Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s outburst against his EU counterparts over the Ceuta migrant surge is the latest reminder that Europe’s political class still refuses to confront the downstream consequences of open-border policies. When thousands of migrants stormed the Spanish enclave, Sánchez expected Brussels to absorb the political and logistical fallout; instead, fellow leaders balked at the optics of another Mediterranean ferry ride to the continent. The result is a textbook case of “not in my backyard” politics—except the backyard in question is the entire European project, and the fence-jumpers are arriving by the boatload.

For Second Amendment advocates watching from across the Atlantic, the lesson is straightforward: when governments disarm their citizens and then lose control of their borders, the only people left holding the means of self-defense are criminals and the state. Spain’s already restrictive gun laws leave ordinary Spaniards with few legal options if the next wave of unrest spills into mainland cities. Meanwhile, the same political class that lectures about “selfishness” continues to erode the individual right to keep and bear arms, betting that centralized authority will always be there to protect the disarmed. History—and the nightly news from cities that tried the same experiment—suggests otherwise.

The Ceuta episode also underscores how quickly migration policy can become a live-fire issue. When EU leaders refuse to coordinate on enforcement, the burden falls on local police and border guards who are themselves outgunned by smugglers and increasingly bold migrant gangs. That dynamic is precisely why American gun owners remain skeptical of any proposal that would trade individual firearms for promises of perfect state protection. If Europe’s experiment in managed decline continues, the only thing that will scale faster than the migrant flow is the demand for the very tools Sánchez’s party has spent decades trying to restrict.