27 Mar 17

“History is never erased, nor forgotten. ‘Regret’ is merely wishing things were different, absent a willingness to act in order to cause a change. By contrast, ‘repentance’ is a sincere admission that you’re going the wrong way, combined with a personal resolve to change direction.

‘Regret’ is a useless emotion that requires no effort and is thus as common as it is profitless. ‘Repentance,’ however, calls for action and is thus rare, and ever dangerous and painful! Even repentance cannot alter history, but it will change the future. ‘Regret’ changes nothing, and, like all emotions, accomplishes nothing.”

Anon

Many have described last Thursday’s terrorist attack in London as “impossible-to-stop,” more correctly, “impossible-to-prevent”

Since some terrorist attacks are probably not preventable, the best any civilization can do is to limit the damage, that is, stop the attack via lethal force being applied to the attacker(s) immediately. In any terrorist attack, THE FIRST FIVE SECONDS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE NEXT FIVE HOURS!

The real questions are:

1) Who is going to do it?
2) Who can get there in time to do it?

The answer is:

Unless there is an armed and trained LEO, soldier, or citizen at the scene when the attack starts, any possibility of limiting damage is lost!

You’re be hard-pressed to find an example where the SWAT Team arrived “in the nick of time!” In most cases in fact, by the time the call goes in, and even the first armed police officers arrive on-scene, the shooting is already long-over, and the attacker(s) has either:

1) Committed suicide
2) Left the area, or
3) Run out of ammunition

When they arrive, police secure the scene, treat the injured, collect evidence, make a report, hold a press conference. Exchanging shots with terrorists almost never happens!

Israeli security veteran and expert, Shlomo Harnoy, recently said about ongoing Islamic terrorist attacks in his country:

“The best solution for stopping an attack is having people who know how to use arms, including civilians”

In Israel, police carry guns at all times, on-duty and off. Soldiers patrolling streets are always heavily armed. Many citizens, most of whom have done army service, carry pistols. Thus, when attacks occur, video footage often shows citizens at the scene the first to draw weapons and take care of business!

The UK is different. Most British police don’t carry guns, even when working. Almost none carry off-duty. Uniformed soldiers are all unarmed. Citizens can’t even own guns, much less carry them.

In CONUS, our police are all armed on duty, but fewer than ten percent carry off-duty. Our soldiers, even when deployed in airports, carry empty guns. On base, soldiers are all unarmed. While in uniform and in public, soldiers, even officers, are all unarmed. Some citizens have CCW permits (available in most states) but well under ten percent of CCW-holders carry guns on a regular basis. And, our landscape is littered with “gun-free zones,” usually all the places you’d want a gun!

In Western Europe (Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands), police and soldiers are armed while on duty, but not while off-duty. Citizens are all unarmed.

However, if bitter experience has taught us anything, it is that armed heroes, at the scene, are the only ones in a position to significantly limit the damage, as noted above. Be they armed citizens, armed police, or armed soldiers, the day will be saved by their swift, courageous, and decisive intervention, or not at all!

Accordingly, politicians who really want to protect innocent citizens from terrorists should want our police, soldiers (at least officers and S/NCOs), and qualified citizens to be armed in every place and at every time, as there is no other viable deterrent!

And yet, liberals, here and in Europe, want precisely the opposite! They consistently fight to disarm all three groups, and the reason is obvious, at least to me:

They don’t want terrorism stopped!

They know “the more crime you have, the more government you need” They don’t want “problems” solved. Then, no one would need them! They want “problems,” like terrorism, to go on and on, so they can pretend to “be concerned,” as they amass power and privilege unto themselves.

It’s nothing new!

So, you can take the often-repeated liberal refrain, “You’re too stupid to own a gun. You might hurt yourself!”

And rank it right up there with:

“State lotteries will lower taxes”

“We can print our way to prosperity”

and

“We don’t need heroes”

“If we lived in a state where virtue were profitable, common sense would make us saints! But, since we see that abhorrence, anger, pride, and stupidity commonly profit far beyond charity, modesty, justice, and thought, perhaps we must stand fast a little, even at the risk of being heroes”

Sir Thomas More (played by Paul Scofield) in the 1966 feature film, “A Man For All Seasons”

/John