What has the Nice attack told us now!

[RetiredUSNChief]

Has anybody here actually been to Paris on Bastille Day?

I have. Back in the late 90s...and I observed even then that there were armed people on tops of the buildings all around the Arc de Triomphe and there were armed people walking around. At least some were armed with automatic rifles.

These people are ready for trouble. They train for it. And, especially in today's environment, they expect it.

No matter how you look at it, from the perspective of pedestrians a truck running down a crowd of people happens in seconds. And the closer you are to the actual event, the less time you have to react offensively because you're more concerned with getting the heck out of the way.

And if you're close, but not in the path...the truck is still moving vary fast relative to your position.

The further you are away from the actual event, the more likely you are to involve innocent people in any offensive act you may take during the pandemonium.


Having a concealed weapon on you may or may not help. But in an environment such as that, your tiny handgun is going to be of far less use than many would think against such an attack. The driver is armored somewhat in the cab, the truck masses several thousand pounds, he's a darn small moving target in the cab, and the truck just can't be easily stopped with a handgun. Or a rifle.

Add to this the fact that the reality of life in Paris, and France in general, means that a bunch of armed soldiers/police intermingling with, around, and above the citizens who are actively involved in seeking out and neutralizing any threat. ANY THREAT. A truck running down people. A sniper in a building. People maybe leaving behind suspicious packages/backpacks. People pulling guns.

People pulling guns.


From my point of view, France is darned lucky this guy didn't have the truck full of explosives, nails, ball bearings, and jellied gasoline.

Try your handgun on that.

 

[lemaymiami]

When I was a boy, my family lived in France (military family, late fifties) and I can remember us travelling in that area (and along that lovely French Riviera) even though I was only 11 or 12 at the time... We have similar heavily visited waterfront tourist areas along all of our coasts...

In today's world your best defense might not be a firearm in a terror action situation...and your best outcome might only be the survival of yourself and your family (or your companions...). In my view, your best defense is careful situational awareness and a strong belief that immediate action saves lives (yours and your family's first and foremost...). Most freeze up and take a moment or two to realize that a disturbance of some kind nearby might be your only indicator that danger is headed towards you... Look at the videos of the incident -as it's going down many nearby are just clueless - and "running with the crowd" might save you - or it might not... Take a moment and imagine that same incident - with a truck that's actually a truck bomb... The casualties in the immediate vicinity would have been ten or twenty times the numbers we have now....

Me, I'd want to get my family out of the path (moving at right angles to the vehicle's path) then as quickly as possible putting buildings between us and any potential car bomb. Maybe it's my history (a Vietnam vet with a career in police work later...) that makes me believe that tactics and keeping a cool head are what can help you survive this sort of stuff. Yes, it would be nice if some hero killed the driver before he could do so much damage - but every vehicle I've ever seen with lots of bullet holes also had a driver who was still very much alive afterwards... Cars or trucks, once moving, are very hard to stop unless you ram one - and if it's a truck you're going to need to have something every bit as large to stop it's forward momentum...

Unless we change how our nation (and other modern nations) deal with this sort of stuff I'm fairly confident that we're going to see much more of it -- much, much more...

 

[X-Rap]

France and most of the rest of Europe is a police state that I hope we never live in here. I see a lot of venues that have just a few cops if any. Malls, summer concerts, sports events all gather people in fairly close confines.

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[jmorris]

I don't think a pistol or rifle can stop a truck...

I have had a mouse stop a truck but he had more time to chew just the right wire and open the circuit.

 

[ColoradoShooter77]

It proves that trucks can be used as deadly weapons and that banning certain firearms is a feel good act of fallacy.

As reported by Fox news last night, the cover of the ISIS propaganda magazine features an F-350 as the ultimate "mowing machine".

Airplanes were mighty effective weapons on 9/11......we didn't ban 757's.

 

[stoky]

Did he truck have one of them fully (semi ) automatic assault transmissions?

 

[danez71]

Its told us the obvious.

Anything can be used as a weapon and requiring registration of the truck and licensing of drivers didn't prevent the murderer from killing 80+ people and counting.

 

[natman]

Clearly the answer is to ban assault trucks, limit gas tank capacity to 10 gallons and revoke the drivers license of anyone on the terrorist watch list.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

^ @danez71 Agreed. Motive and opportunity count more than means. With strong motive and an opportunity to attack, alternate means can be lethal, maybe even more lethal, especially in a suicide attack.

Focus should be on the actor, not the means.

 

[Kendal Black]

This report gives a better impression than some others of the timescale involved in the attack. The active driver/shooter was running down people along a mile and a quarter course until he reached a gaggle of gendarmes, who stopped him--with gunfire.

