Terrorists take advantage of restrictive French gun laws to kill 12

[Subdeacon Joe]

http://www.examiner.com/article/terrorists-take-advantage-of-restrictive-french-gun-laws-to-kill-12

 

 

 

At least a dozen people have been killed and more were wounded by “terrorists” at the office of a French satirical publication in Paris on Wednesday, CBS and AP are reporting. Two men reportedly armed with machine guns and wearing masks entered the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine and opened fire on whomever they encountered.

Per the report, officers initially arriving on the scene were unarmed and fled, unable to help themselves, let alone citizen victims. A video “shows two gunmen open fire on police in a small black car, and then shows them executing one officer as he lies on the sidewalk,” with cries of “Allahu Akhbar!” heard.

Charlie Hebdo is famous -- some would say notorious -- for publishing material that fundamentalist Muslims find offensive, including cartoons of the prophet Mohammad. This is not the first attack, as the offices were firebombed in 2011. And unsurprisingly, French citizens are pretty much powerless in the face of attackers who disregard their “gun control” laws.

Gun Policy.org, a project of the Sydney School of Public Health, which, while decidedly anti-gun nonetheless provides instructive and useful compilations of gun laws from around the globe, notes “The regulation of guns in France is categorized as restrictive.” The right to own guns is not guaranteed by law, and private possession of handguns, “semi-automatic assault weapons” and fully automatic weapons “is prohibited with only narrow exceptions.”

There is “genuine reason”-based licensing, which expires and must be renewed, criminal and mental health background checks, registration, as well as limits on how many guns and how much ammunition may be owned. It’s telling that with under three million “civilian” guns registered (in a country with a population of over 66 million), there are an estimated additional 16 million “illicit guns.” And while licensed concealed carry is permitted under “exceptional risks” circumstances (open carry is prohibited), authorization expires after a year, and if not renewed by authorities with the power to deny or rescind, the “holder must surrender the firearm and ammunition.”

Clearly, the terrorist murderers were not deterred by any of this, but their law-abiding victims were. The other clear conclusion that can be drawn is the inevitable collision when a relatively tolerant people take in a relatively intolerant group. That culture clash, which historically occurs when disparate groups with different ideologies and values occupy the same territory, is especially observable wherever it is encouraged by state policy.

Added to that tension is the threat of spreading violence on a global level, with special emphasis on the potential for increased domestic attacks in this country. Mike Morell of CBS News, formerly with the CIA, warned of the need to “worry about copycat attacks, not only in France but in the rest of the world, and I would even say in the broader world to include the United States.”

With an administration policy abetting immigration by disparate cultures with incongruous goals, such attacks may be inevitable. If and when one does happen, the probability is that it will occur in an area where private carrying of firearms has not been normalized, and is discouraged or outright prohibited. As for any and all laws in place, the attackers will ignore them, as they always do.

There's another near certainty based on past responses to mass shootings. There will be a chorus of blame against the NRA as a convenient target of focus, but really against all gun owners, particularly those who carry firearms, from those demanding the U.S. adopt “common sense gun safety laws” along the lines of those in France.

I posted a link to that, along with some of my own comments to the o. so Honorable Mr. Mike Thompson's Facebook page, basically saying that he supports the same type of laws that enabled the thugs in France.