Frank Borelli
Editor In Chief
New American Truth
—

On Thursday, November 5th the nation once again watched on national television as a criminal committed multiple acts of murder at Ft. Hood, Texas. As I type this (Sat. 11/7) the body count is 13 dead, 30 wounded. The murders were committed by one man with two handguns and was stopped by one brave woman, Sgt. Munley, who ran toward the sound of shots instead of away from them. Although she was herself shot four times, she successfully shot Nidal Malik Hasan (I refuse to give him the respect or honor of using his military rank) four times, bringing an end to his attack. I hope someone in Texas names a high school after Sergeant Kim Munley.

The very next day, Friday, November 6th, a disgruntled, financially troubled man in Orlando, Florida went on a shooting spree in the offices of an engineering firm where he had worked, killing one and wounding five others. The coward then ran and hid at his mommy’s house where he was later arrested.

Almost three years ago (April 2007), Seung Hui Cho went on a shooting spree at Virginia Tech – having very carefully planned his assault on Norris Hall, an engineering building on campus – he killed 30 people and wounded 25 more. Those numbers don’t include the first two murders he committed that morning in West Jefferson Hall. Cho killed himself immediately after arriving police breached the building.

Two months before that, Sulejman Talovic started shooting at the Trolley Square mall in Salt Lake City, Utah but his spree was brought to an end by one lone police officer, an off-duty cop, who ran toward the sound of shots instead of away from them. Officer Kenneth Hammond managed to “turn the tide” so that Talovic was the prey instead of the predator until a response team could neutralize him.

Take a few minutes and think about those incidents. They are only four of the many active killer events which have happened in the United States since the late 1970s. In fact, prior to 1966 when Charles Whitman opened fire from a clock tower in Austin, Texas, there were far fewer active killer incidents that I could find documented. The first was in 1891. So from 1891 to 1966 there a number of such attacks (at schools), usually one every few years or so. Then from 1966 to 1999 (Columbine) there were twenty-five! So we went from one every few years to almost one per year? We’ll come back to that. First, I want to look at an attack that happened in 1954.

In 1954 at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill campus, a drunk but legally adult student, Putnam Davis Jr., pulled out a gun and started randomly shooting. Two other students, William Joyner and Allen Long, pulled out their legally possessed firearms and shot Davis, immediately ending Davis’ shooting spree. Consider for a moment: in 1954 the legally armed out-numbered the bad guy two-to-one. The only other time I can document that happening is when the good-guys were TEAMS of police. Otherwise, as best I can find since 1954 (when it was armed citizens) the best response the good-guys could muster was a one-on-one response.

The reality of 50-50 shootings, when one guy shoots at another guy who is shooting back, equates to a 20% chance of being victorious. I emphasize that point here because the chance for a positive outcome is surprisingly low.

Finally, before returning to these most recent attacks, I’d like you to consider one other item: a quote often attributed to the Japanese Fleet Admiral Yamamoto. When asked why Japan didn’t invade the United States after the successful attack at Pearl Harbor, Yamamoto reportedly replied:

Japan would never invade the United States. We would find a rifle behind every blade of grass.

This quote is a tribute to our past warrior culture and our appreciation of the second amendment. In the mid-1940s there were far more citizens with guns in their homes and simply walking around armed than there are in 2009. We have become a society of sheep waiting to be slaughtered.

Look at the office attack in Orlando, Florida: how many of you would walk into the offices of an engineering firm today and expect to find armed people walking about? Or performing their work tasks? None. Unless it’s a paid and armed security officer, you simply don’t expect to find anyone carrying a gun in the work place.

Ft. Hood is an entirely different setting and concept. If you managed to sneak onto a military installation in the United States today and walked into a cafeteria, post exchange, etc., how many people (remembering that the population therein is largely comprised of military service members) would you expect to find armed? While it’s a question you might actually slow down and think about the answer is the same: none. Unless it’s a military police officer (or other branch equivalent) or a contracted civilian employee granted law enforcement authority on that installation, you probably would be hard pressed to find a single person with a gun in that building.

My question for you is, why?

In almost forty states in our nation now, “shall issue” laws have been passed. That means that if an adult citizen without any disqualifying events in his / her life (felony crimes, certain violent misdemeanors and/or documented mental health issues) applies for a concealed carry permit the state is required to issue it to them. In other states (like Maryland, where I’ve lived for most of my life) when an adult as described above applies for a concealed carry permit, the citizen has to prove some pressing need to have that means of self-defense available and then the state decides whether or not that need is sufficient to warrant issuing the carry permit. In other words, in almost forty states, the right to carry a handgun for self-defense is recognized and not limited beyond what most of us would consider reasonable. My wife could get a carry permit in virtually all of those states (thanks to my LEOSA card, I don’t have to worry about it). In some other states (using Maryland as the example) a citizen is denied the right to carry a handgun for self-defense unless a sufficient threat or need can be documented. In those states, the state bureaucracy is deciding whether or not YOU can exercise your 2nd Amendment recognized God-given right. In all fairness to Maryland, there have been cities and states that for a long time prohibited even possessing a working firearm until recent Supreme Court decisions declared such laws unconstitutional.

