In the midst of the current frenzy over removing Confederate statues, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper has asked the legislature to go back on a law passed in 2015 and allow the state, as well as local counties and municipalities, to remove the offending statues located there.

Two years ago, then-Governor Pat McCrory signed Senate Bill 22, or the “Historic Artifact Management and Patriotism Act.” The essence of the law is that it forbids the removal of historical statues.

Cooper now wants the law reversed. And here’s one of the reasons: The governor is afraid that protesters might get hurt pulling the statues down on their own.

In other words, the statues must come down because this is now a public safety issue, apparently.

Here is Cooper, in his own words, speaking on a video posted at his Facebook page:

“My first responsibility as Governor is to protect North Carolinians and keep them safe. The likelihood of protesters being injured or worse as they may try to topple any one of the hundreds of monuments in our state, concerns me.”

Because it would be terrible shame if anything happens to vandals who are hurt in the course of…vandalizing.

Doubling down on his concern for the lawless, Cooper also said that he was concerned harm may come to the statue-destroyers at the hands of “white supremacists” who might “swarm the site” in response to the statue being torn down.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large