The forgotten right of the law-abiding poor

PUBLISHED: October 18, 2025 | www.baltimoresun.com

In cities like Chicago, Portland, Baltimore and St. Louis, the poor live under an unspoken tyranny. It is not a dictatorship of law, but of lawlessness — a quiet chaos permitted, even enabled, by Democratic leaders who govern with slogans instead of solutions. These are the cities where a working mother can’t walk to the bus stop after dark without fear, where an elderly man double-locks his front door and still sleeps with one eye open, and where a child’s walk to school is a daily negotiation with danger.

Yet in these same cities, politicians — most of whom are protected by armed security details — preach that citizens don’t need guns. They say the police will protect them. But the reality is painfully obvious: The police are too few, too late and too constrained to protect anyone in real time. In these urban war zones, response times stretch into double digits while criminals roam free before the sirens fade.

The Democratic Party’s urban philosophy is paternalistic: They assume the poor can’t be trusted with responsibility. They assume a single mother in South Chicago is incapable of learning gun safety, or that a hardworking father in North Portland is too reckless to own a firearm. This is not compassion; it’s contempt disguised as care.

The Second Amendment was never meant to be a luxury of the wealthy or the rural. It was designed for everyone — for the free citizen who must stand responsible for his own defense. The farmer on the frontier, the shopkeeper in a tough neighborhood, the widow alone in her home — all share the same unalienable right to protect themselves. Yet modern progressives have turned that right into a class privilege, reserved for the connected and the affluent, while the poor are told to “wait for help.”

Consider the contradiction: In neighborhoods where crime is highest, gun control is strictest. Chicago’s gun laws are among the toughest in the nation, yet its murder numbers eclipse entire states. Portland, once known for its eccentric charm, now resembles a dystopian social experiment — rampant drug use, unchecked homelessness and hollowed-out downtown blocks where few dare to walk after dusk. The very people these leaders claim to champion — the poor, the working class, the vulnerable — are the ones most harmed by policies that leave them defenseless.

When a government disarms its citizens but cannot protect them, it fails both morally and politically. The failure of Democratic leadership in these cities isn’t just bureaucratic — it’s moral cowardice. They know the truth: Criminals ignore gun laws. Only the good obey them. Yet instead of empowering the good, they burden them with restrictions that guarantee their dependence on a state that cannot deliver safety.

There is a quiet hypocrisy here that should enrage any thinking person. The same politicians who defund the police also disarm the people. The same leaders who speak about systemic inequality create a system where only the wealthy can afford private security and gated communities, while the poor are left to fend for themselves with nothing but 911 on speed dial and a prayer that help arrives before the bullets do.

The working poor deserve better. They deserve the dignity of self-defense — the right to stand equal under the law, not subservient to it. The Second Amendment is not about hunting or hobby shooting; it is the ultimate civil right, the one that ensures all others. A disarmed people are a dependent people, and dependency breeds despair.

It’s time for the forgotten citizens of Chicago, Portland, Baltimore and beyond to wake up. The moral arc of their political leaders no longer bends toward justice — it bends toward control. Their allegiance is not to the safety of their constituents, but to ideology and donors. The working man, the single mother, the elderly widow — they must reclaim the power that is rightfully theirs.

To arm oneself is not to reject peace; it is to insist upon it. It is to say, “My life matters enough to defend.” Every law-abiding poor American in these neglected cities should hear that call. Don’t wait for permission from politicians who fear your freedom. The Constitution already granted it.

Liberty is not a gift from government — it’s a responsibility from God. And when government fails to protect, moral citizens must protect themselves. That’s not extremism. That’s common sense, and it’s long past time we treated it that way.

Armstrong Williams (www.armstrongwilliams.com; @arightside) is a political analyst, syndicated columnist and owner of the broadcasting company, Howard Stirk Holdings. He is also part owner of The Baltimore Sun.

©️ 2025 Baltimore Sun