More Guns, Less Governement, More Security

CNS News ^ | C T Rossi

[obidog]

Guns, Not Political Correctness, Will Thwart Terrorists And Killers By C.T. Rossi CNSNews.com Commentary from the Free Congress Foundation August 06, 2002

While the juggernaut of the federal government is attempting to redirect its full weight toward using law enforcement as a counter-terrorism force, one local community is already wrapped in the grasp of a terrorist.

No dirty bombs or hijacked planes. Neither is this terror accompanied by the call for jihad or suicide bombers. The terrorist acts that have covered Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in a cloak of communal fear come from the hands of a serial killer.

Prior to the advent of thousands dying in fiery skyscraper bombings, the serial killer was the most provocative news event that reporters could have come across their desks.

While the attacks of September 11th were on a grand scale, their end effect actually created a more galvanized and patriotic national community rather than instill dread in the hearts of Americans (as was the hope of the Islamists). The fear that Al Queda dreamed of creating is slowly paralyzing the inhabitants of Louisiana's capital city. Now the crime story that was once the ringmaster of all media circuses has returned to town.

Like any modern-day crime story, it was the forensic evidence that made the existence of the serial killer official. Baton Rouge law enforcement announced last week that DNA samples definitively linked the deaths of Pam Kinamore, Charlotte Murray Pace and Gina Wilson Green. Science has validated as true what the community had innately feared.

Green was the first victim. The 41-year-old nurse was found strangled in her home on September 24. Pace, a 22-year-old university student, was next. She was discovered stabbed to death in her town house on May 31. She had only two days before moved away from the street on which Gina Green lived. Kinamore, a 44-year-old antiques store owner, was abducted from her home on July 12; her body was found July 16 in a secluded area close to an Interstate 10 exit. Her throat had been cut.

From the real to the fictitious, Ted Bundy to Hannibal Lecter, over the years Americans have been deluged with the intricacies of a serial murder investigation. Most casual observers know that use of an FBI criminal profiler will be among the initial steps of the investigation.

If law enforcement decides upon the typical profile of a serial killer, they will be searching for a white male in his late 20s or 30s. He likely comes from a dysfunctional family background involving sexual and or physical abuse. Unlike in the realm of counter-terrorism, there is no squeamishness on the part of law enforcement about applying the criminal profile to look for suspects.

Aside from the obvious difference in attitudes toward profiling terrorists and serial killers, Louisiana Governor Mike Foster has added an interesting twist to the narrative with his recent comments.

Foster did not create a state task force headed up by a serial killer czar. He did not pledge more (and more intrusive) law enforcement to rid the city from this internal threat. He did not attempt to placate the rightfully concerned citizens of Baton Rouge by telling them that the FBI was in town and hence there was no longer any reason to worry.

No, Foster maintained that the safety of the community must ultimately rest in the hands of the people themselves. Mike Foster recommended that people arm themselves with guns.

Foster reminded Louisianians that they have the right to bear arms and should learn how to use guns in self-defense, adding: "Most people don't ever want to use a gun to protect themselves - that's the last thing they want to do - but if you know how and you have a situation with some fruitcake running around, like they've got right now, it sure can save you a lot of grief."

Mike Foster's common sense approach reminds young women that a gun can be the great equalizer if they encounter the knife-wielding serial killer, but don't expect radical feminists to favor Second Amendment rights. Don't expect the new bureaucratic boondoggle called the Office of Homeland Security to espouse that citizens (or even commercial airline pilots) actually be allowed to exercise their gun ownership rights either.

Governor Mike Foster and the criminal profilers of the FBI are taking proven measures to stop a killer loose in the community. They aren't allowing themselves to be fettered by the chains of political correctness because lives are at risk. Our federal counter-terrorism "experts" seem to be taking the opposite tack.

Given the difference between Louisiana law enforcement and Homeland Security, in the future the media will be covering more terrorism and less serial killers.

(C.T. Rossi writes about contemporary culture and politics for the Free Congress Foundation.)

[coloradan]

Some people get the concept of self-defense.

[Vic3O3]

ping

[Grut]

Not that I disagree with the idea of self-defense, but I suspect the word "terrorist" is showing signs of 'mission creep'.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Are you surprised? Whenever Congress passes a law without bothering to define the terms, the JBT's WILL interpret it in the most tyrannical way possible and start using it in ways it was never intended. And what is worse, Congress won't even bother to clean up their mess.

[Billthedrill]

Kind of an odd silence from NOW, now that I think about it - usually the darlings get the vapors when someone suggests that women really empower themselves...