During the attack, there was time for public response in the form of running away, hiding, and milling about. So it is not entirely out of the question that some resistance might have been offered had les citoyens been armed. It is not as if no one knew what was happening until his fate was upon him. I am not sure how much good impromptu and unorganized resistance would have done, but it would not have been impossible to try.

https://youtu.be/TLyYOToVy5o

 

[Old Guy]

Well I started a lot of speculation, and criticism! You have to have a thick skin to be first on a subject. One thing did surface, the IDF does arm its Soldiers, in the streets, clubs, on leave, like I said.

Remember, I live in Mickey's town, not Niece, I would expect more a Mumbai type of assault, than a truck assault, young men, satchel full of magazines, AK 47/74.

Our crowds are in Disney/Universal. Where entering with a Glock 17 and a belt full of magazines would be my thoughts on an Islamic Attack. No truck.
A predetermined time to start, off it goes. Disney Security are not armed.

We are never going to get anywhere in this War with the President we have, and letting hordes of young men in to the US, from the Middle East, is one stupid idea.

How about all the sermons in the Mosques we have in the Country, start to rant against these attacks, "The 72 Virgins will not be waiting for you when you self destruct, no way."

Have the Muslims here embrace our life style, jeans for the Lady's, not ugly black shrouds'!

 

[stonecutter2]

Something like this happens so fast that by the time you realize this isn't grandma mistaking the gas for brake the car as already plowed on by you. Guns stop crime, but let's not get delusional here.

I second this, well said.

 

[IMTHDUKE]

One thing for sure....these savages are not from Sweden. Someone left the door open....again.

 

[Zaydok Allen]

It's been the subject of a lot of threads over the years, and the simple fact is that no hand held firearm will stop a truck.

As for the IDF on leave, no, there are not large numbers of civilians in Israel carrying loaded firearms on the streets. Their gun laws are far more repressive than ours and given the ongoing events there they still don't allow weapons in the hands of the public as a common thing. They only recently allowed off duty IDF above a certain rank to actually carry.

Not much here gun related and this incident is definitely not reinforcement for open carry of military sporting rifles during a celebration of national freedom. If anything it's a lesson learned on being more aware of your surroundings - that truck did travel over a mile and it was still hitting people on the sidewalk at the end.

Taking it out with gunfire was about as effective as trying to shoot down an airliner flying toward the Twin Towers. That is exactly why certain methods are chosen - to increase the odds to achieve an end - and to foster overreaction that almost always causes more provocation and then more retaliation.

The French have their hands full as it is, I don't expect them to start handing out Mini 14's to all their veterans for daily carry.

Yikes..... I had a feeling there'd be a lot of banter here given this attack and the weapon used. This thread seems like the type that goes off the rails pretty darn fast.

I suggest everyone read Tirod's post again. I think there's a lot of good sense in it.

I agree, there's not much to be learned from this that's gun related, or CCW relevant. All it does is demonstrate that those bent on killing will find a way to kill whether they use a gun or not. The Boston Marathon bombing is another good example, as is 911.

If the guy had explossives, I'm just thankful he didn't have the presence of mind to start throwing them out the windows of the vehicle as he drove, otherwise the body count could have been much higher.

I think the fundamental message in the OP is totally flawed here, and comes across as totally paranoid.

If I was at a holiday event and saw a truck careening through the crowd, my thoughts are a lot more likely to be "Holy crap that truck is out of control! Get out of the way!" They are not likely to be "Clearly a terrorist is intentionally trying to run people down. I should open fire with my AR-10 and try to kill the driver."

Stating that armed citizens would have made a difference here is such a grand bit of conjecture that it can only be taken as totally irrelevant. Perhaps it could have made a difference, but we have no way to back up that notion. Debating it seems silly.

But no one cares what I think, so carry on................

 

[Bobson]

Could that kind of attack be stopped by a good guy with a gun? There are some attacks that could be stopped or at least stopped sooner than the police could do, but unfortunately this doesn't seem like one of them.

I agree. I mean, sure, it's possible a gun could stop this; but a gun isn't the solution to every sort of attack. Frankly, not every terrorist attack CAN be stopped... certainly not by the everyman. It's like the saying about thievery: a determined and motivated thief can steal anything, no matter how hard you try to protect it.

Mindset, Skill set, Tool set applies to a lot more than just stopping an attack once it's begun. The mindset part plays a huge part in preventing the attack to begin with. Although you might not be able to prevent every attack (rather, you simply can't), what you can do is take steps to not put yourself in potentially dangerous situations to begin with.

Maybe that looks like avoiding huge crowds that might be targets for terrorists. Maybe it means not going to sporting events or night clubs or whatever else. I know guys who live in desert areas who won't ever wear flip flops because it prevents them from running or fighting effectively. To others, that level of commitment borders on paranoia. Personally, I think it's super reasonable. No judging - do whatever seems right to you.

