Posted on 06/25/2002 11:31:20 AM PDT by Senator Pardek
As July 4 approaches, people are hunkering down, waiting for the terrorists to strike, whether with nerve gas in the subways, fuel trucks plowing into synagogues, bombs carried in kayaks, or assaults by fighters swimming to their targets in scuba suits. "They could hit us any day," Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, tells the nation.
According to various recent reports, over the past two months perhaps as many as 25 terrorists have slipped into the U.S. as stowaways. Osama bin Laden himself was reportedly last seen in April in northeastern Afghanistan, and is expected to release another of his tapes before the holiday. There have been numerous warnings about dirty bombs and weapons of mass destruction.
But the damage could come in the form of a much more conventional attack. An e-mail recently making the rounds of military and law enforcement circles describes a captured Al Qaeda training tape said to reveal the group's expertise in small arms and close commando situations in urban settings like New York, Washington, and Chicago. The people seen training are skilled at handling rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, and at making quick attacks and retreats. The footage may be fake, although the people sending the tape around are military veterans with extensive combat experience.
One scenario involves ambushing cops. An apparently disabled vehicle is parked just before a freeway ramp, with shooters hidden inside. When the police officer pulls up, someone inside blows the horn and the shooters burst out firing. Then there's the residential assassination, where someone knocks on the door of a home, then empties his gun into whoever answers. There's also the golf-course assassination, where an RPG-type rocket is lobbed onto a golf green, taking out the security vehicle and leaving the golfers to be mowed down by rifle fire.
In other scenarios, terrorists rappel down the side of a building from the roof, move through tunnels or sewers, carry out drive-by kidnappings, and blow up guard houses to get into the main building lying behind. Drive-by killings can be executed on motorcycles, with the shooter standing on rear pegs with arms extended over the driver, firing as the bike races down the street.
For bigger raids, terrorists carry concealed weapons into a building, say a school or a financial institution, then in a swift show of violence take over the room, marching people up to the roof. TV reporters and photojournalists are allowed in. The kidnappers then begin to execute prisoners one by one in front of the cameras. The tape suggests planning several simultaneous raids to gain maximum exposure. The key point is that absolutely no one is left alive—men, women, children, all are killed.
In advice to law enforcement, one analyst of this training tape urges cops to begin shooting as soon as they recognize what's going on, and not to wait for any SWAT team or other support. Complying at any point is useless, since everyone will be ritually executed on the roof.
Uh oh.
Absolutely frightening.
Memo to self:watch Home Depot adds for sales on exterior doors and lap siding....should get a new sling for the Rem 12ga semi also,and don't forget to remove the waterfowler plug.
Better to shoot the B*astards on sight
The scenario that bothers me the most is four or five van loads of these mooks showing up at a suburban shopping mall with AKs and cutting loose on a bunch of soccer moms and their kids.
L
In your dreams.
So far the war on terrorism has one distinct characteristic: More restrictions on citizens, and more government power.
If an incident like the hypothetical one in the article happened, the response would be the exact opposite from your idea: It would be the 9-11 of gun control. PATRIOT Act powers, and other war powers (which they'll make up as they go) will be used to disarm all Americans.
This in turn would likely cause some Americans to resist giving up their arms, and would cause us to fight one another. This is the ideal terrorist plot. After all, the purpose of terrorism isn't just to destroy a target, it also seeks to terrorize and destabalize a population. If they can cause in-fighting among us, that is an added bonus, similar to a 'secondary explosion'. The planes that hit the WTC were simply the catalyst for the force of gravity that brought them down. Similarly, most of the damage by this type of attack will come from gun control/seizure, and infighting among ourselves. Terrorists will seek to exploit weaknesses in our society, and I'm sure they are all too aware of the gun control movement in this country, and the response to Columbine.
Given the mentality behind our own government's response to terrorism up to this point, and the ruthless cunning of these terrorists, it would be foolish, naive and irrational to believe otherwise.
All these jurisdictions prohibit concealed carry.
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