We live in an age where any common sense utterance can get one into trouble, even if supported by facts. This is because ideological constructs exist in a realm where facts are irrelevant. Like the Tinkerbell effect, if enough people believe hard enough that fairies exist, they do. But if once an atom of doubt creeps in, they will never again see one. That’s why extraordinary defenses must be built up against the possibility of doubt, and why even the smallest expression of skepticism must be exorcised by destroying the skeptic.
So it should have come as no surprise that liberals rose up against Dr. Carson when he said the obvious about the massacre at Umpqua Community College, where a lone gunman serially shot students and teachers after first determining that each one was a Christian. Dr. Carson, quite reasonably, thought that fewer people would have been killed had someone been armed.
Moreover, he said that in a similar situation he would have resisted and urged the potential victims to overcome and subdue the attacker. Like the passengers on the French train back in August who subdued an armed Islamist before he could commit mass murder.
Dr. Carson offended liberals on two accounts. First, he suggested that if honest folks packed heat society would be safer. This contradicts the liberal belief that it is guns rather than violent people that cause violence. Second, we have been wrong to encourage folks to be passive in the face of aggression, to wait for the authorities to save them. This contradicts the liberal belief that violence, even in self-defense, only begets more violence. It also offends liberals because any self-help practiced by individuals lessens their dependence on the State.
They order things differently in Israel. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat, whose city has experienced a week filled with daily Palestinian shootings and stabbings, has told residents that it was their “duty” to carry their licensed firearms when they go out, likening this to being on “military reserve duty.”
The violence is very real. One young couple was stabbed to death by a Palestinian mob while walking to prayer in the Old City. After killing the husband, the mob turned on the wife. The latter lived long enough to tell her mother that, after being stabbed, she’d tried to run away, with the knife stuck in her neck. She was prevented by the mob who shouted at her, “hopefully you’ll die too.”
When you are responsible for a city where this kind of thing is happening on a daily basis, you can’t afford to take refuge in constructs. And so Mayor Barkat told people to carry arms and be prepared to use them:
“Possessing weapons increases the confidence of residents, who know that in addition to police there are many people who are not afraid to intervene. If we look at the statistics in Jerusalem and elsewhere, we see that aside from the police, civilians carrying weapons have foiled terror attacks. They will increase the likelihood of fast intervention.”
Dr. Carson’s advice was good and should be followed. Young people suffering from mental disorders are not given the appropriate care. President Obama is releasing from jail illegal aliens who have been charged with violent crimes, and lives of lovely young women are being cut short by rape and murder, most of which are ignored by our media for fear of challenging popular liberal constructs. If you believe hard enough that all illegal aliens are here only because they want to work, it will be true.
In Switzerland, target shooting is a family affair and children are trained to use guns while still in grade school. Every male is required to serve in a kind of National Guard and, upon discharge, is given a gun and ammunition and required to maintain his familiarity with his weapon. Women may serve if they wish. The Swiss keep their weapons forever. Perhaps this is why Switzerland has remarkably little gun crime.
An added advantage to a country where each household is armed with guns and ammunition, is that a militia can be raised in very little time. This fact has protected Switzerland from foreign invasion even while war was raging everywhere else in Europe through two world wars. Even the Germans had reservations about invading a country where every citizen had the means and the training to defend himself.
Dr. Carson was also taken to task for suggesting that arms might have been useful to the Jews during the Holocaust. Instinctively, you know that is true. It’s simply more costly to carry out mass round ups when folks are shooting at you. Should you be so detached from reality that you are unable to fathom this, as Wolf Blitzer apparently was, you might consider the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto in April-May 1943, where 750 starved and poorly armed Jews defended themselves against 2,000 well-armed, well-trained German soldiers, backed up by tanks and flame throwers, for a whole month. The outcome was preordained, but the stunning act of resistance raised Jewish morale everywhere and continues to be a model for Jewish resistance to this very day, for “Freedom’s fame finds wings on every wind,” as Lord Byron wrote.
The right to self-defense is under attack in our country. We should protect it with all our hearts and souls, for it exemplifies what is best in the human spirit — the refusal to submit to tyranny.
