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Concealed Guns against Terrorists
By Don Kates November 17, 2004
Do law abiding, responsible adults need a right to be able to carry concealed handguns?
Earlier this month, Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh (a great grand-nephew of the artist Vincent van Gogh) was shot and stabbed to death after receiving death threats because of a movie he made criticizing the treatment of women under Islam. The killer, a Moroccan immigrant described by witnesses as having a long beard and wearing Islamic garb, was captured after a shoot-out with police.
Ironically the film's writer is an Islamic woman, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is a member of the Dutch Parliament. Ms. Ali herself is under death threat from the Muslims in the Netherlands, who due to massive Islamic immigration, may now make up as much as 25% of the Dutch population. Many Dutch Muslims are outraged at her revelations of the routine beating of Islamic women by their husbands and other male family members. One of the reasons women are beaten is because they have been raped by male relatives--something Islamic culture sees as resulting from the seductiveness of women.
In 2002, Pim Fortuyn, the leader of one of the Netherlands' largest political parties was assassinated after his criticism of Muslim refusal to assimilate to Dutch society. Ms. Ali has not been harmed because she has been under constant police guard since the film aired. Van Gogh was not because he is not a political figure. He shrugged off the danger.
In France, Muslims make up over 10% of the current population up (from less than 1% in 1945). Jews in France have reported hundreds of physical attacks, synagogues and businesses burned, and cemeteries desecrated. Nothing is done. Even verbal criticism from politicians is muted because Muslims represent an important voting block, but Jews do not.
One factor in the spread of Islamic terrorism in Western Europe is that the region's famously strict gun laws prevent the victims from defending themselves--but, of course, do not prevent the attackers from being armed. Laws in some U.S. states, such as California, are similar only less stringent. The results are also similar. For example, in July, 1984 an unemployed security guard killed 21 people at a McDonalds in San Ysidro, California. He had several guns, the most devastating being an ordinary hunting shotgun.
The police arrived far too late to save the victims.
Israel has a different policy. Several weeks before the San Ysidro massacre three Palestinians from Yassir Arafat's terrorist organization opened fire with machine guns at a Jerusalem crowd spot. They managed to kill only one Israeli before being shot down by civilians with handguns. The next day Israel allowed the media to question the surviving terrorist, who complained that his group had not realized Israeli civilians are armed. They had planned to go to crowd spots, machine-gun the civilians, and escape before the police or army could respond.
In the early 1990s a demented man on the Long Island Railway killed nine unarmed people with a handgun before it ran dry and the survivors were able to jump him. In Israel a few days before a Palestinian terrorist had tried to machine-gun a bus but was himself killed by an Israeli civilian. Israel has no law against carrying a gun either openly or concealed. If you have a license to own it, you can carry it, and Israel encourages licensed gun owners to keep their guns with them. Israel's policy is that in every crowded area there will be civilians armed to defend the crowd. For instance, on June 2, 2002, a suicide bomber in a crowded Efret supermarket pulled out a bomb and was trying to set it off when a woman drew a gun from her purse and shot him dead.
The anti-gun lobby says civilian shouldn't be allowed to have guns in public places. But as a practical matter, the terrorists or criminals still get guns. So what the anti-gun lobby accomplished is ensuring that the only people with guns in any public place will be the killers. The anti-gun lobby says we should depend on the police. But terrorists and criminals have the enormous advantage of being able to strike when and where there are no police--as in each of the incidents described above.
Incidentally three mass public shooting incidents in the U.S. ended because citizens with guns arrested the shooters. That was in states that allow law abiding, responsible adults permits to carry guns. Today, a dozen U.S. states (not including Colorado), as well as The Netherlands and France, persist in the foolish policy of forbidding licensed gun owners to carry their guns in public for lawful protection. The main beneficiaries of this policy are Muslim terrorists and other psychopathic killers.
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Don Kates is an attorney living in Washington state who routinely writes about constitutional issues.
