See also: JOHN DERBYSHIRE: America Is Becoming A Lawless Society and JOHN DERBYSHIRE: Smollett, Maxwell, Potter—Another Bad Week For The U.S. Justice System

I've been banging on recently about how we have become a lawless society. Here are some random updates on that.

• When I got my Suffolk County NY pistol permit back in 2000 there was a three-month wait between applying and getting the permit. I just learned this week that the current wait time is a year and a half.

How did wait time for approval of a pistol permit go from three months to six times as long? I asked the police spokeslady. She replied: "We're hopelessly backed up. Everyone wants a pistol permit nowadays."

I think that's what financial analysts call "a leading indicator."

• There's a meme going round—I think it's a meme—from which I am deriving much quiet pleasure: Black Lives Matter corporate sycophants getting their comeuppance.

Pedro Gonzalez of Chronicles Magazine offered it on Twitter the other day.

Pedro started from a letter dated December 9th to the leaders of the Senate and the House of Representatives in D.C.: Schumer, McConnell, Pelosi, and McCarthy.

The letter is signed by 21 members of the Retail Industry Leaders Association, representing big chain retailers like Best Buy, Foot Locker, Nordstrom, Target, CVS, Walgreens, and so on. These retailers beg the congressfolk to do something or other about the current outbreak of flagrant looting that is mostly going unpunished.

Above the link to that letter Pedro tweets the following, tweet:

Virtually every CEO here supported Black Lives Matter amid last year's riots while people got killed and small businesses got ruined.

A June 2020 sample from one recent looting victim:

In memory of George Floyd - Please see our latest update and expect more in the days, weeks and months to come. pic.twitter.com/uO4yey4u8D

— Foot Locker (@footlocker) June 4, 2020

So they *deserve* to have their stores wrecked. These looters are just giving CEOs what they deserve, good and hard.

 See also "Be Brave, Do Something"—Ashley Rae Goldenberg's List Of Corporations That Support The Riots And Want You Dead, June 8, 2020.

As I said: much quiet pleasure.

• Now this one from the New York Post: Beverley Hills residents arming themselves with guns in wake of violence, by Michael Shellenberger, December 9, 2021.

Yes: all those affluent liberals in 90210, like the inhabitants of my own humble suburban New York county, are arming up.

South African vibeshttps://t.co/4xX1LQONhv

— ib (@Indian_Bronson) December 11, 2021

They feel terrible about it, of course. Or not so much terrible as in denial: the New York Post quotes Vera Markowitz, a former 1960s radical who was a member of Students for a Democratic Society, a far-Left group, before moving to Beverly Hills:

I think I'm still radical, but I'm radical in the middle. I'm just not on the extreme of anything. I've always believed that when you believe in something, you fight for whatever it is.

Yeah, whatever, Vera. Just make sure to plant your feet in a good firm stance before taking aim.

• Here's a different kind of lawlessness—the lawlessness of high government officials in Washington, D.C.

As we all know, many of the January 6th Mostly Peaceful Protestors are still in jail after almost a year, in spite of not having been convicted of anything, or even brought to trial. The precise jail they are in is the Washington, D.C. Central Detention Facility, the CDF. Deputy Warden of the CDF is one Kathleen Landerkin, a fifty-something white lady.

Ms. Landerkin, it has turned out, is a raging, screeching Leftist with a very advanced case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. She has a Twitter trail of crude, savage attacks on Trump supporters, such as "I can't wait until you're all extinct." [More… Unhinged Deputy Warden Kathleen Landerkin of the DC Prison Wants White Republicans Extinct, BreakingNews.exchange, December 13, 2021]

She had such a Twitter trail, I should say: Ms. Landerkin has now deleted her Twitter account.

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and thirteen other Republicans have sent a letter to D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser calling for the immediate termination of Ms. Landerkin [Greene, GOP colleagues call for firing of DC Corrections official who 'despises' Trump and supporters, by Brad Dress, The Hill, December 16, 2021].

This is the same Mayor who, following the death of lowlife junkie hoodlum George Floyd in Minneapolis last year, declared her support for Black Lives Matter terrorism, and who actually ordered the words BLACK LIVES MATTER painted in huge yellow letters all across 16th Street near the Trump White House [‘Black Lives Matter’: In giant yellow letters, D.C. mayor sends message to Trump, by Fenit Nirappil , Julie Zauzmer Weil and Rachel Chason, Washington Post, June 5, 2020].

Liberals always patronize with symbols, always fail with polices: “D.C. Mayor Bowser orders 'Black Lives Matter' painted on 16th Street near White House” - The Washington Post https://t.co/0DBUkEaJIH

— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) June 5, 2020

So I doubt the letter from MTG & Co. will have any effect. But it's good to see our congresscritters taking a stand for what's right.

• Finally, here is a follow-up to my remarks last week about the Kim Potter trial in Minneapolis.

Ms. Potter, you'll recall, is the white police officer, now ex-police officer, who shot black-ish Daunte Wright back in April. Wright was another urban lowlife in the tradition of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Michael Brown, and Trayvon Martin, with a warrant out for armed robbery.

A Radio Derb listener emailed in to tell me that with Daunte Wright's lawyers suing the city and county for a George Floyd–sized civil settlement, a law firm representing Daunte Wright's victims is suing his estate for a nice big piece of that settlement.

As of November 29th there were three of these lawsuits against Daunte Wright's estate.

1. One filed in May accusing Wright of shooting then-16-year-old Caleb Livingston in the head outside a gas station in north Minneapolis in May 2019.
2. A second one filed in June alleging that Wright and an accomplice robbed and carjacked Joshua Hodges, a 20-year-old black man, just weeks before Wright was killed. The accomplice allegedly opened the driver's side door of Hodges' parked car in north Minneapolis and shot him in the leg, causing "massive bleeding" and fracturing his fibula.
3. A third civil lawsuit filed November 29th accusing Wright of assault and battery, sexual assault, and intentional infliction of emotional distress related to the attempted robbery at gunpoint of a young white woman—the incident that led to there being an arrest warrant out for Wright at the time of his death [Daunte Wright estate faces third lawsuit from woman he allegedly choked at gunpoint in attempted robbery, by Danielle Wallace, Michael Ruiz, Fox News, November 29, 2021].

Kim Potter trial: Daunte Wright robbery victim recounts 'evil' deed in exclusive first interviewhttps://t.co/PZ7PGupH6I

— Fox News (@FoxNews) December 8, 2021

So when Benjamin Crump, who is representing Daunte Wright's family against the city and the county, gets a nice big fat settlement like the $27 million he got for George Floyd's family, this other law firm will swoop in for a share of it.

Since Crump will have his contingency fee safely in the bank at that point, I doubt he'll care.

Ah, the ghetto lottery!

John Derbyshire [email him] writes an incredible amount on all sorts of subjects for all kinds of outlets. (This no longer includes National Review, whose editors had some kind of tantrum and fired him.) He is the author of We Are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism and several other books. He has had two books published by VDARE.com com: FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT (also available in Kindle) and FROM THE DISSIDENT RIGHT II: ESSAYS 2013.

For years he’s been podcasting at Radio Derb, now available at VDARE.com for no charge. His writings are archived at JohnDerbyshire.com.

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