Posted on 10/07/2015 8:19:12 AM PDT by Kaslin
If there is any glimmer of light to emerge from the mass murder last week at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, it is the story of Chris Mintz -- a 30-year-old Army veteran who was shot seven times after running towards the shooting scene to help. Mintz was not able to stop to the killer, but his courageous actions were justly heralded, and were reminiscent of the three Americans in August who charged and incapacitated a shooter on a train in Paris, France.
Despite how we understandably rally around these stories of individual heroism, we should not allow them to overshadow the deeper and disturbing fact that so many individuals fail to take action in defense of self and others when facing an attacker. To be clear, it is not simply a question of whether any one of us will rise to the occasion when faced with such an attack; for no one truly knows how they will react until actually facing such an emergency.
It is, instead, a disturbing truth that we have in many respects lost the collective courage of our forefathers; and have become in large measure a nation that encourages the role of the victim and the submissive, rather than the glorification and encouragement of individual responsibility in defense of one’s life and values. This is the inconvenient truth about Umpqua and other mass shooting events, and it has nothing to do with guns. It has everything to do with the transformation of America into a nation of victims. Our goal should be to reverse that trend; not play politics about “gun control.”
When President Obama stepped up to microphone last week to deliver The White House response to the Umpqua shooting, we did not need an advanced copy of the transcript to guess what he was going to say: “Guns” are responsible for this heinous crime, and “common-sense gun legislation” is the only way to ensure it does not happen again. While the President correctly noted also that “thoughts and prayers are not enough,” his focus on “gun control” is as irrelevant and unproductive as in his responses to earlier incidents.
It is not enough to justifiably praise Mintz for his heroism. Instead, we should be asking why, on a campus of 3,100 students, he was the only one daring to take on a single shooter. Why were there not dozens, if not hundreds willing to fight for their lives, instead of submitting in fear to a lone gunman?
It is not enough to decide that the President, the Congress, the courts, or even a bank is sufficiently valuable to warrant protection by armed guards, but that schools and military installations -- known targets favored by would-be killers -- are safer protected with nothing more than a nominal police presence and “gun-free zone” signs. Instead, why are we not demanding to properly train, arm and deploy police in schools, and encouraging our legislatures to seriously consider loosening prohibitions on licensed individuals being able to carry on campuses and military installations?
Finally, it is not enough that we know these individuals who become mass killers are almost uniformly cowards who often shoot themselves as soon as they are confronted by force, but we still teach our children and others to “cooperate” with them, or vainly attempt to dissuade them from killing the innocent. Instead, we should teach courage, individual responsibility, and the maxim that to defeat evil, one must meet force with force.
Where has our collective courage as a society gone? Why is submission, not defiance, the default mentality when designing “active shooter” scenarios? Where is our tenacity to fight for life, liberty and self-preservation that founded this nation? Have we been so thoroughly conditioned through submitting to TSA, NSA, DEA and every government agency under the sun -- and to teachers, school administrators and police who believe that an elementary school student who points a finger at another student and says “bang bang” is such a threat as to be subject to arrest -- that we have lost the ability to fight for our own survival without the aid of government “protectors”?
When politicians like Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton -- who all live safely and securely protected at taxpayer expense by trained, dedicated and well-armed federal agents -- tell us that “common-sense gun control” is the only way to keep the rest of us safe, they are not targeting guns; they are attacking our human right to self-defense. This is the one fundamentally American concept that gun owners understand perhaps better than so many others here and abroad: that individuals have not only a right, but a responsibility to fight for their self-preservation against harm.
Despite what we are told by “authority” figures, or what we see dramatized in movies and television, the police and the military are not our first line of defense -- we are.
The sooner we return to and adopt this principle as the guiding force behind our response to mass shootings, the sooner we will start to see a decrease in these incidents; and if not, we are doomed to continue dealing with them.
Good article.
Shelter in place and lockdowns are two of the stupidest ideas to come along. Either fight or flight.
Fits right in with what Dr. Ben postulated this A.M. on TV. Attack! Attack! Attack! as opposed to the liberals Submit, submit, submit.
Far too many have become the Eloi.
Here’s another inconvenient truth . . . no one yet I’ve aeen has bothered to mention the races of the shooter and victims. I wonder why? Has anyone bothered to research the killer? I mean, the MSM was all over Joe The Plumber for merely asking questions and making comments?
So was the killer race inspired or not?
For at least 40 years Americans have been indoctrinated with “Call 9-1-1” and “let the professionals(police) handle it”;we have been dissuaded from individual,independent actions.
You're only a victim if you choose to be one. I hear Obozo, Al, Jesse, and others who say this group or that group are victims at the hands of [fill in the blank]. Bullcrap! You're a victim because it's easy. If you think you're a victim and don't like it, do something about instead of whining to someone else. Personally, I'm really tired of the whining and the wasted tax dollars to placate these people.
It’s easy to say that you fight back. Remember, these were young men and women. When I was 20 years old I was held up on the streets of LA by two men with rifles. I froze. I couldn’t even move. They took my handbag and fled. I was surprised by my reaction, but it was my reaction.
I’m old. I wasn’t raised to be a dirty little
coward, sheltering in place. I’m a woman. I
was raised to fight back. - Daddy was in the
Army Infantry in the worse of WWII. I wish he
had taught me more marksmanship; but I think
he thought if he didn’t push guns to me, it
would be OK. (He made his own ammo for the
Smith & Wesson that had belonged to his
great grandfather when he was a lightskeeper
on the Tennessee River.) - Now, we have this
revolting development egged on by the little
“community organizer”. He has single-handed
fomented a lot of this garbage. Every time
he has one of these; he practically froths
at the mouth at the prospect of getting guns
away from law-abiding citizens. Like Hitler
did to Germany.