By Don Kates November 17, 2004
Do law abiding, responsible adults need a right to be able to carry concealed handguns?
Earlier this month, Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh (a great grand-nephew of the artist Vincent van Gogh) was shot and stabbed to death after receiving death threats because of a movie he made criticizing the treatment of women under Islam. The killer, a Moroccan immigrant described by witnesses as having a long beard and wearing Islamic garb, was captured after a shoot-out with police.
Ironically the film's writer is an Islamic woman, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who is a member of the Dutch Parliament. Ms. Ali herself is under death threat from the Muslims in the Netherlands, who due to massive Islamic immigration, may now make up as much as 25% of the Dutch population. Many Dutch Muslims are outraged at her revelations of the routine beating of Islamic women by their husbands and other male family members. One of the reasons women are beaten is because they have been raped by male relatives--something Islamic culture sees as resulting from the seductiveness of women.
In 2002, Pim Fortuyn, the leader of one of the Netherlands' largest political parties was assassinated after his criticism of Muslim refusal to assimilate to Dutch society. Ms. Ali has not been harmed because she has been under constant police guard since the film aired. Van Gogh was not because he is not a political figure. He shrugged off the danger.
In France, Muslims make up over 10% of the current population up (from less than 1% in 1945). Jews in France have reported hundreds of physical attacks, synagogues and businesses burned, and cemeteries desecrated. Nothing is done. Even verbal criticism from politicians is muted because Muslims represent an important voting block, but Jews do not.
One factor in the spread of Islamic terrorism in Western Europe is that the region's famously strict gun laws prevent the victims from defending themselves--but, of course, do not prevent the attackers from being armed. Laws in some U.S. states, such as California, are similar only less stringent. The results are also similar. For example, in July, 1984 an unemployed security guard killed 21 people at a McDonalds in San Ysidro, California. He had several guns, the most devastating being an ordinary hunting shotgun.
The police arrived far too late to save the victims.
Israel has a different policy. Several weeks before the San Ysidro massacre three Palestinians from Yassir Arafat's terrorist organization opened fire with machine guns at a Jerusalem crowd spot. They managed to kill only one Israeli before being shot down by civilians with handguns. The next day Israel allowed the media to question the surviving terrorist, who complained that his group had not realized Israeli civilians are armed. They had planned to go to crowd spots, machine-gun the civilians, and escape before the police or army could respond.
In the early 1990s a demented man on the Long Island Railway killed nine unarmed people with a handgun before it ran dry and the survivors were able to jump him. In Israel a few days before a Palestinian terrorist had tried to machine-gun a bus but was himself killed by an Israeli civilian. Israel has no law against carrying a gun either openly or concealed. If you have a license to own it, you can carry it, and Israel encourages licensed gun owners to keep their guns with them. Israel's policy is that in every crowded area there will be civilians armed to defend the crowd. For instance, on June 2, 2002, a suicide bomber in a crowded Efret supermarket pulled out a bomb and was trying to set it off when a woman drew a gun from her purse and shot him dead.
The anti-gun lobby says civilian shouldn't be allowed to have guns in public places. But as a practical matter, the terrorists or criminals still get guns. So what the anti-gun lobby accomplished is ensuring that the only people with guns in any public place will be the killers. The anti-gun lobby says we should depend on the police. But terrorists and criminals have the enormous advantage of being able to strike when and where there are no police--as in each of the incidents described above.
Incidentally three mass public shooting incidents in the U.S. ended because citizens with guns arrested the shooters. That was in states that allow law abiding, responsible adults permits to carry guns. Today, a dozen U.S. states (not including Colorado), as well as The Netherlands and France, persist in the foolish policy of forbidding licensed gun owners to carry their guns in public for lawful protection. The main beneficiaries of this policy are Muslim terrorists and other psychopathic killers.
###
Don Kates is an attorney living in Washington state who routinely writes about constitutional issues.
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