Two centuries ago, gentlemen routinely carried swords or pistols to protect themselves, their families and their property. On the unlit dirt backroads of England or colonial America, armed highwaymen like Dick Turpin could demand “your money or your life!” without warning.

There was no 911. No local law enforcement or highway patrol on the roads. In colonial America, frontiersmen had to protect themselves from hostile Native American tribes, the French and wild animals – sometimes using homemade weapons. In the wild West, there were local sheriffs, and deputies if the town was big enough, but anything exceptional required the sheriff to call up a posse of armed volunteers.

This changed with the advent of the police. In 1829, British Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel founded the London Metropolitan Police, which is still headquartered in Scotland Yard. The constables he hired became known as “bobbies” or “peelers” and gradually adopted the blue uniforms with distinctive hats that we know today.

American towns, states and cities began to hire their own police forces in the following years.

The fundamental deal was that citizens gave the state a monopoly on violence and punishment, in exchange for the state keeping them safe. But is that deal still holding?

In Charlotte, North Carolina, in August, Iryna Zarutska was stabbed to death on a train by a fare-jumper who was out on bail after countless prior arrests. Her killer was walking free because a local judge didn’t think his obvious mental illness and violent past merited prison. And transit authorities, like many across America, didn’t enforce the requirement to buy a ticket.

In Chicago in November, another young woman, Bethany MaGee, was set on fire on public transport by another recidivist. In December, an illegal immigrant who had previously been deported allegedly stabbed a man on the same light rail line where Zarutska was murdered.

These are just three of so many tragic, preventable instances where the state failed its part of the bargain. It failed to keep dangerous, unstable people in jail or institutionalized. To enforce basic civility like having to buy a ticket to access buses and trains. To keep out dangerous foreign nationals who have no right to be here.

But though murder and violent crime are the worst things from which the state has a duty to protect citizens, keeping their property safe is important too.

In 2014, California passed Proposition 47, making the theft of under $950 no longer a felony but a misdemeanor. Since the police rarely bothered with such cases, thieves had a license to shoplift. And they did, with organized rings targeting specific stores and goods, and re-selling stolen merchandise in a billion-dollar industry. After a decade, even Californians had enough – they voted a new proposition in 2024 to return to saner law enforcement.

Many large American cities from Chicago to New York have far-left, “progressive” prosecutors who routinely refuse to prosecute petty crime and shoplifting, with predictable results. In the U.S., stores can’t bring private prosecutions, so if the police won’t help, there is little they can do. In most big cities, police are struggling to keep up with 911 calls.

Most chain stores tell their employees not to interfere with thieves. According to one union representative, that’s because the stores fear injury to employees, the thief and other shoppers – and the ensuing lawsuits – more than the cost of losing merchandise, which they can just pass on to customers.

Britain has lately experienced an explosion of shoplifting, and a feckless response from police. The British Retail Consortium, a trade group, believes there were 20 million shoplifting cases in England and Wales in the first half of 2025. Official records showed only 529,994 thefts reported to police, but many shop owners don’t report shoplifting as they know the police won’t act.

According to British Transport Police, thefts on the London Underground were up 33% this year. In 2024, there were 15,225 thefts across the system. The most the police will do in response is note the theft for the owner’s insurance claim.

A natural response to the state’s abdication of duty has been to return to the past: If the state won’t protect you and your property, protect yourself.

Even this carries risks. In New York in 2022, store owner Jose Alba was charged with murder after defending himself with a knife. In 2023, also in New York, Daniel Penny was charged with criminally negligent homicide after holding down a man who was threatening passengers on the subway.

It’s a scandal when the state won’t protect taxpaying businesses and individuals, but it’s total injustice that it won’t let them protect themselves. And a recipe for chaos.

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Simon Hankinson is a senior research fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center.

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