In an interesting development, a group of India’s wealthy have filed a lawsuit against the government for failing to protect them from the terrorists in Mumbai.
It charged that the government had lagged in its constitutional duty to protect its citizens’ right to life, and it pressed the state to modernize and upgrade its security forces.
According to some reports (like this one), there were armed police forces in the area who simply cowered during the attack and refused to challenge the terrorists. So it does seem some, ahem, improvements are certainly in order. But the real problem is that the citizens of India have abrogated all responsibility for their protectiion to the government. Government police forces cannot, however, be omnipresent and so can’t prevent or protect from all such attacks. Individuals must be capable of defending themselves and must have the mindset to do so instilled within. A disarmed populace is nothing but a herd of sheep with no defense against the wolves that will inevitably attack.
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights has adopted a resolution to purportedly combat defamation of religion. The problem is, if you read the entire text, the only religion mentioned is Islam. Apparently we aren’t supposed to be able to discuss Islam in any but the most glowing terms despite the irrefutable fact that the majority of terrorism is carried out by Muslims specifically in the name of Islam. Fortunately for us here in America, we have something called the First Amendment.
The U.N. has become an increasingly useless organization. Rather than sending it significantly more of our tax dollars, as Obama would like to do, we should withdraw our membership and kick them out of our country.
Despite “expert” security the hotels in Mumbai were an easy target for terrorists. Why is this so, when hotels have increasingly come under attack, particularly in Asia? The experts seem to be throwing their hands up.
P.R.S. Oberoi, the chairman of the Oberoi Group, said at a news conference over the weekend that he had directed his company’s hotels to step up security after the Islamabad bombing. The Oberoi banned anyone from parking in front of its hotel here for fear that a car bomb could destroy the glass wall at the front of the lobby, a risk at many hotels.
But those protections did not deter the attackers, who entered the Oberoi on foot.
Mr. Oberoi questioned whether any hotel could defend against such an assault.
Well, certainly not the Oberoi. Their “security” officers are unarmed! Now how does Mr. Oberoi expect his staff to protect his customers if they aren’t even armed? By the time the government could respond, the situation was already completely out of hand. All they could do is clean up the mess and count bodies.
There really is a simple solution: trust ordinary people. Fortunately, here in the U.S., most states do. The principle is enshrined in the Second Amendment and lived out by those of us who choose to carry arms (and further choose to live in states that allow concealed carry). A disarmed populace is nothing but a nation of victims. Would the attacks have been thwarted if there had been armed security officers and citizens? Not necessarily, of course, but it could have made a significant difference. An armed civilian may not survive such an attack, but it’s certain at this point that a couple hundred unarmed victims did not.
After four days it appears the carnage is finally over, with a couple hundred killed and many more wounded in terrorist attacks on ten different sites in Mumbai. How is this kind of attack possible? If you’ve been following the news for the last few years, you already know that India has the second largest Muslim population in the world and is also the location of a very large percentage of Islamist terror attacks. What you may not know is that India is also an almost entirely disarmed society. Their citizens and foreign travelers are completely at the mercy of fanatics like those who perpetrated this atrocity.
This time it’s a chemical tanker. There were, apparently, three security guards onboard, but that was far too small a force to repel the pirates. A NATO helicopter in the area arrived within 15 minutes but was too late to stop the attack.
Someone has the right idea, but it won’t likely be adopted until the cost of paying ransom becomes significantly higher:
The U.S. navy says it is impossible to patrol all 2.5 million miles of dangerous waters. It has called on ship owners to hire private security contractors to protect vulnerable vessels
The World Health Organization would like to see universal AIDS testing, claiming it would cut rates by 95%. Here’s an alternative from the old fashioned, conservative school of thought: keep it in your pants. That’s not only 100% effective, but free.
The patronizing tone of Europeans toward Americans for our stance on gun ownership shines through in a recent BBC article. Many here in the U.S. consider gun ownership not only as a fundamental right but a serious responsibility. Not so in Europe.
Top Gun [a shooting range and gun store in Houston] is the kind of business that simply could not exist in Europe – the staff wear holstered handguns both in the shop and on the shooting range. …
No area of American daily life makes this country feel more foreign to Europeans
I always find it amusing when foreigners appear shocked that the employees of a gun store would be carrying guns. Heck, in Arizona more than 1% of adults have concealed carry permits and open carry is legal and not terribly uncommon, so chances are very good that there are handguns being carried in every store (or other public venue) you visit. You often simply don’t know it because it’s not a problem because law abiding citizens don’t misuse guns.
England really should take notice. According to The Times Online, gun crimes have almost doubled since England banned handgun ownership. And the Dutch Ministry of Justice (Criminal Victimization in Seventeen Industrialized Countries, 2001) notes that
Many of the countries with the strictest gun control have the highest rates of violent crime.
Australia and England, which have virtually banned gun ownership, have the highest rates of
robbery, sexual assault, and assault with force of the top 17 industrialized countries.
The author does get one thing right. There are a lot of us who consider restrictive gun regulation as a first step in eroding our rights as Americans. I’ll take the American view of gun ownership any day.
A court in Stuttgart has ruled that Christian Klar, a leader of the Red Army Faction in the 1970s and 80s, will be released on parole after serving 26 years. They can’t find a reason to continue his incarceration. How about this: he’s served less than one year for each of the known killings of the terrorist group (30, though he was convicted of 9 plus 11 attempts). I lived in Germany during the period his Baader-Meinhof gang was in high swing and can attest that it was a truly frightening time. His victims, their families, and the German people deserve better.
For unstated reasons, the country is denying entry to former President Jimmy Carter and former UN secretary general Kofi Annan. Now I’m positive the reasons are entirely wrong. Zimbabwe is run by thugs who’d be horribly embarrassed to have their actions further exposed to international scrutiny. There are much better reasons to keep these two out of your country. Annan was head of the UN during the Iraq oil-for-food scandal, which tied directly to his son. And Carter? He’s a leftist (which wouldn’t overly concern the Zimbabwean government) who has contributed exactly zero to lasting international peace or prosperity. [Please list even one Carter accomplishment which has had a long-term positive effect.] Heck, those are two good reasons to deny these guys entry into the U.S.!
…after collecting a ransom. Continuing a craven policy that only encourages more piracy.