Recently, I learned from family, friends, and neighbors what happened when Antifa, seeking to cause havoc, came to an Italian-, Irish-, and now Albanian-American Bronx neighborhood and another almost exclusively Italian-American Bronx neighborhood nearby.

Apparently, when confronted by an organized and motivated opposition, they decided that discretion was the better part of valor and retired from the field of battle.

How unexpected.  When their cowardice was exposed, they took their ball and went home — or, perhaps, to another area where they knew they would not face resistance to their riotous depredations.

The one Bronx neighborhood, which is residential but has many small businesses on the main thoroughfare, did not suffer the riots, looting, arson, and violence that have been prevalent in cities and towns across America.  When Antifa came for it, the Italians, Irish, and Albanians, armed with pistols, rifles, baseball bats, swords, and knives, merged onto the main thoroughfare, blocking it and other tertiary streets.  Faced with armed resistance, Antifa's forces were compelled to accept who and what they are, a band of spoiled white college kids who like to break things, play dress-up, and pretend they are a force to be reckoned with.

Threatening to "cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war," they turned and fast-walked away in different directions.  They most likely decided that it would no longer be fun if they were required to pay a price in blood for their pernicious urgings.

I am told they never returned.

The other Italian neighborhood, not contiguous but not far from the first, and entirely residential, closed the bridge leading into the neighborhood with barricades consisting of their cars and whatever else could be dragged to the fore to create a wall Antifa thugs would need to breach to get to the million-dollar houses located within the area.  Well, armed men stood in wait, ready to do what they had to do not to become a news story of loss and sorrow.

Again, Antifa, upon meeting opposition, especially armed opposition, immediately dispersed in different directions, destroying their ability to regroup.

Again, I am told they have not been back.

Antifa before its recent iteration consisted of a ragtag bunch of almost entirely white college kids wearing anything that resembled riot gear, with 55-gallon plastic drums cut in half to serve as shields.  They were a joke.

Yet Antifa during the last few years has received some training and is better organized and probably Soros-supplied with remarkably similar kits — no more fake equipment.  Today, these people sport professional gas masks, sophisticated communication equipment, real riot helmets, some body armor, and occasionally even weapons.  Each individual Antifa seemingly supplies his own black clothing.

Unmarked cars and vans patrolling pre-designated riot areas provide pallets of bricks and frozen water bottles to be used as projectiles against the police.  Select units are supplied with Molotov cocktails to burn pre-selected buildings to the ground.

Their use of urban insurrection tactics is now prevalent, something that was not the case a mere few years ago.  It is obvious that some organization has trained them to work as seemingly organic units waging justified revolution for the cameras.

They exude the aura of success and self-confidence only because Democrat governors and mayors will not allow police to respond and Americans "have not yet begun to fight."

Truthfully, they are not a fighting force; they are not even a gang.  They are still what they have always been: a bunch of cowards who will melt away should they meet organized resistance — especially resistance from well armed locals with skin in the game.

When they are destroying property with no repercussions, they are big and bold, empowered by "woke muscles."  Yet when they meet people who are willing to fight to protect family, property, and livelihoods, they are nothing more than cowardly brats pretending to be bigger and badder than they are.

Most estimates of the number of firearms extant in America put the amount as between 300,000,000 and 400,000,000 privately held weapons.  Like most experts and politicians in America on most things (see: Fauci), they are wrong — very wrong. There are probably more than 700,000,000 firearms in the hands of Americans.

The number of people armed with guns on the main street in the first neighborhood, and on the bridge in the other neighborhood, I have been told, exceeded 60%.  Considering how hard it is to get a gun license in New York City, I would say most were carrying illegally.

Surprisingly, defunding and disarming the police works both ways.

This popular resistance, when Antifa came for their homes and businesses, and with the police demoralized and in retreat, showed the faux rebels they would use force, perhaps even deadly force, to protect their lives, families, livelihoods, and property.

As with all bullies, Antifa folded, choosing to seek areas where no one would fight back.

While not contiguous, these two neighborhoods have a reputation, to some extent earned, as rife with members of organized crime.  The first neighborhood in particular was even singled out under the 1964 civil rights legislation as one of the few locations in America that was required to seek preclearance from the Department of Justice for any new voting changes — such as changing the location of a polling place.  That designation was rescinded only by a 2013 Supreme Court decision during the Obama presidency.

Both neighborhoods are what is commonly called "tight-knit."  But any neighborhood willing to fight back, I suspect, would face similar results.

The rioting continues because Democrat governors and mayors want it to continue.  They believe that the violence and destruction can be used against Trump politically to cost him re-election.  The many Americans who are suffering because of their feckless leadership are, to them, merely necessary collateral damage.  Imagine: if leftists are fine with hurting Americans to gain power, what will they do to us when they have it?

The devolution of society in blue cities and states is a deliberate insurrection targeting the Trump presidency.  It will not stop until either the leftist millenarian bloc controlling Joe Biden gains power should he win the presidency or Americans directly affected by this chaos put an end to it.

Antifa is an illusion that will dissipate when faced with men who "are mad as hell and not going to take it anymore."

The author can be found on Twitter at @williamlgensert.