“Fits right in with what Dr. Ben postulated this A.M. on TV. Attack! Attack! Attack! as opposed to the liberals Submit, submit, submit.”
“The good doctor” also wants to start a national list of people that may be potential mass killers.
[ Far too many have become the Eloi. ]
I dunno about you, but I feel like moving underground sometimes...
The dudes that go to a small town community college are often not the same dudes that go into the military.
When the two overlap, you get the train hero and the classroom hero.
One of the three US Veterans who knocked down that terrorist on that train in France a few month ago went to that school before he went to the Air Force
Flight 93: Let's Roll ...
“Freezing up” is not uncommon. This is why training is necessary or at least people have to have the conversation with themselves as to what they would do if confronted with these situations.
I used to do conferences with people who were likely to be defensive, argumentative and at times totally hostile. I found that if I went over all the scenarios I could imagine occurring, if/when they did occur, it was like riding a bike on a road full of ruts ... my brain bike hit the appropriate rut & kept going forward instead of trying to plow new ground with a scenario I had not prepared for. Same with gun training, self defense, etc. .... if you’ve “been there”, your brain will react as trained. You have training to overcome the immobility of fear.
Not everyone freezes, but most folks have no concept of true “evil” or danger and the first time they are confronted with it, they tend to try compliance or don’t have time to get past the ‘freeze’ before they are shot/killed. Just my 2 cents.
This is the elephant in the room that no one talks about. As a nation we have empowered victims. You want something, play the victim. You want power pander to victims. With that comes the expectation that someone who sees themselves as a victim believes they have a right to something in return., if nothing else Payback.
Our children are being programmed to be compliant, dependent slaves in the Prussian “system” of indoctrination.
The schools are set up to DESTROY VIRTUE in our children. The schools sexualize young children (and TV shows) to normalize vice and enlarge the Limbic area of the brain (base instinct part which Classical Education suppresses). Maturity can not occur if Reason does not control base instincts.
How? It emasculates the boys and destroys natural instincts in the girls and objectifies people (removes morality)-—removes them from the Natural Family (true-real life good role models, who should love them and model Virtue only, and care about them flourishing). The true family would have the children ‘work” and learn skills and to be competent at Life and human interaction (real life).
Parents used to KNOW how evil “orphanages” were-—that artificial institutions can not create flourishing adults and all literature has proven the importance of loving parents, both male and female—to the child so they can have Common Sense and understand Reality and have a proper role model so they can understand self.
Children were NEVER removed for “schooling” until after age 7...this taking “young, plastic minds” to be “molded” was the John Dewey idea—that they needed younger children so they could erase what they “learned” in the Natural Family (independence, autonomy, real life skills).
Group think systems——which put one age into large dehumanizing institutions are for nothing but indoctrination to DESTROY critical thinking ability. The stress alone—and the perceptions children get inside such a artificial “system” warps EVERYTHING and is dehumanizing on ALL levels-—and retards maturity ALWAYS. Children copy immature behaviors to be ‘popular”-—it habituates vice. The herd instinct is great in children so they copy even evil, if the immature children approve-—which they will in ‘group” irrational situations.
Curricula is ALL put through a Marxist/Freudian Lens to sexualize young children which destroys all morality. Vice creates slaves. As Augustine stated, you have as many masters as you have Vices. That is why the Left promotes vice/evil——because it creates a slave mentality. Worldview is everything-—and the Christian Worldview is the ONLY one which created “Individual Natural Rights from God”. That worldview created the concept that we are our own masters-——we only do God’s Will——and if it goes against God-—it is Evil. Our Justice System is only aligned with Christian Ethics.....because of Individualism and dignity and worth of all human life. No other faith is in line with our Constitution-—that is why Christian Worldview is banned from the public square-—they are literally banning our Constitution from the public square. (It is unconstitutional).
Individualism and Virtue is practiced-—habituated in childhood. Children have to be their OWN MASTERS—not take orders 24/7 until age 18. Most “children” were working by age 12 or 13 and they had virtues which created not only great success (as virtue always is rewarded in a true Justice System).
That is the most crucial thing is our legal system was hijacked by evil humanists/Marxists to force their “faith” (ideology) in our “Justice” (ha ha) System. They forced welfare (theft of private property that punishes the producers (good) and rewards Vice). Also-—with unwed mothers-—they reward the Vice.
All true Justice Systems ONLY reward “public virtue” as Montesquieu stated. As Cicero knew-—when Laws promote evil—then eventually the whole system will collapse.
Same thing in our military. Our “Just Laws” promote sodomy and bestiality....which is insane. Our Western Justice System is based on Christian Ethics-—and no other is aligned with Natural Law Theory which is the basis of our Jurisprudence System (It used to be until the Constitution was thrown out for the faith of Satanists (sodomy) and pagans and humanists (Man is god)——Rule of Oligarchy. is obscene to Rule of Law (our system).
Two or more could have stopped him. Nobody but one tried. Everyone just stood there awaiting their fate and hoping someone else would come to their rescue.
We need to teach students to fight back. They have instead been taught that fighting back will violate the “zero tolerance” standard they have been taught since kindergarten.
Political correctness kills.
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