18 Nov 15

Gun “Fights” and Gun “Battles!”

This week’s, particularly yesterday’s, raids by French Police and Special Operators on multiple hideouts used by Islamic terrorists set the stage for what is going to become commonplace there and here.

Witnesses described “continuous gunfire” for over three hours. Also multiple explosions. When the dust finally settled this morning, several terrorists were DRT, several others taken into custody. At least one French officer was wounded, and a police K-9 was killed.

French “gun control” laws, and similar laws throughout Western Europe and the UK, have been pitifully ineffective in disarming/dissuading, even inconveniencing, terrorists. Mark that well!

Here in CONUS, American police, particularly in big, metro areas, are accustomed to OISs. Such “gunfights” usually last only a few seconds and end with a suspect down, or in the process of running away. In the latter case, suspects commonly surrender meekly shortly thereafter.

By contrast, “gun battles,” involving multiple teams of heavily-armed tactical officers deploying from armored vehicles, lasting for hours (maybe days) and consuming hundreds, sometimes thousands, of rounds of ammunition, as well as much pyrotechnics (not to mention IEDs used by suspects against police) have been, up until now, exceptional.

That is all changing!

Our domestic police departments, big and small, now need to prepare for “gun battles,” not just “gunfights,” as Islamic terrorists, who are already here, plan and execute simultaneous attacks with the sole intention of slaughtering large numbers of innocent citizens.

That means all patrol officers, individually, need military rifles, plenty of ammunition, and intense training in their effective use. In some cases, rifles will have to be carried during the entire shift and routinely deployed on every call.

Protracted gun battles between police (maybe citizens too) and Islamic terrorists are about to become more common than ever before. Police (not just SWAT Teams) and citizens alike need to be heavily armed and trained, if we plan on living through our current period of world history.

Freedom’s home is here. She needs our protection!

“We are not here today to bow before the representation of a fierce warlike god, filled with wrath and vengeance, but we joyously contemplate instead our own deity keeping watch and ward before the open gates of America and greater than all that have been celebrated in ancient song. Instead of grasping in her hand thunderbolts of terror and death, she holds aloft the light which illumines the way to man’s enfranchisement. We will not forget that Liberty has here made her home, nor shall her chosen altar be neglected. Willing votaries will constantly keep alive its fires and these shall gleam upon the shores of our sister Republic thence, and joined with answering rays a stream of light shall pierce the darkness of ignorance and man’s oppression, until Liberty enlightens the world.”

President Grover Cleveland, Dedication speech, “Liberty Enlightening the World,” 28 October 1886 (Thursday)

/John