After two Durham, NC police officers have been targeted for assassination in recent days, their family members are having second thoughts about “the job.”

“It was the first time I had to take a step back and say ‘They are out to get (my husband), they are out to kill him,’” said one Durham officer’s wife, who did not want to be identified out of fear for her safety. “It is hard. It’s very hard. You do not know if your husband is going to come home at night.”

The incidents have left the wives and children of Durham officers worried to the point that they’ve removed pictures of their loved ones in uniform on social media and changed their daily routines.

“Everyone is on edge right now and really scared,” said one woman, who has a brother and cousin in local law enforcement and did not want to be identified.

With other happenings across the country of apparent law enforcement targeting, the loved ones wondered what would happen if there were no police officers or deputies to respond to emergencies.

“Don’t call 911 when you need help,” the officer’s wife said. “Go call your buddy down the street. See where that gets you.”

Citizens need to come to the realization—quickly—that a perceived war on police has nearly the same effect on their job performance as a real war on police.

When officers are afraid that any minor call is a a set-up for a potential ambush, or that stopping to do paperwork sets up an opportunistic assassination attempt, how are officers expected to perform their most basic functions?  The simply reality of the matter is that they can’t, and both their willingness and ability to respond to crimes are going to plummet, as we are already seeing in New York.

Response times will be much slower as officers come in multi-vehicle teams instead of as “first available unit.” In some instances, officers simply will not come at all, especially in patrol areas where citizens are known to be hostile to police. And why should they?

Soon, in certain cities or at least certain parts of certain cities, people are going to learn what life is like under a “failure of civility.”

When the sheepdogs stay home

There’s someone stealing your car radio in your driveway? Don’t expect the police to be in a rush to stop them.

Someone just shoplifted from your store? Call your insurance adjuster… officers aren’t going to walk into a potential ambush over a petty crime.

Your neighbor is loudly, violently being raped and/or murdered? Officers will arrive in force… just as soon as they can pull a tactical team together in 20 minutes or so.

Firearms trainers—fittingly, many of them current duty or retired police officers—typically tell the students of their shooting schools that, “you are your own first responder.”

The underlying sentiment has always been, “you are your own first responder until law enforcement arrives to secure the scene, and then EMS can be brought in to treat the injured.”

But if anti-police savages continue to attack police, “you are your own first responder” may come to mean that your home is your own private Alamo, cut off from civilization against savage criminals who now have good reason to suspect that police officers will not come to save you, because society has failed to support them.

It’s a good thing that you’ve invested time and money in obtaining the best firearms, ammunition, and training that you can afford. You stand a good chance of surviving if your skills are up to snuff, and if you have a little advance warning.

Many people, however, are in for a rude awakening… and I somehow doubt that the “coexist” and “gunsense voter” bumper stickers on their cars are going to do them very much good.

*Bearing Arms does not publish the name of mass, serial, or spree killers