An Armed Society is a Safe Society

I have recently spent quite a bit of time reading articles at the Backwoods Home Magazine website. This site is full of information on increasing the self-reliance of a home, which is a subject I intend to visit in more detail in the future. Massad Ayoob's article titled, "Armed Civilians Can Help Fight Terrorism" is particularly good. Our society has such a short attention span that we often forget about the threat of terrorism that exists around us daily. Some of us may even be hard-pressed to put into words the various reasons we choose to arm ourselves. The truth of the matter is that there are very evil people seeking to destroy our way of life, and the freedoms that America stands for. Experts agree that the lack of successful attacks since 9/11 does not mean the threat is over. Our enemies are seeking to lure us into the sense of complacency and false security that we now find ourselves in. The threat is as high now as it was on 9/12. Massad has some interesting insights when relating the experience of Israeli citizens trying to enjoy the same freedoms we have here.

The following segment from the afformentioned article highlights a few good examples of why we should carry arms, and why society should embrace the armed citizen as an additional layer of security:

• "Not long ago, a woman in a market in Israel saw a man attempting to activate an explosive device strapped to his body. She drew a concealed pistol and shot him dead before he could trigger the suicide bomb, and in so doing she saved countless innocent people from being killed or mutilated. American newspapers referred to her as a “security” person, but the word I get is that she was simply an ordinary lady…with a gun, and the will to use it, and the foresight to have learned to use it properly and effectively.
  
  Many years before, a clutch of terrorists opened fire in a public place in Israel. Guns bloomed everywhere from the concealing garments of honest Israeli citizens. In moments, the terrorists were on the ground bleeding from their gunshot wounds, all dead but one. The wounded survivor said indignantly afterward that no one had told them that their victims might be armed and capable of shooting back.
  
  After the massacre at the Maalot school decades ago, the Israelis developed the policy of having plainclothes volunteer guards in the schools, armed with concealed handguns. They were not hired gun security specialists, but parents and grandparents who had signed up to help protect their children and those of the community. They were trained with their firearms by the civil guard. Since that time, there was no wholesale murder of children in an Israeli school. The one such incident happened on a field trip outside the country, where it would have been known to the murderers that the adult chaperones were not allowed to take the weapons they carried in Israel. Last year, a terrorist gunman opened fire in an Israeli school, and was cut down by civilian volunteer gunfire before he could accumulate a significant death toll.
  
  A little “snub-nose .38” like this ended the depredations, and the life, of urban terrorist Twymon Myers. This one is the ubiquitous Smith & Wesson Chiefs Special, in production since 1950 and weighing some 19 ounces with five-shot capacity.
  
  The June 2004 issue of the Gottlieb-Tartaro Report carried the following item under the headline Armed Israeli Citizens Help Curb Terrorists: “Israel’s police spokesman Gil Kleiman says that citizens who carry their own guns are helping to curb the damage terrorists can inflict by being able to stop a terrorist situation. ‘We’ve seen it time and time again,’ said Kleiman. ‘Armed civilians who are well trained can save people’s lives. If there isn’t a policeman, civilians can deal immediately with a terrorist.’”

It's scary to think that our children are targets for fanatics bent on martyrdom, but that is exactly the case. Our society is so determined to fight a war against Islamo-fascism by our rules that we neglect to pay attention to the rules our enemies use to wage war. We cannot expect terrorists to abide by so-called moderate Muslim interpretation of their scriptures. It is folly to clearly label schools, banks, hospitals, churches and court houses as off-limits to legally licensed armed Americans. In a perfect world, those places would be generally accepted neutral zones from all violence. Heck there wouldn't be any violence at all in a perfect world. But we don't live in a utopia, and humankind won't experience that sort of world until Jesus returns. So we need to face the reality that evil people will seek out those "safe havens" as their top priority targets for one simple reason- they can expect little armed response to their attacks. Gun free zones are perfect places to become a victim. It's time for America to learn the lessons that Israel learned- an armed society is a safer society for our children to grow up in.