WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 12) – Terrorists took
advantage of the ultimate "gun free zone" yesterday morning
to bring the nation to its knees.
The stupid notion that evil, vicious killers can be
deterred by preventing law-abiding American citizens from having guns
made it easy for terrorists who were armed with nothing more than
small knives.
With those small knives a handful of well-trained
kamikaze warriors – backed by anonymous multi-national powers –
killed and wounded many thousands of Americans, utterly destroyed the
World Trade Center, damaged the Pentagon, shut down the entire airline
system, closed the stock market, crippled the nation's communications
network and sent a warning that more is to come.
Yesterday's terrorist success will inspire more
efforts, and countless more Holy Jihad warriors ready to kill and
transport themselves to a bevy of virgins in Paradise. Sure that's an
unverified conclusion, but what terrorists except muslim fanatics use
suicide bombers?
Terrorism always escalates. Yesterday was a few
small knives. Tomorrow may be a crude nuclear device in a shipping
container, or a vial of sarin or anthrax spilled in America's
heartland.
Other terrorists – not political terrorists but
individuals who spread terror just as effectively – have also taken
advantage of "gun-free zones": in U.S. Post Offices, in
offices like 101 California Ave., in churches like the Baptist
congregation in Fort Worth, in restaurants like Luby's in Killeen, and
most heart-wrenching of all, in schools like Stockton and Columbine.
Yet in the next few days political opportunists
like Charles Schumer and Dianne Feinstein will do their utmost to
create more "gun-free zones."
It will probably start as soon as the recessed
Congress convenes, for the Commerce, Justice and State Appropriations
bill – always a target for restrictive gun amendments – is on the
Senate floor.
People became afraid to fly – one of the objects
of yesterday's terrorists – during the plague of skyjackings in the
early 1970's. The government's quick fix was to hire Sky Marshals who,
anonymously but with great publicity, rode airliners at random,
prepared to shoot any would-be skyjacker.
That dampened the enthusiasm to divert an airliner
to Cuba, though I don't remember any Sky Marshal firing a shot.
Sky Marshals were replaced by the "permanent
fix," the costly, airline passenger screening system which is
easily evaded – as shown in numerous television exposes, countless
government tests, and yesterday's horrors.
The present security system, which Congress
mandated but made airline passengers pay for, created "gun-free
cockpits."
That put a stop to many airline pilots' personal
anti-skyjacking system: a Chief's Special .38 tucked among the charts
and approach plates in the pilots' "brain bags."
The randomly armed pilots system could have stopped
– or made more difficult – yesterday's skyjackings with knives.
At minimum, flight crews with the skills and desire
to protect themselves, their passengers and innocents on the ground
should immediately be allowed to have the means to do it.
There will be an orgy of anti-terrorism bills in
Congress, and like the last one – after the 1995 Oklahoma City
Bombing – drawing every cockamamie gun proposal imaginable.
The new anti-terrorism bills, just like like the
ones before, will undoubtedly call for further expansion of government
powers and blatantly disregard personal freedoms – not just the
Second Amendment but the Fourth, Fifth and other Constitutional
protections.
This morning's Washington Post flashed
Congress a green light with an overnight poll that allegedly showed
"Two in three were willing to surrender 'some of the liberties we
have in this country' to crack down on terrorism."
And if that happens, the terrorists – who hate
the freedoms this nation still enjoys – will have won.
The way to defeat them is not to circumscribe
Americans' freedoms, but the freedom of the terrorists – by Congress
formally declaring war on the terrorist organizations and their backer
states.
Forget the legalism by which we ask a world court
to try the terrorists' colleagues and sponsors, as we did in the Pan
Am 103 bombing.
Make war, as war is being waged against us, on the
known anti-American terrorism groups. And not just against front men
like Osama Bin Laden.
Yesterday's horrors were too expensive, too
well-planned and coordinated to have been conceived and carried out by
any one individual or group. Governments must have been involved, and
we can find out who – if we have the courage, and the willingness to
defend ourselves against the war being waged against us.
—
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