Every time we have another massacre, the proposed solution from the NRA and its supporters is the same: more guns. If churches are attacked, the solution is to arm the priests, ministers, nuns and altar boys. If it’s a hospital, then let’s make sure the doctors and nurses have weapons. If it’s a museum or concert hall, well then the artists and musicians should be equipped and ready. If it’s the Vatican, Pope Francis should be packing.
The logic is straightforward. What terrorist would attack a group if he (or she) knew that dozens of his planned victims would pull out their own Glock or AK-47 and return fire? That would take a lot of the satisfaction, the surprise and the advantage out of any terrorist attack.
Or would it? Today one of the main disadvantages of carrying out a terrorist massacre is that you generally have to go down with the ship, so to speak. While being killed carrying out the attack may not be a deterrent to the committed Islamic fanatic dreaming of a blissful afterlife, the virtual certainty of death, capture and execution or life imprisonment can be a definite downer to the more secularly inclined terrorist, or one whose faith has “lapsed,” to use the Catholic vernacular.
Here’s where the NRA’s proposal is so intriguing, almost to the point where a committed conspiracist (of which the NRA contains not an insignificant number in its own ranks) might begin to wonder whose side the NRA is really on.
Imagine future terror attacks if the NRA has its way and people start carrying guns to theaters, churches, restaurants, synagogues, schools, hospitals, mosques, libraries or wherever. While previous terrorists had to stick around and actually kill their victims personally, in the NRA terrorism model, the massacres will follow more of a “do-it-yourself” approach.
In a theater for example, all a terrorist will have to do is sit by an exit, wait until it is dark and then yell “Watch out, he’s got a gun!” as he throws a few firecrackers or cherry bombs into the crowd. While the terrorist quickly ducks out, our well armed and ready-to-defend themselves neighbors will pull out their guns and start looking around for terrorists to shoot at. Of course they’ll find plenty of them, because other pistol-packing theatergoers will have jumped up and pulled their guns out, similarly looking for dangerous characters to shoot before they shoot them. I don’t envy the police when they arrive and try to sort out the various players.
Of course the original terrorist instigators will be long gone by then, watching the whole thing on television while planning their next one. A real conspiracy theorist might wonder if al-Qaeda or ISIS had planned this and begun infiltrating the NRA years ago, back when it was a more serious organization that actually promoted firearms safety and responsible gun ownership.
Extremists have dominated the headlines recently. Cowardly attackers in Paris and San Bernardino. White Christians with guns murdering in churches and schools. And the NRA which now supports a terrorists right to own a weapon. Thanks for the post.
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