Implicit in the primary gun safety rule, “never aim at anything you don’t intend to shoot,” is the understanding that if a gun is aimed at you, their intention is the same.

Massage parlor owner Sihui Fang knew that crime was a problem in Albuquerque, and robberies of massage parlors in particular. She and a friend came up with a plan.

“First, Fang — at 5 feet, 5 inches and 105 pounds — would try to run. If that didn’t work, she would give the robbers cash, electronics, whatever they wanted,” according an The Albuquerque Journal report. “And if that didn’t work, we had a gun in the shop.”

“She fought,” the Journal reported. 

But she did not survive.

An attempted robbery on Jan. 24, 2022, left her dead. 

Fang’s death comes less than a month after Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller signed an “anti-Asian-hate crime” declaration “to protect the Asian-American community, make mental health resources available to victims, and record and investigate anti-Asian incidents” — which does exactly nothing to stop violence against Asians other than to “declare” that it was wrong.

Eighteen-year-olds Jorge Rivera-Ramirez and Juan Carlos Hernandez apparently didn’t get the message.

The 500% increase in “random acts of violence” against Asians in major U.S. cities last year served as the basis for Keller and the Albuquerque City Council to issue their anti-hate “declaration,” but like many of the crimes perpetrated against Asians in 2021 there is no evidence as yet to suggest that Rivera-Ramirez and Hernandez targeted Fang specifically because she was Asian.

More likely, the perpetrators went after what they thought would be an easy target. 

It’s noteworthy that Fang’s three-point plan to deal with robbery was not to call police. Every resident knows that even if they had their phone at the ready and dialed 9–1–1 immediately, police would not be dispatched in time to save them.

There are two types of people who have little to no faith in local police: Woke Liberals and Realistic Libertarians — the latter because they understand the police don’t prevent crime, they respond to it.

Even Albuquerque’s detectives don’t solve crimes. Barely a third of murders in Albuquerque last year have been “solved.” 

Which is why Fang had her own plan.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media’s propaganda to victimize perpetrators and vilify gun owners makes the average citizen a sitting duck when crimes do occur.

In a society that outsources its personal safety and mocks personal gun ownership as right-wing libertarian fetishists who are stereotypically ignorant and paranoid racists, it is no surprise that citizens would consider a gun as the last resort.

And they should, but not when a gun is pointed at your face.

It is not Fang’s fault that she did not shoot first. Violence should always be the last resort. But to run from or negotiate with criminals only perpetuates the pandemic of criminality that is plaguing cities across the country. As police face growing backlash for doing their jobs and criminals are emboldened by the inability of the “justice” system to deliver, safety falls to the individual, not the state.

The problem is not that Mayor Keller and the City Council issued a pandering “declaration” condemning hate crimes. The problem is that woke verbalizations condemning racially motivated crimes create a false sense of protection for the citizens who have to actually face the increasingly emboldened criminals roaming our streets.

Keller and friends did not issue a statement warning citizens about the rise of violent crime in Albuquerque. They did not declare that citizens should seek out ways to protect themselves. They did not lobby the state legislature for more funding to provide enough officers to signal to criminals that the law will prevail. And they did not offer educational resources for personal protection or fund the mass distribution of signs that businesses could hang in their storefronts saying, “Staff on premises are fully armed and trained in self-defense.” Any and all of which would do more to save actual lives than virtue signaling their politically motivated opposition to racially motivated violence that simply isn’t the problem in Albuquerque.

We’re not talking about a missed opportunity to create real change. We’re talking about a dead woman.

If business owners are forced to take matters into their own hands because the state will not take any meaningful action to prevent violent crime, and those business owners die, it is not hyperbolic to say that Keller and friends have blood on their hands.

Because they do.