Malls Under Jihadi Attack

J.R. Dunn has a must read article at the American Thinker today entitled Terror At The Mall. Dunn discusses the high probability that a jihadi is planning at attack at a mall near you, and how you might respond to such an attack. It is riveting reading, since the MSM rarely has such discussions as part of the usual pablum with which they hope to keep the rest of us sedated. A quote:

Finally, we reach the trusty firearm, the easiest threat to smuggle in, and in some ways the hardest to deal with. Mall security is almost exclusively unarmed, with little training in dealing with firearm threats. While some large malls feature police substations, most rely on a warning system to call in the police in the event of an emergency. A well-armed jihadi death squad could cause considerable loss of life before local police could respond, and they might conceivably escape to strike elsewhere. Perhaps the most effective tactic would be to come in through one entrance, race through the mall firing at all available targets, and exit through another entrance where a car or van would be waiting with engine running. It's difficult to see how any official countermeasure short of a police tactical squad could handle this type of attack.

And this:

No small number of malls have gone out of their way to increase their vulnerability through participation in the "gun-free zone" movement. In 1990, Congress, in what many observers consider to have been an incremental attempt at a national firearms ban, passed a "Gun Free School Zones" act as part of that year's Crime Control bill. The law forbade ownership or possession of a firearm, apart from strictly limited conditions, anywhere within a thousand feet of a school or related institution. The attempt was ill-fated, being overturned by the Supreme Court and then reinstated in a thoroughly unenforceable form.

Congressional meddling triggered a kind of low-key craze among schools and other institutions -- including malls -- in which administrations eagerly adapted the "gun-free" pledge, often ostentatiously announcing it with signs containing menacing threats against anyone caught with a gun.

As a result, school shootings, a rarity prior to the '90s, became a commonplace. "Gun-free zones" served to attract armed loons the way that honey attracts bears. Firearms-affairs specialist John R. Lott, Jr. has gone on record to state that every major recent shooting has occurred in a declared gun-free area. This includes Virginia Tech, where in September 2007 an insane undergraduate murdered over thirty students.

It is time, and past time, that our elected "Representatives" realize that they have been pursuing a policy that has not worked, and try something else. For 75 years, if you count the NFA, or for 42 years if you count GCA68, they have been steadily restricting the rights to self defence of law abiding citizens. Meanwhile, the jihadis do not care about "gun free zones." They are willing to violate a "gun free zone" since they intend murder and mayhem anyway. Your little signs only stop those who have no criminal intent in the first place, and are worried about being caught an put in prison. (As an aside, the same goes for restaurants serving alcohol, banks, post offices, State owned buildings and grounds, theatres, parks, and...well, Ms. Ross, you get the message. What you are doing has not only not worked, but it is had the opposite effect of what you are purportedly trying to do.)

To mall operators, I know that your lawyers are saying that by restricting guns, you somehow have a defense against lawsuits should someone be shot at your mall. But what if a CHL holder is shot in your mall. Could he or she not claim to have been disarmed, and therefore still take you for everything you are worth? So in truth, you are damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Seems it makes more sense to just keep quiet on this issue.