The 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and the third intended attack is just a few days passed at the time of this writing.
If you were older than a few years old on that day, then you remember what it was like. It is a memory galvanized in your brain for the rest of your life. You’ll always remember where you were when you learned about the attack (I was on the interstate driving to work when I heard it on the radio).
Thankfully, we haven’t experienced another attack of that proportion since that day, but there have been other attacks since then.
That doesn’t mean that there aren’t people trying to plan other attacks, though. Michael Holden with Reuters writes,
Intelligence services must not dwell too much on past threats but accept that a new strategic shock along the lines of the 9/11 attacks could already be in preparation where they are not looking, the head of Britain’s MI5 spy agency said.
Holden continues:
“We know that the next strategic shock will, by definition, not resemble the last one. That is perhaps the most important lesson of all,” McCallum wrote in the commentary for the Independent newspaper.
I understand what McCallum means in that the next attack will likely not be an attempted airplane attack.
But in other ways, McCallum is mistaken. In fact, in one very important way, he is completely wrong.
What I mean is that all attacks are carried out by people. In most attacks of that sort, as in most mass shootings of all sorts, what stops the attacker is either the attacker dying in the attack (often intentionally) or the attacker is stopped by a person with a gun.
Now, often that is a law enforcement officer. You more often hear about the attacks stopped by LEOs because the attackers are able to kill more people during the time that it takes for LEOs to arrive on scene.
But you know what stops quite a few violent attacks, whether would-be mass shootings or terrorist attacks? An armed citizen on the scene, and in the cases of the hijacked airliners 25 years ago, I can’t help but wonder how many lives could have been saved if there had been legal gun owners on those flights who had been able to carry their firearms on the flights.
Yes, I understand the danger of a shot puncturing the hull of the plane at high altitudes. However, access to some weapon by the passengers and crew of each flight could have saved lives. We know this because the third flight that I mentioned earlier crashed before it could hit its intended target in Washington, D.C. because passengers on the flight took on the terrorists.
And since the next 9/11 type of attack isn’t likely to be an airliner, then a populace widely armed and carrying firearms daily becomes a very practical way to prevent terrorism.
Put simply, the threat of a terrorist attack (which are being called for by the political left here in the U.S. even now) should be another reason for you to train to proficiency, to train to maintain proficiency, and to carry daily.