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Lessons from Orlando
This is getting to be a regular type of post for me on Ricochet. I am not happy about that fact.
My heart goes out to everyone affected by the horror in the Pulse nightclub, and I join with those who are calling for peace in the wake of this massacre. But I am also preparing for war.
By now, the motive behind the worst mass-shooting on American soil is known, and the motive was radical Islamic terrorism. Again.
Here’s what we know about what happened in Orlando early Sunday morning.
Background Checks Didn’t Stop the Attack
The shooter (who I will never, ever call by his name because he deserves our scorn, not our recognition) had a Florida security guard license, which means he passed quite of a number of background checks based on his previous activities (or lack thereof). He was investigated by the FBI (twice!), but there was not enough evidence to arrest him. If only he’d been a member of a Tea Party group or something similar, then the government would have kept close tabs on him…
“Gun-Free Zones” Didn’t Stop the Attack
Florida law does not permit taking a firearm into a business that makes more than 50 percent of its revenue from the sales of alcohol. The Pulse nightclub was therefore a “gun free zone,” and the shooter ignored that little part of Florida law on his way to commit other, multiple, violations of state and federal laws. Why, it’s almost as if criminals live outside the law and chose to ignore them.
A Good Guy with a Gun Stopped Him
Actually, a whole bunch of good guys. Kudos to the Orlando Police Department and other agencies for the efforts in stopping this attacker in his tracks.
You Are on Your Own
That sounds rather scary, and it is, to some extent. No one likes to think that’s they’re alone in a hostile world, but the fact is, people who wish to do us harm select people who cannot or will not fight back. Take all the steps you can right now to lessen your chances of being a victim of violence. Churches and synagogues have been a target of Islamic terror in the Middle East, and there is no reason to believe they won’t be a target here as well. Keep at least one eye out, and if something doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t.
Have the Will to Fight
In Peter Jackson’s excellent movie adaptation of Tolkien’s “The Two Towers,” Theoden, king of Rohan asks, “What can men do against such reckless hate?” The answer his companion Aragorn gives is both succinct and chock-full of wisdom: “Ride out with me. Ride out and meet them. For Rohan. For your people.”
Fighting a defensive battle on our own soil will not defeat an ideology based in the Middle East. We are facing a global existential threat to Western culture, and it is time for the men (and women) of the west to stop calling ISIS “the JV team” and treat Islamic jihad as the threat it really is.
It’s Not the Guns, Stupid
There are three things needed to commit a crime: Motive, means, and opportunity. The motive was radical Islamic terrorism (again) which does not tolerate Christians, gays, Jews, or intellectuals. The opportunity was a large group of people who fit one of those descriptions who, by Florida law, could not be armed at their location. The means, therefore, was at best tertiary. This is backed up by the fact that in Israel, Islamic terrorists use knives to kill Jews. In Iraq, its car bombs to kill Christians. In Bangladesh, they hack intellectuals and gays to death.
The NRA does not exist in any of those countries, and and yet this kind of terror happens overseas. It’s long past time that our media and the Democrats (but I repeat myself) stop blaming the inanimate objects that constitute the means of such massacres, and start addressing the motives and the opportunities.
Published in Culture, Guns, Islamist Terrorism, Politics
How many feel safer?
Great post! Let’s hope that, as in the Tolkien movie, “The Lord of the Mark will ride!”—in my opinion that’s one of the most thrilling lines in literature and the movies.
In fact, Theoden is a very good metaphor for Uncle Sam right now: a just, hardy, once powerful ruler, convinced by Wormtongue’s insidious whispers to abandon his mount, his scepter, his virility, his power. Cast out the Old Serpent, and he regains the strength and vigor of his prime. Banish the false counselor who whispers: you are old, you are weak, your time is past, you will never fight again! And there stands the hale veteran, the seasoned ruler still at the height of his powers.
In the words of Edna St Vincent Millay:
“This is nothing new, that we should be attacked/while we are sleeping. Is it not always so?/And start up, dazed and unprepared to act/Rubbing our eyes, not knowing where to go.
Yet the trained hand does not forget its skill/Nor can we lay precision and speed aside./ Strength we have, and courage, an acetylene will-/A timorous vigilance, but a brave pride.
From the apprehensive present, from a future packed/With unknown dangers, monstrous, terrible, and new,/Let us turn for comfort to this simple fact:
We have been in trouble before, and we came through.”
(from “Thanksgiving 1950”)
im glad our right to bear arms has such an articulate defender–thanks.
I agree things are bad, but “existential threat” is hyperbole. Even an occasional mass shooting is unacceptable, but western civilization is a hearty weed.
Well said.
I live about three miles from there. I ate dinner last night at a restaurant a half-mile down the street.
