Posted on 05/08/2019 6:00:49 AM PDT by Kaslin
From New Zealand to Sri Lanka, houses of worship are under attack. This has been an all too common phenomenon around the world. At home, there have been recent shootings at synagogues in Pittsburgh and San Diego, and at churches in Texas, Tennessee, Colorado, and South Carolina. So how do we make people safer?
New York City councilman Kalman Yeger will introduce a bill this week that requires the city to pay for armed security guards at any house of worship that requests protection.
That is helpful, if expensive, but New York refuses to adopt the most effective policy: letting more people carry concealed handguns. Indeed, all of the church shootings noted above were stopped by civilians with guns. One that had banned guns and didn’t stop the attack occurred in Charleston, South Carolina.
There are simply too many targets for police to be able to guard every one of them. If terrorists don’t attack synagogues, they can target Kosher grocery stores, Jewish schools, or restaurants. In January 2015, the Hypercacherkosher supermarket siege in Paris left four murdered and nine injured.
These terrorists have huge strategic advantages in determining the time and place of attacks. They can wait for guards to leave the area, or pick an undefended location. Even when guards or police are in the right place at the right time, those who can be readily identified as guards may as well be holding up neon signs saying, “Shoot me first.” Terrorists know that once the guards are killed, they will have free rein to go after everybody else.
Permit holders make guards' very difficult job easier.
If a terrorist tries to kill a guard, he reveals his position and makes himself a target to someone with a concealed handgun.
In 2018, some 17.5 million Americans had concealed handgun permits last year. Excluding permit-unfriendly California and New York, this amounts to 8.5 percent of the adult population. Nobody knows whether the person next to them might have a gun, except in the rare case that it is needed. Permit holders are incredibly law-abiding, losing their permits for firearms-related violations at rates of thousandths or tens of thousandths of 1 percent.
We can no longer ignore the fact that these mass public shootings keep on occurring in those small, isolated areas of right-to-carry states where permitted concealed handguns aren’t allowed. Indeed, since 1950, 98 percent of mass public shootings have occurred in places where general citizens are banned from defending themselves.
Terrorists and criminals don’t have any respect for gun-free zones. Nor do they let gun control stop them from getting weapons. France bans semi-automatic guns and strictly licenses and registers guns, but from 1998 to 2015 had more than twice the US’s rate of murders from mass public shootings. Other European countries with much stricter gun control laws include Russia, Norway, Finland, and Slovakia. All also have higher per capita murder rates from mass public shootings. Across Asia, Africa, and Latin America, the rates also tend to be much worse than in the US.
The war on guns has been as much of a failure as the war on drugs. Terrorists can also resort to homemade bombs, and have lately made a habit of using vehicles as weapons.
Ron Noble, the Secretary General of INTERPOL from 2000 to 2014, cautioned that even with “extraordinary security,” it would be virtually impossible to keep weapons out of soft targets. When terrorists breach these soft targets, they are the only ones with weapons.
Most schools are soft targets, but not all of them. In 20 states, many school districts currently allow teachers and other staff members to carry guns on school property. Some states have had these rules for decades, and their successful track record couldn’t be clearer.
More than a thousand school districts allow teachers to carry guns. Outside of suicides and gang violence during the wee hours of the night when no teachers are around – there has yet to be a single shooting death or injury on the school property of one of these school districts. Nothing bad has even happened, outside of one accidental discharge outside of school hours. No one was seriously harmed.
Permit holders have stopped dozens of would-be mass public shootings in malls, churches, schools, universities and town centers. Gun control advocates perennially fear that a permit holder will lose control of his weapon or accidentally shoot a bystander, or that a police officer will accidentally harm the permit holder. But this has never happened in a mass public shooting.
People should be much more worried about the fact that these attacks become massacres when there's no one who can fight back. Permit holders who carry in the course of daily life should be able to bring their guns to churches and schools. They should be able to protect students and their fellow worshipers.
Well, that's New York City. No one can think about owning a firearm LET ALONE own one ...
Have no fear, the government is here to save the day.
I have no idea how crazy the laws are in NYC. But let’s say that I own a business there. With my permission, couldn’t my employees be armed while working in my store?
If the answer to that question is yes, couldn’t the same apply to worshipers in churches? (If no one has a CCW permit, the weapons would have to be kept locked in the church. But that would be better than nothing.)
More “guns” is not the answer!
More vaccinated, hetero-normative, patriarchal, climate denying, nationalist, white Christian, misogyny IS!
Anybody, anybody with at least two functioning IQ points knows you don't let rabid dogs into your home where your children sleep.
Apparently, however, America's politicians (former presidents, etc), lack even the above criterion.
Never rely on government to protect or defend you and your family.
Speaking of shootings I wonder if CNN has admitted yet yesterday’s shooters were Trump hating queers?
At least two (that I know of) of the churches that I have been a member of in the last twenty years has Deacons and Elders who were armed. No one knew “exactly” who was armed at anytime, but everybody knew they were there. In actuality, I think all of them were armed all the time, but only God and them know for sure.
I often carry a Ruger LCP (380) for daily wear. For church, I’ve settled on a Glock 27 - 9 rounds of 40 S&W - as my minimum. I consider churches to be high threat zones. Kind of like movie theaters used to be.
What about penetration risks? One of the things in my mind has always been collateral damage. I really do not want to see one of my brothers or sisters in Christ getting hurt or killed because the round over penetrates. (No sarc intended)
I really do not want to see one of my brothers or sisters in Christ getting hurt or killed because the round over penetrates. (No sarc intended)........... I suppose one of your brothers or sister being penetrated by terrorist projectiles is preferable? Collateral damage can happen but should all be placed in mortal danger so that no accident happens?
Wow, thanks for the guilt trip.
It was an actual question because I do not know enough about the proper rounds to use in a crowd situation. Ideally, the target would be more in the open, i.e. doorway, but the ideal is very seldom the reality.
MISSES can kill anyone. But my missing is less likely to kill someone than the bad guying AIMING. Most of the church shooters seem to be using rifles, so I’m already at a disadvantage.
I don’t worry about a 40 S&W HPT going thru the bad guy and hitting someone else. It isn’t impossible, but cops have that potential too. Judging from cops, though, missing is really the most likely bad thing to happen.
The alternative is to allow the gunman to walk around carefully aiming his rifle...
I should add that when a concealed carrier pulls a gun, bad things are already happening. There are no good options left. Only a choice between degrees of badness.
Gunman aiming at the innocent with a rifle vs old retired military aiming at the bad guy with a Glock (formerly with my J-frame). Any harm I do is less likely to kill people than what the bad guy is doing already.
It was an actual question because I do not know enough about the proper rounds to use in a crowd situation. Ideally, the target would be more in the open, i.e. doorway, but the ideal is very seldom the reality............
There are no magic rounds, calibers or bullets which will ensure no collateral wounding. Any effective caliber has the potential for passing through the primary target and wounding someone beyond. That will happen. Misses will happen. Hopefully, such damage is minimal and a quick destruction of the shooter(s) protects the majority of the congregation/crowd. May sound harsh but it is reality.
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