How do you
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| Issue #72 • November/December, 2001 |
The overwhelming concerns for most Americans in the wake of the terrorist attacks at New York’s World Trade Center come down to: How do I keep myself and my family safe? That’s as it should be because if you keep yourself safe, you help keep us all safe, and you help keep the nation safe.
If you are a regular reader of this magazine you probably already do the things that keep you safe: you own a gun and are practiced in using it, you have about a two-year supply of food that is rotated so it is fresh and nutritious, and you have implemented one of many schemes to keep your home sufficiently warm, well lit, and otherwise prepared for any emergency.
If you are not a regular reader of this magazine you may be experiencing a lot of anxiety right now because that is what the New York terrorists attacks were designed, in part, to do—to scare the American people. And if you live in a big city you are probably particularly anxious because you know that cities make better terrorist targets than small country towns and homesteads, and you probably have all sorts of laws against owning or carrying guns, and you are not inclined to keep a supply of food or fuel, and you aren’t prepared for anything. I’m not really sure what you can do.
Travelling is a different matter. Even the well prepared readers of this magazine sometimes travel, even on airlines. What can you do when you travel?
Ever since the terrorists attacks, I have been repeatedly told by the politicians and talking heads on all the television news channels that this is not a time for “finger pointing,” so I guess I shouldn’t point out the fact that our liberal politicians have made it virtually impossible for us to protect ourselves when we travel. Even if you own a gun, you cannot legally take it anywhere except maybe in your home state. It’s good to hear some people on TV at least talking about putting armed sky marshals back on planes, arming the pilots, and making the barrier between cockpit and cabin impenetrable.
But they’ll never let you carry your own gun with you when you travel, no matter how many hours of training you go through. Back when they had armed sky marshals aboard planes, a lot of passengers complained that it made them nervous, so as soon as the funding ran out they discontinued the practice. Imagine the difference a gun could have made in these terrorist attacks?
So what can you do? Well, you can determine ahead of time that you will never ever consent to becoming a sheep in a hostage situation. Let’s take a lesson from those brave people aboard United Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, short of its terrorist target. Some of the passengers had learned via cell phone that the terrorists were crashing the hijacked planes into buildings so they decided to try and stop them. They apparently succeeded by rushing the terrorists.
You can prepare yourself for a similar situation by becoming an island of resolve ahead of time. Simply decide you will never go down without a fight and prepare yourself accordingly, whether that means taking a martial arts course or making some other contingency plan. Hit the terrorists with your laptop computer, or with your fists if that is the only weapon you have. But determine now that you will never be a passive victim.
What help can you expect from politicians and bureaucrats in the wake of these terrorist attacks? At Boston’s Logan Airport they banned the sale of knives because the terrorists apparently used box cutters and plastic knives as their weapons. If the terrorists had used guns I can guarantee you the response would have been more gun control. (What we actually need is a national concealed carry law.)
The politicians and TV talking heads talk mainly about a war against terrorists that will make them stop their terrorism. Maybe that will work. We could bomb countries like Afghanistan back into the Stone Age, but they already live a near Stone Age existence after having undergone some 20 odd years of nearly continuous war. We could assassinate people like Usama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, but that still leaves millions of people around the world who hate Americans due to our “policeman of the world” foreign policy. But now I’m engaging in finger pointing and the politicians have told me I shouldn’t do that.
So my advice comes down to this: Take care of yourself and your family. If you think you can handle it, buy a gun, learn how to use it, get a concealed carry permit, and keep it with you so you can protect yourself against terrorists and criminals alike.
Then grab the nearest gun grabbing liberal you can find and throw him out a window.