I tried to go give blood today, but the blood bank was overwhelmed. They didn’t have anywhere near enough supplies or manpower to handle the hundreds of people who showed up to give blood.
Kind of glad I already made popcorn. This should be interesting to watch.
That’s what I’m here for. ;)
I work on a military base, so 5 out of 7 days I’m forced to leave home disarmed. The other 2 days hardly seem worth it sometimes.
I’m so sick of the call for more gun laws. As you said, Kevin, he went through numerous background checks. Do they think more would have helped?
Never let a crisis go to waste. That is the theme of the liberty-hating left.
I’ve been trying to find out about this guy. OK, his parents are not citizens, right? (Who let THEM in? Dad, a Taliban supporter, is evidently suffering from a delusion that he’s president of Afghanistan…) So does that mean L’il Omar is a “birthright citizen”? We gotta get rid of that!
But hey, I hafta be glad he IS a citizen; that meant he could register to vote. And he’s a Dem! Not much attention paid to that; could u imagine if he’d been a Republican?
Also, does anybody know where he worked? He was a “security guard”–where? Walt Disney World?
i hope we hear from Milo Y about this. I cannot fathom why, but gays seem to usually support the Left, even to the extent of favoring Islam. Is there still a group called Queers for Palestine? If so I hope they were watching today, as ISIS tweeted its religion-based homophobia. They should realize they wouldn’t last a day under Sharia law.
Hey, America, honey! You awake yet?
Yes, but did he support Hillary or Bernie?
This statement is naiveté.
Seeing reports from local news down there that a co-worker at the security company said he reported several homophobic/racist comments and threats to his employer and they did nothing “because he was muslim”. This is just one guy but it kind of shoots to hell the “if you see something, say something” mantra doesn’t it?.
Well, yesterday I read that in Germany, the PC brainwashing is so effective that schoolgirls who were actually attacked by Muslim “refugees” did not say so because they were afraid it might cause people to think Muslim refugees were attacking schoolgirls. Which they were!!!!!
But y’know, I wonder what Omar will make of the lissome lads promised to murderous Muslim warriors in Paradise? Ya think they have sensitivity training during orientation for the newly dead?
Regrettably the moral vacuity of the Left (calls for more gun control, don’t blame Islam, comparing the Orlando Shootings to laws that would require people to use bathroom and shower facilities corresponding to their current anatomy, etc.) has required a “day of” response.
I’d hoped we could at least wait until the bodies of the victims were cold before jumping in to push back on the Left, apparently not.
Kevin does a good job of summarizing the gun control component of our situation.
In a larger sense, Islam does pose an existential threat to Western Civilization, always has since its inception, always will. The Orlando Shootings are a specific manifestation of the threat posed by Islam, analogous to how Pearl Harbor was a specific manifestation of the existential threat posed by Imperial Japan.
We could have chosen to ignore the message Imperial Japan sent at Pearl Harbor. Thank God we didn’t. It remains to be seen whether we chose to ignore the message Islam is sending to the West. Please God we don’t.
If we hope to prevail, at some point we are going to have to face the bloody arithmetic and understand that strongly worded editorials and speeches are virtually useless. Force is the only thing the Islamic world understands, we are going to have to apply it ruthlessly.
For now, for any gays who want to persist in blaming the availability of firearms for this tragedy. Time to rethink your position:
“Facts don’t seem to matter to this administration, in this matter,” James Woolsey, who served as director of the CIA under President Bill Clinton, told Fox News after Obama’s statement. “This reluctance is doing real damage. You can’t effectively fight something if you can’t discuss it.” RELATED: The Unmentionable Origins of Terrorism Nor are other Democrats any more willing to say that the U.S. is at war with “radical Islam.” Incredibly, Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal, who was once Connecticut’s attorney general, issued this statement: “The Senate’s inaction on commonsense gun violence prevention makes it complicit in this public health crisis.”
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/436507/orlando-attack-was-islamic-terrorism-obama-still-refuses-name-it
It was a good run America…..
I’m concerned about the time it took the Orlando PD to go into the club and confront the shooter. The shooting started just after 2am and SWAT didn’t force entry until 5am.
I hope there are solid reasons behind Orlando PD’s wait of almost 3 hours. A solid lesson learned from other mass shootings (like Columbine) is that waiting to confront the shooter means some wounded bleed out.
Again, I hate to 2nd guess those on the ground having to make a tough decision. If there were solid tactical reasons* for the wait , we need to know.
*A few that come to mind: 1) no communication from those inside seeking medical aid. 2) the shooter was communicating rationally with police, etc.)
“Based in Jupiter, Florida, G4S says it has operations in more than 100 countries. It provides security guards, technology and other services. Its customers span a range of industries including mining, finance and retail.”