Where am I going with all this? Here’s where…

If the average citizen in almost forty states can carry a handgun for self-defense, why can’t trained soldiers on a military installation do the same? I know there is an age difference since many soldiers are under 21 and most states set that as the minimum age to carry a handgun, but we’re talking about men and women who have made a commitment to give their life protecting and defending our country if need be and we deny them their right of self-defense on military bases within the United States? What the heck are we thinking?

At Ft. Hood, instead of one courageous civilian contracted police officer facing down Hasan, why wasn’t every soldier in the room he attacked armed and able to shoot him? How many lives would have been saved out of the 13 dead? How many wounded would have had no injury out of the 30 wounded? How many bullet holes would Hasan had in him how fast?

On September 11, 2001 our country learned a lesson about how some fanatical religious zealots around the world (and sadly, within our own borders) feel about the United States. Those terrorists committed heinous attacks against innocent American citizens for no other reason than because they could. They were disappointed at the body count, hoping for something closer to 300,000 rather than 3,000. Around the world, huge segments of Muslims cheered as American citizens died horrifying deaths.

Understand this and make no mistake about it: those who attacked us; those who supported or support them; those who cheered as Americans died…

THEY ARE OUR ENEMIES.

We should not be apologizing to them. We should not be trying to negotiate with them. We should not be hoping we can prevent further attacks by them as we worry about world image. In response to those attacks the United States of America returned the favor and actually fought a war for about sixty days. In WAR, you attack and kill your enemy and accept that there will be dead civilians and destroyed infrastructure along the way (collateral damage). When our victory in that war was clear and certain our political leadership, true to form, changed the mission to one of rebuilding and peacekeeping.

Soldiers don’t exist to keep the peace. Soldiers exist to fight wars. It’s what we train them for. It’s what we equip them for. It’s what they volunteered to do.

America’s commitment against being victimized or bullied has waned greatly since the 1940s. It was obvious in Vietnam when we wasted lives by our reluctance to destroy the enemy. It is obvious now as we execute military missions in Iraq and Afghanistan but we keep the dogs of war on a tight leash. Listen to me you spineless politicians who are only interested in getting re-elected and increasing your bank accounts / power base: TAKE THE DAMNED LEASH OFF. Unleash the dogs of war and let them do what they are there for. DECLARE WAR.

When foreign armies see American forces coming they should tremble. They should know, in clear and certain terms, they have limited choices: surrender immediately or face destruction. In WAR you kill the enemy before he kills you. That’s WAR.

Here at home there have been a number of attempts to change how we think. Our “big brother” government has gradually eroded the basic freedoms of our citizenship across about five decades now. They’d never get away with it all at once, but piecemeal it becomes not so obvious. Somewhere between 1944 and 2009 it became politically incorrect to want to walk about carrying a handgun with which to defend yourself and your family. I won’t even talk about defending your property because that’s a whole nother bag of worms I don’t want to open here.

Somewhere in that 65 year span, huge numbers of American citizens somehow became convinced that guns are inherently evil; that fighting back against unlawful attacks was immoral; and that the government was our keeper. We have metamorphosed into the Nanny State. Look at the consequences:

• 13 dead and 30 wounded at Ft. Hood
• 1 dead and 5 wounded in Orlando
• 11 bodies and counting in a serial killer / rapist’s home in Ohio
• Billions of dollars and over 4,000 lives spent “peace keeping” by our WARriors.

If I were the Commandant of the Marine Corps, or the Commanding General of the Army or Air Force, or the highest ranking Admiral in the Navy (not leaving the Coast Guard out but they weren’t designed for WAR), I’d be pissed that our current crop of elected politicians were wasting lives and defense budget on keeping the peace in a foreign land. Keeping the peace isn’t what our warriors do.

Mr. President, Congress:

The United States of America isn’t inherently strong. The people of America are. The strength of our country emanates neither from the hallowed halls of Congress nor from the oval office of the White House. The strength of the United States of America flows from each and every citizen of America. We The People make this country strong just as We The People made this country great. We The People should refuse to accept anything that denigrates that.

It’s time to re-harden America. It’s past time to bring back the reality that no country will want to risk confrontation with us if the average every day citizen goes about his daily business armed, ready and willing to fight against any and all threats from foreign or domestic sources. It’s past time to bring back the reality that America’s military forces are the best trained, best equipped and highest motivated troops. No greater friend, no worse enemy, America was founded by men and women not afraid to fight for what they believe in and maintained by men and women proud to carry on that tradition.

Anything less is simply, well… un-American.

Did you find this information helpful? If you did, consider donating.

Related posts:

1. Affordable Health Care for America Act