We were looking through some old issues of GunNews when we found this editorial.
It was written and published in November 2001.
It’s as true today as it was back then.
Bad news, Mr. President:
War on terror doomed to failure
Written in Nov. 2001.
by John Boch
I like you, Mr. President. I think you are doing a good job leading our country in these troubled times.
Unfortunately, though, I have some bad news for you. Your “war on terrorism” can never be a total success and I’ll tell you why: there will always be fanatics willing to kill innocent people.
It is a given: a tiny subset of people in any culture are extremists. In this case, these extremists are willing to kill innocent people, including women and children, to advance their beliefs. In the perfect world, you could eradicate these folks like insects. However, this isn’t a perfect world and not only will you never kill all the cockroaches, new ones will come along from time to time.
The same is true about the fanatics at the other end of the violence spectrum – the pacifists. Both pacifists and suicide attackers pervert religious and societal norms to rationalize their flawed, dead-end beliefs.
In many other ways, pacifists are a lot like the September 11th killers. Their positions, rationally viewed, make absolutely no sense. Neither have a history of success. Like terrorism, pacifism has never triumphed over evil in conflict. Pacifism has never saved a people from genocide.
Furthermore, pacifism is not respected by anyone but pacifists. Aggressive people, like terrorists, see “compassionate non-violence” as a weakness to be exploited. In fact, predators seek out those opposed to violence as an “easy mark.”
It is clear that in the real world, extremists like suicide bombers and pacifists have deeply flawed beliefs. This doesn’t stop an aberrant few from still becoming convinced that either of these positions are the means to a “better” world.
The proven solution in dealing with violent people of any stripe is to allow qualified, law-abiding people carry firearms for self-defense. Scientific studies have shown that permitting licensed, law-abiding residents to carry a firearm on their person reduces violent crime, including crime sprees by nutcases.
Israel, in particular, has had great success in arming its citizens to prevent terror attacks. When Mr. Fanatic tries to use force in Israel, he meets his maker in a prompt manner thanks to armed citizens.
So, Mr. President: we will always have to deal with both foreign and domestic nutcases of all kinds. There is no escaping that.
The only way to guarantee our freedom and way of life is, as our Founding Fathers once said, with eternal vigilance.