what do you mean, has no merit? there are plenty of reports today about these thugs taking shot at boats, buses, helicopters. are those all lies?
I didn't say it has "no merit," I said that you and I don't have enough information to determine whether or not there's any merit to the idea. We don't know, for example, whether the shooters are concentrated enough, or obvious enough, or numerous enough, to be amenable to a "shoot them by the truckload" solution.
The media reports about shots fired are probably true -- but we (you, I, and anybody else on this thread) lack enough information to get any sense of the scale of the problem, or the area over which it's spread.