June 15, 2016 at 3:13 p.m.
Time now to deal with radical Islamic terrorism
Time now to deal with radical Islamic terrorism
That would be truth itself, which lies mortally wounded in the hail of proclamations fired off by the media, by liberal and Democratic politicians, and especially by President Barack Obama.
Among other things, the president couldn't identify the killer's motive in slaughtering 49 people in an Orlando night club, even though the FBI had twice interviewed the murderer about his ties to Islamic radicals, not to mention to American suicide bomber Moner Abu Salha, and even though the killer pledged allegiance - three times - to ISIS in 9-1-1 calls just prior to the attack.
The president simply couldn't negotiate the truth of the attack through the blinders of his belief system.
Likewise, it didn't take long for the atrocity to get the media going on its predictably dishonest anti-gun rants. CNN right away blared that the U.S. was "home to nearly a third of world's mass shootings."
Of course, buried in the fine print is the definition. If you exclude gang shootings and domestic violence - apt exclusions if you want to put mass public shootings in context - the number of shootings this year drops from 136 to three.
Even if the higher number were true, they tell a misleading story. Indeed, between 2009 and 2015, when we were supposed to be in the throes of deadly gun violence, the U.S. ranked only 11th in the annual death rate from mass public shootings per capita, compared to Canada and European countries, and only 12th in the frequency of mass public shootings during that time compared to those same countries, according to John Lott's Crime Prevention Research Center.
There were 55 percent more casualties per capita from mass public shootings in Europe than in the U.S from 2009-15, the center reports.
What's more, different countries use different means to commit mass violence, another truth the media slays. As the CPRC reports, many countries suffer from bombing violence at a much higher rate than the U.S. does. As recently as March 16, as it reports, a bombing attack in Belgium killed 31 people and wounded 180.
And Russia, which makes a point of gun confiscation, has 1.31 mass bombing murders per 1 million people. In other countries, mass stabbings represent a new epidemic.
Which brings us to a couple of all-important truths the media conveniently ignores.
The first is, as presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has pointed out, new gun laws will do nothing to stop mass shootings by terrorists, but they would disarm law-abiding American citizens who increasingly need to defend themselves. France has much stricter gun laws than the U.S., for instance, but that did not prevent terrorists from shooting 89 people to death in the Bataclan night club last November.
The second point is, this nation needs to focus not on the varied methods terrorists use to kill innocent people but on the terrorists themselves. The pronouncements of Obama and Hillary Clinton and their liberal ilk would have us believe that, if we just ban guns, the terrorists will go away.
Well, no they won't, and the gun-control gibberish of the elite liberal class is distracting attention from that dire threat.
If I have a child who insists on going to a bar every night and getting drunk, and who vows to continue to do so, do I blame the motorcycle he drives there every night? If I just take the keys, he won't get there?
That's not logical, of course. He will find another way - walking, a bike, a car - and he will go. It's not the motorcycle I need to deal with or any other method of transportation he might choose, but the very real problems associated with his motives and behaviors.
And so with the terrorists. It is the terrorists - their motivations and actual behaviors - we must deal with, not the methods they use to carry them out. Take one away and they will choose another. It's Islamic terror, and the Muslim belief system in general, we need to fear, not the guns they use.
As David Inserra of The Heritage Foundation points out, the Orlando massacre is the 86th instance of Islamic terror in the United States since 9/11.
"This attack is the 22nd plot or attack since the start of 2015, and the sixth this year," Inserra writes. "The massacre in Orlando is also the 20th attack or plot aimed at large public gatherings, such as bars and restaurants, shopping malls, parks, and conventions. Mass gatherings are the second-most common target, just after military targets, which have been targeted 21 times."
Since January 2015, he adds, the U.S. has seen an uptick in plots targeting mass gatherings (nine) as well as law enforcement (five), while Orlando is the 11th attack since 9/11 and the fifth attack in the past 12 months.
We focus on a political agenda and on one means to violence and ignore those committed to that violence at our own peril. Even if one only considers mass public shootings, as John Lott points out, as of this past March, Muslims had committed 18 of the worst 20 mass public shootings in the world.
Make that 19 of 21.
The attack on a gay nightclub is the just the beginning of a broader attack on American culture. There are 10 countries, all of them fundamentally undemocratic, in which Islamic sharia law and mainstream society allow homosexuality to be punished by death, and those nations are no more impressed with western culture in general. Is it really so surprising, then, that Islamic radicals seek to enforce sharia law through vigilante terror in foreign nations?
The Orlando attack represents nothing less than the invasion of America by a foreign force that despises both democracy and Western culture. It must be repelled.
If the Democratic Party and liberals continue to tolerate it, they are not only emphatically endorsing the most violent abuse of women and gays, they are surrendering our entire value system to the enemy.
America is at war, and the president of the United States and the presumptive Democratic nominee need to acknowledge it and pledge to defeat this modern plague.
They need to acknowledge, now, that the Orlando nightclub was just the latest target in a war in which all Americans are considered the enemy, and worthy of the death penalty, be it by knife or bomb or gun.
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