It’s time for radicals, rioters, and revolutionaries to smell the gunpowder.

French protestors were rioting in the streets; rebellion was in the air. Thousands of Frenchmen of all classes had been executed, many by beheading, including women and children. Royalists (supporters of King Louis XVI) felt the monarchy permanently slipping away. Roman Catholic Church leaders had lost their privileged positions, including much of their lands. The commoners were heady with new laws that gave them power after their powerlessness.

Fear, anger, hatred, and resentment reigned in Paris as mobs roamed and often controlled the streets. The common people wanted to keep what concessions they had gained, and the aristocrats and the church leaders wanted to gain back control.

The French Revolution (planned for decades by Freemasons, Jacobins, and assorted atheistic God-haters) was out of control. Even the revolutionary leaders lost power and were themselves marched to the guillotine that was always ripe with blood from recent victims.

The protesters (revolutionaries) had three goals: destroy the government, the church, and the traditional home. Their battle cry was liberty, equality, fraternity, which was admirable, but extremists turned it into rivers of blood.

France was about to make a decision that would decide their destiny: would they follow America’s “revolution” of a decade earlier, or would they heed the rantings of radicals of past years and choose to be ruled by a strongman?

Americans wanted independence, while the French wanted insurrection. Americans had an intense love for freedom; Frenchmen had an intense hatred for the Roman Catholic Church.

An obscure soldier saw an opportunity in the chaos and took it. Like many world leaders, Napoleon Bonaparte rose to power via revolution. Napoleon’s battles were at first against his fellow Frenchmen, as he sought to defend the republican government that had replaced the monarchy with the beheading of King Louis XVI on January 21, 1793. He would later destroy and take over the government.

Napoleon was in command of soldiers in Paris and realized that the city had exploded, and anarchy was about to take control. He ordered his soldiers to use cannon against the rebels. At the first blast, the crowd scattered as about 300 royalists died in the street. Historian Thomas Carlyle, in his classic history of the revolution, declared that Napoleon won with a “whiff of grapeshot,” and in doing so, effectively ended the French Revolution.

It did not end there. This was Napoleon’s stepping stone to absolute power. He went on to bleed Europe for more than ten years before he was stopped by the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The British exiled Napoleon to the island of Saint Helena where he died six years later.
The Scourge of Europe was dead at 51.

While I don’t have a law enforcement background, I believe it is time for a whiff, just a whiff of grapeshot, to restore order to city streets. Not to kill people, although that could happen; people are already dying during the “peaceful” protests. Mayors and Governors are mainly responsible for the disruption, disorder, and destruction, and they have proved ineffective in Minneapolis, Portland, Chicago, and about 30 other cities.

American cities have been invaded. Many concerned demonstrators who want better black/white relationships are being used by low-class violent hooligans organized by Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Antifa, sworn enemies of liberty, equality, fraternity—the motto of the French Revolution. Moreover, burning cities, broken windows, and barricaded streets do not reflect the motto. Not in Paris or Philadelphia. Not in Marseilles or Minneapolis.

More than thirty cities have been invaded by barbarians: Atlanta, Albuquerque, Austin, Bakersfield, Boston, Chicago, Chattanooga, Columbus, Dallas, Fort Worth, Des Moines, Denver, Detroit, District of Columbia, Houston, Los Angeles, Louisville, Memphis, Minneapolis, New York City, Oakland, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, San Antonio, and others. Most of the protests are not peaceful, but disorderly, destructive, dangerous, even deadly.

Two things are common with those invaded cities: Democratic control and strict gun laws. Another is official duplicity (a kind word for lying). When politicians and the media speak about the death of Floyd, they usually repeat that he was “unarmed,” but they never reveal that he was a lifetime felon and was resisting arrest. Most of the other Blacks killed by police officers were criminals like Floyd. If those officials were responsible leaders and were honestly concerned with all lives, they would remind Blacks and Whites to obey, respect, and cooperate with police officials.

Montesquieu was a French legislator whose Spirit of the Laws helped create a desire for freedom, wrote, “When the laws have ceased to be executed, as this can only come from the corruption of the republic, the state is already lost.” America could now be where the French were: standing on the edge of a cliff. Will it be law and order or mob rule? It is time for local officials to take control. I hope others don’t die in the attempt, but people are dying anyway. Any deaths, however unfortunate, should have a payoff—peace and order and jail for all unruly, violent, participants.

It is shocking that city and state officials have been so lenient, even cooperative with violent protesters. It is unprecedented, unnecessary, and unfortunate, and it is time for disruptive protesters to get a “whiff of grapeshot.”

Difficult times usually produce or reveal great leaders. Napoleon was at the right place at the right time and ended the French Revolution with a “whiff of grapeshot.” However, he rode from that encounter of grapeshot to put fear in the hearts of millions of Europeans instead of making France a free nation no longer under the heel of an authoritative king. Grapeshot followed Napoleon all over Europe, Russia, and Egypt.

Tragically, those in control (that changed quickly) followed the ruminations of Georges-Jacques Danton, Jean-Paul Marat, and Maximilien Robespierre instead of believers in personal freedom that American leaders followed: Montesquieu, John Locke, and Sir William Blackstone.

As American cities have been invaded by modern vandals and law and order have been suspended, it is time for President Trump to exercise his authority and protect us against enemies, foreign and domestic by a “whiff of grapeshot.” Napoleon ended the beheading spree of the revolution, and Trump can end this anarchist rebellion and should do so even if someone is killed.

Whatever it takes, Trump must restore order and prosecute those responsible for the violence resulting in destruction and death. I believe he can then be assured of reelection in November. If order is not restored soon, America will be condemned to dragging the corpse of Joe Biden on our backs for at least four years.

Or, until his family moves him to the Old Folks Home.

If violent protesters refuse to obey the law, Trump should give them a “whiff of grapeshot” that will save us from the destruction like that of the French. Peaceful protesters are welcome; violent protesters will be jailed if they don’t scatter. All those arrested will be prosecuted.

I prefer four more years of kept promises, a strong economy, full employment, abortion limited if not stopped, a truly conservative Supreme Court, and immigration under control.

If that requires a “whiff of grapeshot,” let’s have it now before it breaks out in the suburbs because it would need much more than a “whiff.”

(Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives who ran a large Christian school in Indianapolis and wrote columns for USA Today for 8 years. Boys authored 18 books, the most recent Muslim Invasion: The Fuse is Burning! eBook is available here with the printed edition (and other titles) at www.cstnews.com. Follow him on Facebook at Don Boys, Ph.D.; and visit his blog. Send a request to DBoysphd@aol.com for a free subscription to his articles, and click here to support his work with a donation.)