Its the anniversary of the 1992 riots in LA that gave us that unique subset of Americans – the Roof Korean. I have mentioned Tony Moon here before. Short version is that Tony is the OG Roof Korean. What I didn’t know is that he had no idea of his meme-ness until a few years ago. He’s leaned into it though, and apparently has a book coming out.
Anyway, he wound up being a guest on the Unsubscribe, which is a podcast of a roundtable of guntubers. An interesting watch for some of the back history from the Rodney King Riots over 30 years ago.
What really makes Moon’s, and the other Roof Korean’s, story so interesting is how it fits almost perfectly into the narrative about how ‘no one is coming to save you’ and that sometimes you need to ‘be your own first responder’.
And, according to the interview, Mr Moon still has his Daewoo rifle three decades later.
Its always fun, and low-hanging blog fodder, to laud the Roof Koreans but their actions and what they represent transcend racial identity. It’s less about a particular demographic group and more about how a community had a shared value that worked in a crisis.
I was living and working in Redondo Beach at the time and remember it well. After the hoodrat’s looted and burned their communities, they attempted to come into the normal beach cities and ‘shop’, but were turned away by our local LEOs.
Back then, our police were allowed to do their job at protecting and serving the citizens. Today, they would probably open the doors at every Costco and say “help yourselves”. I don’t miss Kalifornia.
But that community has shared values because they are a unified demographic group. Essentially one big family.
True. But those can also be built around other things as well…religion, region, shared experience, family, etc. But, yeah, in this case it was around being Korean.
If I remember, the Korean shop owners were especially targeted by the black community for owning Mom N Pop stores in black neighborhoods. They were resented for being on ‘their turf’. So the Koreans protected their property from being looted. I think the message was quite effective and don’t blame them one bit.
the Rooftop Defenders had plenty of problems – one was the lack of food & water – ammo – and logistics in general >>> little known – the LAPD was running a blockade into the area and refusing to allow supplies or additional reinforcement …..
afterward the Central LA Riots – the Korean shopowners built rooftop bunkers and supplied them for the next expected riot >>>
What I’ve been wondering is whether the new generation has remained vigilant and are ready like their father’s generation – ??????
I worked with a Korean-American woman who had never heard of Roof Koreans. With great reverence, I told her the story and sent her the iconic picture of Tony Moon, American Hero. I even threw in a brief technical review of the Daewoo K-1, one of which some guy at my range has, but I consider myself unworthy to shoot it. Since my co-worker’s father owns and runs a small grocery store in Missouri, she definitely “got it”, but as some women are, was leery of the guns part. She did say that dad keeps a 12 gauge in the grocery store, though. Thanks for posting. The Roof Korean story always makes me happy.
I was no where near L.A. when the riots were occurring, but I clearly remember the next day if I should be armed in person (vs. firearm left in truck). When I arrived at work the next day, my boss time asked me if I was carrying so I know I wasn’t the only one thinking those thoughts. Other than a few protesters around the local post office, there were no signs of trouble.
34 years has shot by very quickly. Tony Moon shows us how to do ‘community relations’.
One of the few “celebrities” I would have an interest in meeting and talking to. What an interesting experience he had.
My son was 11 years old and on a school trip to Los Angeles to study marine biology at the time of the riots. He remembers seeing the fires and cars burning from the school bus and not able to process what was happening. I was faced with the logistical problem of driving 500 miles one way to go get him and was loading up the truck, luckily things worked out.
I’ve always been shocked there was never a movie made about it, but thinking about it when did they ever do a true life movie on people using firearms for self-defence.
Over the years I’ve read may posts by Tony Moon AKA RoofKorean7 and he’s kind of proud of it.
Sorry It turns out my post got messed up it should read
“Over the years I’ve read many posts by Tony Moon AKA RoofKorean7 and it turns out they added him to the No Fly List, he’s kind of proud of it.
wish the k2 would come out before the va. ban goes into effect. i had a k1 back in those days myself and foolishly traded it away. starving college students will do stupid things.