One of those customers is the US Government.
“And this is where the Mateen-G4S link emerges: as JW reported previously, a security company contracted by the U.S. government is driving the OTMs from the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector where they were in custody to Phoenix, sources said. The firm is the abovementioned G4S, the world’s leading security solutions group with operations in more than 100 countries and 610,000 employees. G4S has more than 50,000 employees in the U.S. and its domestic headquarters is in Jupiter, Florida.”
Think about that when you consider what a great job vetting the
100000 refugees a year Hillary wants to bring here.
From what I’ve been seeing, there was a three-hour standoff going on.
There was a quote from a few months after 9/11 that has stuck with me, something to the effect of “All terrorists seem like pathetic losers, right up until they fly planes into the building”. Multiple news sources are reporting he was a security guard, which means he passed a more-rigourous test than *I* passed when I got my CCW, and he was investigated by the FBI twice. Unless we want to start arresting people for crimes they *might* do, I don’t see an easy way out here.
For what it’s worth, this is 3 ten thousandths of a percent.
And something I did previous to this massacre today was change up my concealed carry gear. I went from carrying a full-size 9mm handgun back to carrying a sub-compact 9mm S&W Shield, and added in a small trauma/1st aid kit to my belt, under my shirt. I weighed the benefits of having double the ammo on me versus having a tourniquet and some Quikclot on me, and came down in favor of medical supplies. I have good friends who are really smart who suggest at least 30 rounds are the minimum load to carry these days, but the 8+1 (plus another eight) in the Shield should be enough to get me to my home or to my car, where more things are there for my use (including more first aid gear). I’ve had first aid kits near me for quite some time now, but I decided to carry one on me because the 3-5 minutes it would take to retrieve a tourniquet from my car is also about as long as it would take for me or a loved out to bleed out from a gunshot wound.
That’d suck. So now I carry one on me, and I wore it, (along with all the other stuff) on a walk up and down the beach Saturday in the hot Florida sun, just to see how it carried and how heavy it seemed.
I didn’t notice it all, and neither did anyone else. Mission accomplished.
http://www.breitbart.com/milo/2016/06/12/left-chose-islam-gays-now-100-people-killed-maimed-orlando/
If 10% of those refugees are inclined to jihad, and 10% of those people actually take up the cause, and only 1% of them actually take up arms in order to cash in the chit for their 72 virgins, that’s ten new jihadis on American soil, or ten times the number of people needed to commit this massacre, every year for the X number of years of her Presidency.
Oh goody.
I don’t suppose we could prohibit Muslims from being hired for any occupation that requires carrying a firearm.
Seems our advisories are equally hearty. Once they up there game to real weapons of mass destruction, as they surely will, our heartiness will be sorely tested. An radical Islamist ‘Existential threat’ if not met with a superior Western ‘existential threat’ will surely rule. Our choice.
I’ve learned it’s just wise for the media’s “race to get it wrong” to settle down on these incidents before trying to determine what lessons can be taken away from it.
It does sound like this situation was a bit abnormal from most mass shootings we’ve had in that it ended as a barricaded subject scenario where the tactical people decided to end it. I can think of several different scenarios on how an active shooter situation would turn into a barricaded subject situation, but I won’t speculate here.
I used to be a police officer so I’ve learned that the media doesn’t really report well on law enforcement incidents and the media cycle is much faster these days which hasn’t made anything better.
I do know that police tactical units spend quite a bit of time on just these types scenarios in their training. It’s one of the reasons why tactical units were created in modern law enforcement. The ultimate goal of any tactical operation is to save lives and I’m sure that was the focus of whatever the tactical people were who had to respond to this.
And if 1% of them are terrorists that’s 1000 potential San Bernardinos and Orlandos.
i feel so much safer now.
Yes. it is hearty weed…and is suffering from heart problems. Emotional responses to what is the invasion of Europe. They are the cradle of Western Civilization, are they not?
And they are being destroyed by hoards of 3rd world immigration from the Mid East and Muslim Africa. The elites want them to prop up failed welfare states and so they can live in their own little worlds of privilege away from the rift raft.
And those who don’t think that all cultures are equal and don’t yield to the political correctness their leaders insist on are being out bred. The shear numbers of births alone tell you the Europe will be unlikely to remain the bastion of Western Civilization.
And too many here in the US fall in line with that way of thinking. Open boarders, lack of assimilation, the gay bashing, misogynistic, America haters all want to change our fundamental way of life. They not only believe all cultures are equal but many feel the really backward ones are purer and condemn our own.
You do not understand at all the existential threat and so they will be on your doorstep before you can even recognize them.
I’m sorry to hear this was so close to you. Did you know any of the victims? I’m sure the whole area is in shock. How are you doing?