re: "Norwegian Lessons"

MikeM at Confederate Yankee ("Because liberalism is a persistent vegetative state.") drew some lessons from the Utoya Island shootings in Norway.

Money quote(s):

"Dressed in a police uniform, he called many of the youngsters on the island at a summer retreat to him and opened fire, eventually killing 86 and wounding—at the bombing and on the island--more than 90. His rampage was stopped when he was shot—he survived--by a police SWAT team, but it took approximately 90 minutes from the first shot until the police were able to find transportation and travel to the island."

As Mr. McDaniels notes further down in his post (see red bold type below), when seconds count, the police are only minutes away. Sometimes lots of minutes.

"There was immediate speculation that the attack was another Jihadist outrage, which these days is far from an unreasonable assumption, but it seems that this attack was most similar to that in Tucson: the act of an evil man, acting alone in response to whatever demons pursued him."

Apparently SJS is not limited to those of the jihadist persuasion. There is no ideological or religious monopoly, after all, on either evil or madness.

"I'll provide only three primary lessons, though there are surely more.

(1) Gun free zones are deadly. In this case, the entire nation of Norway is essentially a citizen disarmament zone. Even though many Norwegians own firearms, even the police do not routinely carry handguns. Utoya island was very much like American schools: isolated, vulnerable, and completely unarmed. In school attacks, and in the attack on Utoya Island, the final body count will depend on the lack of marksmanship and the humanity of the killer(s), who will be stopped only by the intervention of armed police. Even in America, it takes far longer for the police to respond to such attacks than most people realize. When seconds count, it will take the police tens of minutes to arrive and longer to react. On Utoya Island, the killer—exploiting a dream Socialist gun-free zone--had approximately 90 minutes to roam the island at will, killing at a truly leisurely pace." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

In our own fair land, whose federalism has fostered over fifty (don't forget D.C.!) jurisdictions with their own particular interpretations of the Second Amendment, it's more than clear that the easier it is for ordinary law-abiding citizens to arm themselves, the lower the incidence of violent crime.

"(2) Evil exists. The left sees all things through a political lens. All motivations, all meaning may be found in political ideology. Socialist/Statist/Leftist ideology is infallible, so it can never be mistaken. It can never be wrong. Any problems along the way must be attributable to the existence of Conservatism, which keeps Socialism from working properly, or to the fact that not enough time has passed for a given Socialist policy to work properly, or as in the case of gun control issues, insufficient Socialism has been applied. Not until all firearms are in the loving hands of the state can the state protect individual citizens, despite the fact that the state has no obligation—or intention—to protect individual citizens.

Because all is political, morality—to the small degree that leftists recognize its existence, exists only in service to the preferred political narrative. Concepts such as good and evil have no meaning unless they are politically useful, such as evil being applied to those who oppose righteous Socialist policy, which is inherently good."

While I cannot personally vouchsafe the existence of Satan as an individual manifestation and personification of evil, it's more than clear to me that there is evil abroad in the world. The presence and persistence of evil acts, evil men (and women), and evil governments makes this inarguable.

"One need not be a Christian to believe in evil, for evil is manifested most meaningfully in acts, not words. The most revealing evidence of evil in despotism is not in the despot's writings and pronouncements, but in the millions of innocents they slaughter. On Utoya Island, the killer dressed as a policeman, and knowing that kids would not be alarmed by an armed policeman, called them to gather around him and betrayed their trust in the loving state by shooting them. He spent 90 minutes, taking his time, calmly walking about the island and shooting everyone he could find, killing 86 and wounding a great many more. He reloaded multiple times. If this was not evil, evil has no meaning." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

"(3) One indisputable fact remains: If a single, capable innocent on that island was armed, the killer could have been stopped and nearly two hundred children would not have been wounded or killed. Life could have been preserved and evil defeated. Evil cannot be appeased or reasoned with; it must be confronted and destroyed.

This was not possible because of what Socialists would surely consider one of their greatest accomplishments, an achievement they would see as indisputable evidence of more advanced evolution, of more enlightened humanity: the more or less complete disarmament of an entire nation, including its police.

The media and Norwegian and American politicians sharing the same political and social views will be unable and unwilling to recognize or accept this final, simple truth. They will argue instead for even more disarmament of the law-abiding and innocent, and the suppression of political ideas with which they disagree, even in a country that has no First or Second Amendments, for all must be made to serve the narrative."

I can't improve on Mr. McDaniels words above.


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