How Come Americans Stand Their Ground?

On August 9, 2014, an eighteen-year-old Black youth named Michael Brown, was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, MO. The town of some 20,000 residents, is a largely African American community located five miles north of downtown St. Louis.

The shooting unleashed nearly two weeks of angry, violent demonstrations and rioting during which time Ferguson became a battleground between two populations: the many Black residents of the town and nearby towns who staged daily and nightly marches protesting the behavior of the cops, versus armed members of so-called ‘militias’ who showed up to help the cops ‘keep the peace.’

Six years from the date of Brown’s death, a couple stood on the front porch of their St. Louis home, brandishing an assault rifle and a pistol at a group of Black Lives Matter demonstrators who were marching to protest the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May, demonstrations which occurred in many American cities over those several months.

In the Michael Brown incident, three separate investigations by the town, the state and the feds could not find any fault with the behavior of the cop who shot and killed Brown. It was determined ultimately that Brown responded to an order from the cop to stop walking down the middle of the street by charging the officer in his car and attempting to grab his gun.

In the St. Louis incident, on the other hand, the AR-wielding attorney and his pistol-packing wife were indicted and…