The anti-Semitic mass murder atrocity in Australia reminds us of the futility of gun control. As my friend Attorney Andrew Branca has noted, that would have been over a lot sooner in Florida, with the gunmen felled by return fire from armed citizens. True, not many people carry guns to go swimming, but the murderous father-son team staged on the street, where a courageous couple who managed to disarm the older monster were cut down when he grabbed another gun, and another brave citizen managed to disarm the older killer only to be shot down by his equally evil son. That brave citizen, fortunately, survived his wounds unlike the elderly couple who managed the first disarm.
On a Florida street, a quick assessment of passing vehicles would likely have revealed several firearms which could and probably would have been deployed in time to at least lessen the carnage and perhaps stop the twin threats before any innocents were harmed.
Not in anti-gun Australia.
One of the murder victims was a retired policeman. In the US, under the Federal Law Enforcement Safety Act of 2004, retired cops are allowed to carry guns nationwide so long as they pass a qualification course once a year. Aussie cops have told me they’re not even allowed to carry off duty while they are still employed.
Another lesson: don’t listen to idiots who say the only self-defense accuracy you’ll ever need is a six-inch group at six feet. The courageous constable who dropped these two evil bastards did so reportedly from a distance of as much as 40 meters, with a department issue .40 caliber Glock 22 service pistol. Australian news services have implied that this officer was unusually highly skilled with guns…a firearms instructor, perhaps, or simply an Australian gun enthusiast?
The heartbreaking death toll on Bondi Beach reminds us that when mad dog killers strike, the good people there on the ground when it happens. I look at that martyred elderly couple and think, if that had been in the USA and those two rescuers had been armed, the only people who would have died there would have been the two who came to murder the helpless.