Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 02:02:45 -0400 To: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com> From: Matthew Gaylor <freematt@coil.com> Subject: The Terrorists Strike By Neal Knox Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" ; format="flowed"Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 14:09:48 EDT Subject: Shotgun News Column on Terrorism From: nealknox@nealknox.com (Neal Knox)
I don't usually send out my Shotgun News columns, but in this circumstance, thought you might want to see it.
The column I had written seemed trivial in light of yesterday's slaughter -- which the anti-gun crowd helped make possible.
Neal
Neal Knox Report
The Terrorists Strike
By Neal Knox
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.
---
To begin receiving Neal Knox's bi-monthly newsletter, send a contribution in any amount to The Firearms Coalition, P.O. Box 3313, Manassas, VA 20108. For current news visit http://www.NealKnox.com.
Subscribe to Freematt's Alerts: Pro-Individual Rights Issues Send a blank message to: freematt@coil.com with the words subscribe FA on the subject line. List is private and moderated (7-30 messages per week) Matthew Gaylor, (614) 313-5722 ICQ: 106212065 Archived at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fa/