It wasn’t all that long ago that Democrats were defending and bailing out rioters and looters during the BLM race riots. Or that In Defense of Looting was making the rounds of bookstores.
They’ve tamped it down a bit since transitioning to abortion, but looting rights is still on the agenda.
MSNBC’s Joy Reid likened Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) to segregationists after his warning to potential looters in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian.
For the much of the past week, DeSantis has been dealing with the storm’s impact as the death toll continues to rise and Florida faces an astonishing level of property damage. On Friday, DeSantis held a press conference where he spoke about efforts to maintain law and order, and he warned people not to rob homes that were damaged or abandoned in Ian’s wake.
“Don’t even think about looting. Don’t even think about taking advantage of people in this vulnerable situation,” DeSantis said. “You can have people bringing boats into some of these islands and trying to ransack people’s homes. I can tell you, in the state of Florida, you never know what may be lurking behind somebody’s home. And I would not want to chance that if I were you, given that we’re a Second Amendment state.”
Reid noticed DeSantis’ remarks in a video CBS posted to Twitter, and the ReidOut host decided to compare that warning of gun-toting Floridians to the words of infamous segregationist Walter E. Headley.
This entire convoluted argument depends on taking DeSantis out of context and then claiming that it’s racist because somebody else once said it.
Speaking near Fort Myers in the leveled community of Matlacha on Friday, the Republican Governor relayed one sight he saw in Punta Gorda in neighboring Charlotte County the day prior.
“They boarded up all the businesses, and there are people that wrote on their plywood, ‘you loot, we shoot,’” DeSantis said. “At the end of the day, we are not going to allow lawlessness to take advantage of this situation. We are a law-and-order state, and this is a law-and-order community, so do not think that you’re going to go take advantage of people who’ve suffered misfortune.”
DeSantis was describing what people wrote on their businesses. And he warned potential looters trying to take advantage of the inability of some police to respond during the disaster that a lot of homeowners and business owners have guns and may defend themselves.
Regardless of the origins of the phrase, signs warning that looters will be shot routinely pop up after hurricanes in Texas.
And looters are not just guys making off with things. They often operate as armed gangs like the ones who waged running gun battles with police officers in New Orleans after Katrina.
But as always the Left sympathizes with the perpetrators, not the victims.
Article posted with permission from Daniel Greenfield
