Terrorism, Guns, And You

Let us imagine that the attack in Nice had happened with, ceteris paribus, the gun laws and the attitudes of a traditionally gun-friendly US state like, say, New Mexico or Montana.

What would have happened is that dozens, possibly more than 100 people would have been able to shoot – and to shoot effectively, because well-trained – at the terrorist and/or at the truck’s tyres. A 1.7 km savage butcher run would have been all but impossible.

Instead, the terrorist was able to go around mowing people down for half an eternity, slaughtering or wounding almost 200 unprotected lambs; and was finally stopped by… armed policemen under a rain of bullets.

Guns in the hands of the right people save lives. It is absurd to prevent the good guys from carrying them. The bad guys will always get the weapons, because hey, they don’t care it’s illegal.

“But Mundabor, Mundabor! This is a Catholic blog! What is all this to do with Catholicism?”

It is, a lot.

We in Europe (and some even in the US) have forgotten the Catholic doctrine of Subsidiarity to the point where we consider it normal that one of the most elementary rights and duties of a man, self-protection and protection of those under his care, should be contracted out to people who will not be there when we need them fast, causing us to be taken down by the dozen – like in Paris in November or in Nice yesterday – without the possibility of a reaction.

Subsidiarity is important not only as an economics tool, but also as a moral one. As a man, and in lesser measure also as a woman, the right and duty to protect yourself and yours is, first of all, on you.

Not on the police. Not on the army. Not on the secret services. On you.

All these beautiful things (police, army, secret services, you name it) cannot but be an extension and integration of your fundamental right and duty, to meet the needs and cares of life starting from the first, smallest step: you.

Europe has had now a long tradition of statalism – certainly preceding socialism and communism – demanding that a bigger and bigger part of what is your fundamental right and duty be taken away for you, because Nanny knows best. We see the results now, as we are again confronted with entire minutes of senseless slaughter of wilfully unprotected men, women, children. But we saw them already in the past, where a small number of highly motivated, violent people was used to seize power in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary. Imagine those same populations well-armed and ready to fight for their freedom and their faith, and the scenario suddenly becomes far more difficult, and very possibly impracticable. Movies like Red Dawn may be factually improbable, but they teach an important principle: a well-armed, trained and determined citizenship can crush every threat.

This is not a theoretical discussion. This is very real. Every armed good citizen could have stopped, yesterday, the deadly action far before the police came on the scene.

How much of yesterday’s dead and wounded realised this? Very, very few.

They chose to be put in the position of being slaughtered instead.

M