Dear Rep. Nancy Pelosi,

I recently read a report where you were pondering why Americans weren’t “uprising” against the Trump administration over the situation on the Mexican border. As reported in the Washington Times:

“I just don’t even know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country, and maybe there will be when people realize that this is a policy that they defend,” she said. “It’s a horrible thing, and I don’t see any prospect for legislation here.”

As an American who has spent a fair bit of his time looking at our country and studying the possibility of uprisings for some time, I felt the need to take a moment and write this open letter to you and those who think your question is a suggestion, and a hell of a one at that.

First, let’s take a look where President Trump’s plan to combat illegal immigration–that adjective is an important distinction, mind you–is likely to find the most opposition. If you click this link, you’ll see a pile of maps that are colored red for counties carried by Trump, blue for counties carried by Clinton.

This is important.

You see, as you’ll note in those maps, Donald Trump carried most of the country by landmass. No, that isn’t how we win elections, but since he also won the electoral vote, he’s the winner.

You may also note those small sections of blue. They tend to correspond with larger metropolitan areas. Even without labels, one should have no problem finding Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other large cities.

What does this have with uprisings, you may ask? Well, I’ll tell you. You see, those spots of blue are the only places uprisings could potentially happen over the subject of immigration policy under this administration. While there may be people in red counties who disagree with Trump over immigration, it’s either something they’re not ready to go to war over, or there are not enough people there to do anything more than get themselves killed.

Uprisings need numbers, and those will be those metropolitan areas.

You know, those same areas where your party has systematically disarmed the population over the decades? In other words, even if people in these areas were willing to rise up and try to respond with violence, the worst they could manage, as things currently stand, would be the riots we saw throughout 2016 and 2017. Let me ask you, Rep. Pelosi, how much was accomplished by those riots?

Nothing.

Yet that’s all that can be managed because of the policy you and your party have pushed on firearms. You have pushed to disarm the people in your strongholds, and now they’re unable to mount any such uprising. In time, they could manage, but there are significant logistical challenges they’d have to undertake first, up to and including arming themselves to a sufficient degree.

And honestly, that’s probably for the best. After all, an armed uprising isn’t pleasant. People get killed. I’m not just talking about the combatants, either. Innocent people will die, caught in the crossfire between the authorities and these supposed rebels. People will die who want no part in the conflict, or who even agree with you, Rep. Pelosi.

Uprisings are inspiring on film, in books, or through the lens of history. At the time, they’re vicious, bloody things that can leave a nation devastated for decades afterward.

That’s not to say there’s no place for them. That’s why so many of us refuse to budge on the issue of so-called “assault weapons.” We stand ready to respond if needed. We understand the nature of an uprising, though, which is why we don’t just start calling for them because laws that have been on the books for years are finally being enforced.

However, if you and your fellow anti-gunners get your way, there won’t be any uprisings, regardless of how justifiable.

Just something for you and yours to think about.