Not much time for blogging lately, but had to make this post because the widespread censorship of both the video of the shooting, and the shooter’s manifesto, is even more disturbing than the objects of the censorship, which are themselves extremely disturbing. The video and manifesto are not easy to find on the internet at this point, and that’s a shame because the video has important lessons for anyone in charge of security for a house of worship (i.e., anyone who attends), and the manifesto has important lessons for anyone who thinks more gun control is the answer.
Before posting the video, I edited out the long driving scenes to focus on the shooting mainly. Out of respect for the families, I’ve locked the video with a password. I will issue the password to any of my CCW students or to any local faith leaders interested in protecting their houses of worship from this sort of evil.
What kind of evil? The kind of evil that emanates only from the Left. Read the shooter’s manifesto, posted in the gallery at left, and you’ll see there is no comparison between this fiend and an American conservative. (Page 6 is interesting in that the shooter admits having the objective of creating conflict between Americans over gun rights.)
I attended a Persian New Year celebration a couple nights ago, with a booth advertising my free CCW class to the Persian community here in Orange County. It’s a non-religious holiday, and I have no idea how many in attendance were Muslim vs Christian vs Baha’i vs Zoroastrian or whatever, but I did speak with several Muslims there about carry and the response was pretty much what I’d expect from any crowd. A good number of them seemed to welcome the idea, a disappointing number were ambivalent, and a sad number were completely against guns, although everyone was polite in speaking with me. When I brought up this recent New Zealand shooting to the latter group, they would respond with statements like: “But he had six guns with him”; “There’s no way a pistol can defend against a rifle and body armor”; “Mass shootings happen much more often in the US”; or simply “I’m a pacifist”.
We’ve seen these shootings happen to worshippers of all the major faiths. The common thread is that they were not armed, and not trained; or if they were trained, it was bad training that taught them not to be armed. So it appears they died embarrassed. Sorry if that sounds disrespectful, but it is certainly embarrassing to be so irresponsible in failing to protect your family and community — especially your family.
With training, a pistol can prevail against a rifle in a mass shooting. (It’s happened a number of times.) Chances may not be all that great, but they improve if other pistols join the fray. Even without penetration, each shot with a pistol carries a powerful punch that can knock down an attacker, who is then more vulnerable.
