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Many souls were lost early Sunday morning and many bodies and minds were forever scarred by a senseless act that occurred at the Pulse night club in Orlando, Florida.   It’s a sad day and our thoughts and, most importantly, our prayers should be with those who were killed and their families who remain. The monster, in this instance, was one Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, a lad with a good Irish name, who was a supporter of radical Islam, who called 9-1-1 during the attack to ensure that his allegiance to ISIS was known, and who accomplished his sick mission in the name of Allah.

True character is revealed in how we react to terror.  That being said, there are some hard-learned fact that were ignored by President Obama in his speech this afternoon regarding the terror attack; namely these: (1) This was an act of Radical Islamic Terrorism.  (1) Terrorists / terrorist sympathizers are smart; not stupid. They take advantage of our laws and our nation’s tolerance; and, then they’ll use that against us in the most intolerant of ways. They’ll take advantage of any law: immigration, gun-free zone laws, etc. as a means to an end.  (3) They will attack with any weapon at their disposal. (4) All terrorist attacks are acts of hate; not just the attacks on LGBT folks.

I’ll address these in order. First, the sitting President and at least one presidential candidate were quick to ignore the reality of the enemy behind the attack: radical Islam.  When you have an enemy, you must define your enemy.  Back in the Bush days, we made the error of referring to the current war as a “War Against Terror.”  Terror is simply a tactic used by an enemy; it’s not the enemy; and you can’t have a war against the tactic of your enemy.  Was WW II a war against the evil Nazi empire or was it a war against blitzkrieg (a tactic used by the enemy)?  In this instance, our enemy is radical Islam and the tactic that radical Islamist elements use is terror.  You can never defeat an enemy that you are not willing to define!

Next, as a Florida concealed carry permit holder, I can protect myself in most places: church, malls, movie theaters, etc. However bars (night clubs), are off limits for self protection. Those are gun-free zones. Gun free zones = targets for nuts (although I admit that guns and alcohol should not mix).

The gunman in Orlando last evening carefully chose his target: All he had to do was to kill one guard and then walk in to a place filled with defenseless people and inflict mass casualties, in support of ISIS ideology.  How many mass killings -terrorist or other nut-related shootings- have occurred in gun-free zones?  Answer: all that I can think of in the recent past.  There is a reason that terrorists do not attack police stations or gun shows; and the reason is simple: those are not soft targets; they are difficult ones.  How can we be hard on terrorism if we allow soft targets to exist?

The left will look at situation like this and use it as a rallying call for more gun control (just as they originally did in San Bernardino). President Obama did just that today when he said:

Today marks the most deadly shooting in American history. The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle. This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub. And we have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be. And to actively do nothing is a decision as well.”

Newsflash Mr. President: the victims in that night club were just as defenseless as the teachers and the students were at Sandy Hook, yet nothing has been done by this administration to prop up security in gun free zones.  That is the true sin.  That is the true gun travesty in this country!  The killing has nothing to do with the ease of purchasing a gun.  I’m not sure whether or not the killer procured guns legally or illegally; that’s moot.  He would have had a weapon, of some sort, to inflict mass casualties regardless of whether such weapon could be procured legally or through the black market.  The problem is that we have 2nd Amendment-free zones wherein citizens are forced to be unarmed sitting ducks for the deranged.  It is that problem that we choose to ignore and do nothing about.

Omar Mateen used gun-free zone laws against us.  He used many other laws against us as well.  The reality that this man was twice flagged for interviews by the FBI; and, he went on to have a security officer license and a gun license in Florida is scary.  The reality that his security position allowed him to guard Federal buildings is downright scary too.  We already had the fox guarding the hen house when we allowed this man to guard Federal buildings. Perhaps the additional security at the Federal buildings made that target not soft enough for Mr. Mateen?

Bear with me on this for a moment folks: Obama says he wants increased “common sense gun laws” and that those gun laws should include increased background checks, etc.  What is more thorough of a vetting process than getting cleared by the FBI twice after personal interviews?  Yet, the vetting systems on the books failed the people of Orlando.  With that being said, would any additional gun laws stop a nut who was hell-bent on using a gun in a crime?  Would a double interview by the FBI stop gun tragedies?  Seems that we have our answer to that question already.  We also know that the Boston Marathon bomber was interviewed prior to those attacks.  Don’t blow smoke up our butts by telling us that increased screening measures will make us more safe and don’t ignore the reality that gun carnage is the worst in gun-free zones!  Also, if we can’t vet folks once they are already in the country, why do we have a sense of calm and ease that we’re vetting folks properly before they are allowed in?

This brings me to my third point:  Terrorists will kill with any weapon at their disposal.  Box cutters provided access to the cockpits of jet planes that brought down the Twin Towers and that flew into the Pentagon. Box cutters were not decried as evil after that attack.  A pressure cooker and nails wreaked havoc at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, yet nobody disavowed the evil implements of that attack.  How is it that the left can conveniently separate the person from the terror device in all instances except for those involving a gun?  Further, how can they miss the reality that a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun? My guess is that they miss the latter point because there generally is no good guy with a gun available at gun-free zones and they miss the former point because it’s politically expedient to simply focus on the boogeyman in that regard rather than on his method of carnage infliction.

Okay, point number 4:  All acts of terrorism against Americans are acts of hate.  The President clearly stated in his speech this morning, “Although it’s still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate.”  Correction Mr. President, it was an act of terror against Americans; period.  Why redefine terror to the extent that we have terroristic acts involving hate and normal acts of terror?  Were the attacks on 9/11 terror attacks that were devoid of hate?  Was the Ft. Hood Shooting an act of terrorism that was devoid of hate?  Was the San Bernardino shooting an act of terror devoid of hate?  Every act of terrorism is an act of hate, regardless of whether a heterosexual American is attacked or a LGBT American is attacked.  We are all Americans and any attack on one of us is an attack against all of us.  Let’s not divide us into classes based on ideology or via federal civil rights protection status.

We are at war with radical Islam (or at least they are at war with us).  An attack during war is not a hate crime; it’s not workplace violence (as originally discussed at Ft. Hood and San Bernardino); no…it’s an enemy attack; period.  To intimate that an attack of terror is separately an act of hate is to infer that it was a violation of a Federal hate crime.  It shows the world that we are not unified with ourselves; let alone having a unified front against the actual enemy.  We must be able to draw the lines between acts of war and acts that are criminal…..but sadly, that involves us admitting who our enemy is; and admitting that we are at war against radical Islamic forces.

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iPatriot Contributers

 

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