The gun debate keeps missing a key reason people want to possess guns

[sarisataka]

14. Has this actually happened?

The LA riots were a rude awakening for Korean-Americans

Chang Lee gripped his fingers tighter around the gun and screamed at potential looters from the rooftop of the small strip mall where he stood. The 35-year-old had never held a firearm before the LA riots. Lighting up the blocks around him, Lee could smell the fires burning in Los Angeles' Koreatown.

"Where are the police? Where are the police?" Lee whispered over and over from his rooftop perch. Lee would not see law enforcement for three days -- only fellow Korean-Americans, who would be photographed by news agencies looking like armed militia in what appeared to be a guerrilla race war on the streets.

It was April 30, 1992, and the city of angels raged in a second day of looting, armed assaults and arson in the wake of the acquittal of four white LAPD officers for use of excessive force in the videotaped beating of Rodney King.

The nearly weeklong, widespread rioting killed more than 50 people, injured more than 1,000 people and caused approximately $1 billion in damage, about half of which was sustained by Korean-owned businesses. Long-simmering cultural clashes between immigrant Korean business owners and predominately African-American customers spilled over with the acquittals.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/28/us/la-riots-korean-americans/index.html

'The police will protect you'- except LAPD set up roadblocks keeping people from leaving Koreatown because those routes led to rich (white) neighborhoods. As Lees says, "They left us to burn."