Monday, November 04, 2013

John Farnham and "LAX"

3 Nov 13

LAX Incident of 31 Oct 13

Last week's shooting incident at LAX blatantly illustrates (once  more):

1) "Gun-free" zones are merely imaginary, symbolic barriers. The suspect in  this case was not deterred in the least.  He was eventually stopped, but only by the liberal application of lethal force (gunfire), not by wishful thinking on the part of naive liberals, nor by "gun-free-zone" signs on glass  doors!

2) The "start-to-harm" time was so short in this case that awareness, decisiveness, and a plan for immediate and dynamic exit will likely represent your only viable options.

3) We Sovereign Citizens are increasingly being involuntarily herded into  "
enforced helplessness."  We are progressively unable to remain legally armed, and therefore we are more and more unable to effectively protect ourselves.  Put another way, we are contemptuously regarded as "disposable"  by self-righteous socialists.

4) It is painfully obvious how much protection "gun-free-zone" signs provide.  Terrorists and lunatics are really impressed, as we see!

/John


John S. Farnam
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It's rare that I fully quote John Farnham .. in fact, this is perhaps the first time EVER.

But when he's right (which is "USUALLY"), he's right.

And I think that his take here is entirely correct.  No 'Thinking Person" who is aware of our cultural vulnerability could find much fault in his preposition.

Still, it raises questions that we might consider.

Should Airports be "Gun Free Zones"?  As much as I have proposed that GVZ proliferation encourages madmen to attack us, I'm uncomfortable in this specific instance.

The armed officers seem to have been present, and they acted quickly and aggressively.  The result is that the attacker was  taken down in a short period of time, and from the moment which the counter-attack began, it appears that the only other victims were among the resistors.

If the airport was NOT a "Gun Free Zone", is it likely that the attack would have been curtailed earlier?  Based on the reports, I don't think so.  The attack was actually initiated BEFORE the initial screening area, and so the madman identified, recognized, attacked, and overwhelmed the First Line of Defense quickly and efficiently.

It may have been helpful that he had already researched the defenses, and was prepared for them .. which may not be said for the defenders.

The established defense may have served one  purpose; it identified an attack before the attacker could infiltrate into the "No Defense Zone", where the public was not prepared to defend itself.  Instead, ready reaction forces (policemen) were alerted and promptly reacted to the attack.

We can reasonably be confident that the initial delay, the early alert, and the available of secondary forces lead to the early take-down of the attacker, before he was able to fully attack entirely defenseless citizens.

Essentially .. no private citizens, whatever their state if preparedness, were required to defend themselves or others.  

It's likely that no better solution was available.  We regret the loss of lives in this attack, but we must recognize that we (citizens, not officers) were protected almost as well as possible.  

How could this situation have been resolved more quickly?  We probably are all asking ourselves the same question.  The best answer is ... we WERE protected, if imperfectly.  A surprise attack of this sort is almost impossible to defend against.

My personal understanding (and I'm sure there will be a lot of "Monday Morning Quarterbacks" who will use hind-sight to critique the defenders) is that a lot of rough men put themselves deliberately in the way in order to prevent a greater loss of defenseless citizens.  I salute them all, as should you.

---

So .. what would have been the consequences if this had occurred in a shopping mall, a school, a church?

Chances are that there would have been NO first .. let alone Second .. line of defense.  The attacker would have assaulted defenseless citizens (children?) immediately, and would have run rampant.

He would have run rampant, slaughtering innocent defenseless people until (minutes or hours later) police appeared on the scene ... and then he would have killed himself.

That DOES seem to be the pattern.

The immediate solution seems to have both a first and second line of armed defense in any place of public gathering.

It's not going to happen.

Government at ANY level might semi-efficiently defend a "place" (airport, school, church, mall, etc.) but only at great expense to the tax base.  The American people are not willing, let alone able, to support this level of protection in most public areas.

LAX was fortunate, in a way, that it was so strongly defended.  And yet, still, people died there.

Insane and evil people exist.  We can't identify them until they actually attack us.  And then, it's too late for us.

The ONLY way we can defend ourselves in public areas is if the public is allowed to assume the defensive position.

No more "Gun Free Zones", please.  Allow "The People" to be armed, because we can't have armed TSA people at the front door of every school, church and shopping mall.

Or allow teachers to be voluntarily armed.  But no .. you don't want to allow guns in schools.

Allow preachers to be armed.  But no .. you don't want our spiritual leaders to be armed.

The only realistic solution to mass public murders is to allow the PUBLIC to be armed.

But no, you don't want your neighbors to be armed, either.


Okay. it appears that you are more comfortable with being murdered while shopping for a new leash for Rover, than to defend yourself.

Your choice.

For me?  I'll break the law, violated posted "NO WEAPONS ALLOWED" signs, rather than to go shopping without a firearm closely at hand.

Does that offend you?

Perhaps .. until the first sharp crack of gunshots.  

Then, I imagine you will be hoping that is a shot fired in defense of you, rather than a madman shooting at you, your family, or your neighbors.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

My response to such drivel is what do they do when some bad guy starts shooting in a GFZ?
Call guys with guns, of course!

SO...if we already have them?

gfa

Anonymous said...

Very valid appraisals of the current situation regarding the 2d Amendment, and self defense.
Antipoda

Mark said...

an apocryphal story told to me by a friend ( I suspect it is partly true). He was in a shopping mall having lunch with his wife-they both carry. The mall is a GFZ with signs on the doors. He sat down at a table in the common eating area and his coat caught on the chair exposing his gun. An elderly woman came over to him and said,"I see you are carrying a gun" He anticipated a hassle maybe having her call security, etc. He looked at her and said nothing. She said "good" and walked away.