’s masters.
Rioters still rampage in western cities despite The Left’s election victories. Political pandering and groveling to them have no effect. The attempt to murder Portland Mayor Ted (“I’m on your side”) Wheeler by setting fire to his condominium building, (which could have killed all within) is instructive.
So, for politicians contemplating a cuddle with BLM/Antifa, I suggest the following:
1. Move to a dwelling of brick, block, stone or silica-composite board.
2. Keep a large fire extinguisher, type ABC, near the door.
3. Slip on some Class 2 armor when you’re out and about on the peoples’ business.
Not to worry, it’s all work-related and fully deductible.
Wes Denham spent years as a criminal defense investigator and Spanish translator in Florida and Georgia jails and prisons. He is the author of Arrested, a consumer guide to criminal defense, and Arrest-Proof Yourself, a guide to avoiding unnecessary arrest. He is a graduate of Princeton University.