Security in Nephite homelands became so precarious that all law-abiding citizens had to take up arms against the out-of-control gangs and fight to maintain their rights, privileges, and constitutionally protected freedoms—religious and political. Their sovereignty as a nation was threatened.
Citizens of all political and racial backgrounds united to take a stand against the robber gangs and other criminal elements, but because of the people’s sinful lives, they failed to contain the evil forces threatening them.
Brothers McConkie, Millet, and Top commented on the change in skin color noted in verse 15: “The mark of God’s curse, the dark skin (see 1 Nephi 2:23; 2 Nephi 5:21–23) was taken away. This was consistent with the prophetic word which declared that when the Lamanites are restored to the knowledge of Jesus Christ and his gospel, ‘their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a pure and a delightsome people’ (2 Nephi 30:6).”3