The bottom line is that all these things have an effect on our lives. To some, choosing to avoid large crowds forever because they might be potential targets is about on par with refusing to leave one's home due to an irrational fear of strangers' germs. Decide for yourself what a reasonable precaution looks like, but realize that in some situations, the best defense is to simply be somewhere else.

 

[Red Wind]

I was on Siesta Key, Florida beach on the 4th of July. It was packed with thousands of bathers for its whole length. A similar attack with the same sized truck would have killed hundreds, not dozens, of defenseless bathers lying prone in the sand. This is Florida's Gulf Coast most famous and popular beach.

No easy target venue is safe. Very few people, if any, carry a weapon down to the beach. See this photo. Imagine a densely packed environment. It could certainly happen here.

 

[nebraska_farmer]

Wow, scary stuff for sure. Especially since I was standing at the exact spot on the promenade where the driver was shot just three weeks ago at the "Fan Zone" for the Turkey vs. Spain match before we departed by bus to the match

Not sure there are any lessons learned here. Reminds me of the Airbus that was intentionally crashed in France last year; sometimes terrible things happen which are completely out of your control, and you can't do a darn thing about it.

 

[AgentFlounder]

Sad, sickening, awful attack. Prayers for the victims.

What does this particular attack seem to illustrate? Sadly, there are many methods to do great harm to large amounts of innocent people. Airplanes, arsen fires, bombs, driving a truck through a crowd.

This. Disarming law abiding people is useless to stop the determined bad guys. Just makes their job easier and maximizes casualties.

I think this is one scenario where being armed may be less helpful than SA and thinking ahead. I guess if I go to a large public event I will find a place to stand that is harder for a vehicle to reach. And plan an escape route.

sent from my commodore 64

 

[SSN Vet]

FWIW, my wife and daughter were in Paris 2 weeks ago with the big soccer cup going on... uniformed Gendarmes with automatic weapons everywhere.

Last summer my wife was in Paris with my other daughter.... no big event going on.... uniformed Gendarmes with automatic weapons everywhere.

I think it's pretty much a certainty that there were also uniformed Gendarmes with automatic weapons all around the Bastille Day celebrations in Nice, and the truck pics I saw showed that it was peppered with bullet holes.

IMO, armed civilians would have made little to know difference.

It is well established that there is a very narrow demographic of people doing this stuff...

men
single
age 19 -35
Muslim
Middle Eastern or North African

And just as with the Paris attacks, this monster was on the police's watch list. They knew he was up to no good. They knew he was in contact with terrorist. But they did nothing.

There will be little to know progress made in this war (and yes, imo, W was correct in calling it a war on terror) until society gets aggressive about pulling the weeds.

 

[IMTHDUKE]

There will be little to know progress made in this war (and yes, imo, W was correct in calling it a war on terror) until society gets aggressive about pulling the weeds.

Semper Fi.....Lock and Load....you got it right mate.

 

[IMTHDUKE]

I think we all just need to step back, calm down a bit. It not like our leaders have not thought about this situation.

President Obama: “The Odds of Dying In a Terrorist Attack Are a Lot LOWER than They Are of Dying In a Car Accident”

Kinda sounds like George Patton....don't you think?

 

[Deanimator]

What has the Nice attack told us now!

It told me what I knew the day before, the day of, and the day after the attack:

1. Police have no legal duty to protect individuals.
2. Police have no legal liability when they fail to protect individuals.
3. 1 and 2 are moot anyway, since police not assigned as bodyguards have no physical ability to protect individuals.

If you're not willing and able to protect YOURSELF, you're just not going to get protected AT ALL. Anyone who uses "police protection" as an excuse for wanting to disarm you, means you harm. Anybody who tells you different is a LIAR.

 

[Deanimator]

Disarming law abiding people is useless to stop the determined bad guys.

I guess it depends upon who you are, and whom you consider the "bad guys" to be. After Ft. Hood, San Bernardino and Orlando, and the calls for "gun control", it's painfully obvious that the Islamists AREN'T seen as the enemy by this government, which is solely concerned with creating a "safe working environment" for the Nidal Hassans of the world. YOU are the government's enemy, NOT Omar Mateen.

 

[X-Rap]

Just read more news reports about a motorcyclist that was able to rid alongside and get aboard the truck and a female cop that was able to as well. This confirms to me that an individual with a gun could have made a difference if he was in the right place. Sounds like it didn't happen as fast as some think.

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[OC-Trainer]

@X-rap

With respect, why are you so focused on the tool (gun)?

It is evident that other skill sets and mindset would have been more valuable in this situation.

If the police officer wasn't able to stop him after climbing on board, what makes you think a civilian would have? No more delusions of grandeur with this, it isn't accomplishing anything.