Six people were killed by sniper bullets in the Washington, D.C., area last week, while another two people were wounded – including a 13-year-old boy – but authorities are, so far, stumped as to suspects and motive.
One or two “Hispanic-looking” males who are “very skilled” shooters operating out of a van-type vehicle and firing a .223 cal. rifle are the few details authorities are discussing, at least publicly.
In some law enforcement circles, the notion that these killings are the work of a “spree shooter” has been advanced. But other experts believe something more sinister is afoot – terrorism.
Indeed, WND reported Sept. 4 that an al-Qaida training videotape, captured in Afghanistan, shows Osama bin Laden’s terrorists are planning attacks against Americans using drive-by shootings and home break-ins, as well as ambushes of law-enforcement officers and targeted assassinations on golf courses.
At this point, authorities are loath to use the “T” word, but perhaps with good cause. After all, none of this week’s victims were playing golf at the time of their murders. Then again, there is no question the victims were assassinated, and for sure, area residents are “terrorized.”
But whether these shootings are the opening rounds of a new homeland-based terror campaign or simply the work of a lunatic – the “death card sniper,” if you will – it’s a safe bet one of the first responses made by our leaders, once they get over the shock of the attacks, will be to stump for more gun control. There is nothing more dangerous to liberty and freedom than a frightened lawmaker. And after decades of trying to breed our survival instinct out of us, it’s only natural for millions of Americans to turn to others for protection.
But that’s exactly the wrong response. Local and national leaders should be empowering – not hampering – citizens’ ability to protect themselves and their own communities, especially in these uncertain times.
Government’s knee-jerk reaction to any threat will be to rely on its enforcement agents for defense, but as any good cop knows, it is impossible to be everywhere at once, even in the best of times. Throw some terrorists and a couple of rifle-toting lunatics into the mix and there is no way law enforcement officers can hope to guard all the people all the time.
The rational response, then, is less, not more, gun control. Granted, gun-rights activists rightfully believe that gun-control laws should be relaxed anyway – what with the Second Amendment not having been repealed and all – but in the face of terror, only hordes of law-abiding, armed Americans will present a danger and unacceptable risk to terrorists and lunatics.
If we remain unarmed, however, too many of us will become a lunatic’s next victim – fodder for the crime statisticians as we lie dead in our own streets.
Fact is, any local leader, politician or political party (are you listening, Democrats?) espousing more, not less, gun control in these troubled, terrorist times is guilty of aiding and abetting those who seek to kill us.
Whether it has already happened near Washington, D.C., or not, all experts believe that eventually, this terror war will come “home” to America. A trained, armed citizenry is our country’s best hope against those who seek to murder our husbands and wives as they go to work or our children as they make their way to school.
The Constitution gives Americans the supposedly unfettered right to keep and bear arms, as much as it gives us an unfettered right to speak freely or worship as we choose. But we have a God-given and instinctive right to self-defense – any government entity that seeks to circumvent that right is an enemy, not an ally.
Only a fool would disarm himself in the face of a distinct threat. Only lawmakers guarded by the best protection our tax money can buy would deny us even the ability to defend ourselves. But we should demand that right anyway, because the law of the land and the law of self-preservation is on our side.
Terrorists and lunatics don’t play politics. They play for keeps.