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Courage in the Empire and Lone Star States
As most of you probably know by now, there were two terrible attacks on peaceful Americans at prayer this weekend.
On Sunday morning, at the West Freeway Church of Christ near Fort Worth, Texas, a gunman shot two church members during worship service. Texas being Texas, the church had volunteer armed security and the head of security killed the attacker in seconds with a single shot.
On Saturday evening, at a Hanukkah gathering at a rabbi’s house in Monsey, New York, an attacker with a machete wounded five, including one victim who suffered critical head wounds. Though apparently unarmed, several Jewish men counterattacked, throwing furniture and driving the attacker away within two minutes.
These worshipers were victims of sudden, shocking, violent, and utterly unexpected attacks. But they were not just victims. There were heroes among them, who instantly and successfully rose to the defense of their communities. God bless them. I salute their courage, in the best tradition of the defenders of the Alamo and the mighty friends David and Jonathan.
Published in General
Indeed. I have often wondered what would happen if anyone attacked my own small church. (Not just wondered, of course. I have a battle plan. But you know what I mean.)
You aren’t alone.
I found that impressive and heartening too. Good for them! And I don’t doubt for a moment that lives were saved by their courageous, improvise-adapt-and-overcome response.
This part of the story should be emphasized in all news stories about the event: it’s important.
There’s a good article here about the attack in Monsey, by an outfit called Tabletmag that apparently covers Jewish news.
I want to comment on a part of it, in the hope that our Jewish friends and countrymen won’t feel so alone. The article says:
This applies to Christian churches, as well. There have been several terrible mass-shootings at churches and synagogues recently. The worst that I recall were at a predominately black Christian church in Charleston in 2015, a predominately white Christian church near San Antonio in 2017, and a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018.
My church has been taking serious steps to increase security. I’m not going to go into details, but they include locking doors that used to be open, and volunteer armed security patrols.
I really want to encourage Jewish believers to follow this example. Americans are not helpless victims. We are ferocious when attacked. Dead attackers on the floor sends a powerful message.
Tablet is an outstanding online magazine with new material daily. It is one of the few places left where you can find pieces from across the political spectrum along with a host of stories having nothing to do with politics.
The murderer in Texas sounds like an all-round horrible nutcase, without even the faintest hint of pathos to his story. He had been headed for a bad end for decades, with the only question being how many people he was going to take with him.
Thank God —and the astonishing shooting skills of church member and retired deputy sheriff Jack Wilson—the number was held to two. (One black, one white, if it matters, and both deacons and long-time members of the church).
BTW—the attacks in Jersey City and Monsey took place in the context of multiple assaults. The Daily Caller has a piece on this, with a video montage of those 2019 attacks caught on camera. “Simple” assault these might be, but they’d be pretty scary to endure. I don’t blame residents of these communities for being frightened and angry.
GrannyDude, I agree that there were multiple assaults, and I agree that they are bad. I do not agree with the conclusion drawn about a “pogrom.” It is always possible to cherry-pick incidents in order to paint a certain, possibly misleading picture in support of a narrative. This is precisely what was done with the Ferguson/BLM hysteria.
It is possible that there has been a recent increase in anti-Semitic assaults in and around NYC. Nine or ten incidents do not prove this. The hate crime statistics that you cited yesterday do not prove this. We would need new data.
We’re talking about a huge city and metro area. NYC has about 8.6 million residents, including about 1.1 million Jews. The metro area has about 20 million residents, including about 2 million Jews. Based on 2017 statistics, the latest that I could find, there are 570 aggravated assaults in a typical week in NYC, and about 789 in the NY metro area.
The reason that I make the distinction between simple assaults and aggravated assaults is not to minimize these attacks, but to put them in context with these crime statistics. I would expect that there are significantly more simple assaults than aggravated assaults, which means that the background level of simple assaults is even higher than the 570/789 per day figures cited above would indicate.
The present emphasis on “prison reform” will lead to more of these incidents. It is a bad idea supported by a lot of bogus statistics like “non-violent drug offenders.” There is evidence of prosecutorial dysfunction in the volume of plea bargains but the solution is more prosecutors and courts, not letting violent felons out early.
Hopefully more than just you. The second man killed also had a battle plan, but was prevented from carrying it out. It took the next guy with a battle plan to put an end to the attacker..
Now that we have an example of an assaulted group fighting back, maybe the number of incidents at places of worship will drop like the number of airline hijackings/assaults once the passengers started fighting back.
Bad guys are not necessarily stupid, they learn and adapt.
Not necessarily more of “these incidents.” In neither case was “prosecutorial dysfunction” or “letting violent felons out early” a factor. What was common to both was well known mental illness over many years. In one case, that mental illness was paired with an openly aggressive nature (briefly a boxer and lots of scrapes/domestic violence), but not in the other, where rambling notebooks apparently did not include plans to go kill Jews. The man in Texas was apparently angry that the church had given him food repeatedly but refused to give him cash.
However, there is a well known phenomenon: “suicide by cop,” and some who knew the Texas killer were speculating that he was seeking such an end. He knew the church and knew there were members who were armed. He may, chillingly, have got exactly what he sought.
Also the fact that he knew it was livestreamed? I’ve wondered if that was a factor. Ever since New Zealand I’ve wondered about more delusional haters wanting it all on film. Sigh.
Next time, bring a gun to Monsey?
Unarmed men trying to oppose an armed attacker is likely to result in dead heroes.
The man, what ever his mental status and that is another discussion, had multiple felonies in his recent history.