May 22, 2013

A terrible attack

This is a horrible thing. Obviously it was intended to be horrible. (UPDATE: Two black guys in the UK captured a British soldier and beheaded him in public, then waited around for the police to show up, exchanged fire with them, and both were hit. Of course, they were yelling "Allahu Akbar". No word on whether either of them died.)

When I was reading it, there were two sentences that stood out for me and hit me in the head:

1: "They took 20 minutes to arrive, the police – the armed response."

2: "There were people passing by who were screaming and running away."

This was in the UK somewhere. What struck me when I read those things was, Here in Cowboy USA that's not what would have happened. At least some people who observed the situation would have gotten involved. If there had been someone with a concealed-carry they'd have stopped it.

And a 20-minute police response time to something like this is totally scandalous. If you disarm your citizenry, you should protect them better than that.

This is the result of draconian gun control. The bad guys have guns, the civilians are helpless, and when seconds count the police are about half an hour away.

Tell me again why, exactly, the British approach to this is better than ours?

UPDATE: "2 UK govt officials: London attack appears to be motivated by radical Islam"

No kidding! I wonder how they figured that out?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Weird World at 10:13 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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1

Posted by: sqa at May 22, 2013 12:09 PM (KuPSx)

2 Hrmm... blank comment.  Didn't know you could do that on accident.

Anyway, reason the British system is better? So those damn Yanks can't go and rebel at will!  (Their actual gun control insanity is actually a far more recent thing)

Posted by: sqa at May 22, 2013 12:10 PM (KuPSx)

3 Another incentive to get my own permit once my I can afford the classes.

I hope the killers get the punishment they deserve, but from the news I've read from Britain lately, I suspect they won't...

Posted by: Siergen at May 22, 2013 12:16 PM (Ao4Kw)

4  Given the course the UK has been heading over the decades, it may be possible that if any bystander had intervened in the killing, it would have been the Good Samaritan(s) who would be prosecuted by the Crown, not the attackers. Indeed, if the Good Samaritans had injured either of the attackers during the attempt to stop the murder, the Good Samaritans would been considered at greater risk of legal actions from the Crown than the two attackers who were trying to kill!

Britain is a classic example of what happens when you combine firearms prohibition AND the criminalizing of defense of self/property, with a state that lacks a monopoly on armed force. For firearms prohibition to 'work', the state has to provide absolute protection of its citizens from criminals and enemies. If a state will not allow you to defend yourself, and is not able to defend you, than it has fail the most basic responsibility of a state.

Posted by: cxt217 at May 22, 2013 03:46 PM (HWMXn)

5 Yeah, I wrote about that here.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 22, 2013 05:56 PM (+rSRq)

6 In the US, no official would DARE state that the attack was motivated by radical Islam.

Posted by: Mauser at May 23, 2013 04:35 AM (cZPoz)

7 In the article I read, there was a reference to some women that threw themselves over the body of the soldier to protect him and fears that they would be attacked also, but no further details.

If so, Britain's women are braver than their men. This may explain their politics.

Posted by: ubu at May 23, 2013 06:22 AM (GfCSm)

8 I don't understand why you have to mentioned that the murderers were black. (NO, I am definitely not PC). Their color had nothing to do with this murder. It was Islam which drove them not racism.

BTW about that 20 minutes lag. Remember, this is *NOT* a far away place where it takes ages for the cops to arrive. This was in the thick of London, one of the world's biggest cities, and definitely one of the (if not the very one) top cities in the world. How bad is the British state, if even in their own capital, it takes 20 minutes for the cops to show up?

Also, the murderers said that it was in the name of Islam, and David Cameron, Britain's Prime Minister said it had nothing to do with Islam. Question. What qualifications Cameron has to make that statement? If Muslims go to protest against this murder with the same vehemence they protested against the Danish cartoons, I will believe that. If not, then ... I started to have some respect for him for standing up for the west in the past, but that respect is dissipating fast.

Vilmos

Posted by: vilmos at May 23, 2013 07:42 AM (yHm+k)

9 Regarding the 20 minutes: Actually, ordinary police showed up far sooner. But ordinary police in the UK don't carry firearms. It took 20 minutes for what amounts to a SWAT team to show up, with rifles, to take the guys down.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at May 23, 2013 07:52 AM (+rSRq)

10 Wretchard had a great article about this, The Manhood of the West.

Quote: The attackers knew they were actors in a drama — as keenly watched in their communities as on the BBC. And in that other audience they were asking: "How will the locals behave?” We know now. And that other audience may derive an entirely different lesson from this tableau: "See? Only their women act like men. They follow orders. They are nothing anymore — these Westerners. They are a civilization whose core has been destroyed.”

Apparently the attackers would only allow women near the victim. In a comment, Wretchard said, "What if those "suspects" had started decapitating the woman show in the picture? What then, send another woman?" (Statements like this are why I think he's your logical successor as one of the Four Horsemen.)

Don't worry, the British police can still act quickly when it come to offensive Twitter comments.

Posted by: muon at May 25, 2013 01:23 AM (ax6P/)

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