When seven Save A Lot stores shuttered in Chicago last week, the city’s political class immediately pointed to a modest rollback in SNAP benefits and, by extension, to the man they still blame for everything—Donald Trump. Yet the real story is simpler: decades of one-party governance have produced a retail desert where theft, violence, and regulatory hostility make it impossible for grocers to turn a profit. The same neighborhoods that lost their last supermarket are also the ones where armed citizens are routinely demonized for daring to defend themselves, leaving law-abiding residents doubly exposed—first to empty shelves, then to the predators who roam them.

For the 2A community, the lesson is unmistakable. When government fails at its most basic task—keeping streets safe enough for commerce—citizens must be free to protect both their property and their persons. Chicago’s gun-control regime has already stripped millions of that right, and the predictable result is a city where stores close, jobs vanish, and only the armed criminals remain. The same politicians who cheered every new restriction on lawful carry now lament “food apartheid,” never acknowledging that the real apartheid is between those who can lawfully defend themselves and those who cannot.

The closures also foreshadow a broader national pattern. As progressive cities double down on defelonizing theft and restricting firearms, expect more chains to flee, more neighborhoods to hollow out, and more pressure on remaining residents to choose between hunger and self-help. The Second Amendment was written precisely for moments like these: when the state cannot—or will not—secure the public square, free people retain the tools to secure their own.