November 2, 2005

Arms For the Poor

Hatched by Dafydd

According to the Brussels Journal, the French police are quite simply unequipped to enforce lawn order in Paris, or any other cities where areas have become de facto part of the ummah. This is evidently true not only in France but the rest of Europe, even including Great Britain: the typically unarmed and overawed police cannot make arrests, and the terrified firefighters cannot fight arson fires with the arsonists shooting at them.

France

Since [Nicolas] Sarkozy became Interior Minister he has insisted on more police presence in Muslim neighbourhoods. This triggered last week’s riots in the Paris suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois, when policemen went in to investigate a robbery and two teenagers stupidly got themselves electrocuted while hiding from the police in an electricity sub station. Many French politicians now probably regret that the police had the audacity to investigate a robbery in Clichy. The result of the incident so far has been six consecutive nights of rioting that is now engulfing the entire Paris suburban area and might soon affect other parts of the country. Last night at least 69 vehicles were torched in nine suburbs across the Paris region. Officials say that small, mobile gangs are harassing police, sometimes even shooting at them. The gangs are setting vehicles, police stations and schools on fire throughout the region.

Denmark

“For several nights in a row Rosenhøj Mall has been the scene of the worst riots in Århus for years. ‘This area belongs to us’, the youths proclaimed. [...] ‘The police have to stay away. This is our area. We decide what goes on down here’. [Elipses sic]

All your base are belong to us?

Great Britain

Commenting on the situation in Britain, Theodore Dalrymple wrote in City Journal: “Surveys suggest that between 6 and 13 percent of British Muslims -- that is, between 98,000 and 208,000 people -- are sympathetic toward Islamic terrorists and their efforts.... This is the tightrope that the British state and population will now have to walk for the foreseeable future.” It applies to all West European nations. Where, however, is the boundary between carefully walking the tightrope and falling victim to the Stockholm syndrome? The latter would mean that Western politicians act as hostages of the Muslim extremists.

The European Collapse

One proposed solution is to send in the army. "In a war, use the army, rather than police." However, to do so is to admit that civil authority has completely lost control of the nation, and the politicians simply refuse point blank to make that admission. Instead, they hide, serve out their time, and hope to retire before the Noahide flood: "après moi, le déluge," as another famous Frenchie said.

Besides -- this is my own speculation, not that of Brussels Journal -- European military forces are not exactly known for their steadfast determination and willingness to stay the course, even when they start taking casualties. They're not as tough, resourceful, battle-hardened, experienced, or well trained as, say, the Army of Greater Iraq. I'm not so sure the French military (except perhaps la Légion Étrangère) would do any better at quelling the rioting than the police (or the firefighters, for that matter). The British Army is rather better than the armies of the continent; but even they have too great a tendency to so "softly, softly," as in Basra in Iraq.

There is old story that in 1967, in the Six Day War, the Israelis realized the Arab axis put together by Gamil Nasser of Egypt was about to invade the Holy Land. In a lightning-like pre-emptive strike, the Israeli Air Force struck the Egyptian and Jordanian air bases. Then the Israeli infantry, armor and artillery, and paratroopers swiftly pounded the Gaza and Sinai (Egypt), the West Bank (Jordan), and the Golan Heights (Syria) in a coordinated assault that bordered on genius.

Twenty-four hours later, the Italian Army surrendered.

The American Way

The solution seems simple to me. France and the rest of Europe (including Britain) need to enact the right for all citizens to keep and bear arms. Small arms, I mean: weapons a man can comfortably bear.

The advantages are myriad and manifest:

  • Each person has a tremendous incentive to protect his own life, his family, and his property; so motivation is high.
  • There are tremendously more citizens than there are police or soldiers. Even if only a small fraction of the people choose to carry a weapon, they will still dwarf the authorities.
  • The armed citizen is right on the spot: he is, in fact, the intended victim... so the bad guys will come find him.
  • As we're finding in Iraq and Afghanistan, the locals are better at spotting people who don't belong (or known violent thugs) than the cops, and certainly more than military troops who may not even be from that region of the country.

The studies above indicated that between 6% and 13% of British Moslems "are sympathetic toward Islamic terrorists and their efforts;" similar numbers probably apply across Europe. The corollary to this is that possibly as many as 85% are un-sympathetic; isn't it about time Europe armed that 85%? For those of you who worry that Europe would be arming the very people it's afraid of, may I remind you of findings of such folks as John Lott anent domestic gun-control attempts... the bad guys already have their guns. They're already armed. France, et al, can either dis-arm the good (or not so bad) guys... or else finally allow them to defend themselves.

I suspect that most European politicians would literally rather lie down and die than allow their citizenry to be armed (the latter could lead to the former, or so they may fear!) It would be an even greater blow to Socialism than bringing in the army. But it would have the advantage of putting individual self-interest and the distributed swarm attack on the side of decency and good, not criminal evil.

And it might just work. It seems to work here; and even without the traditional American ethos of self-reliance and defense of home and hearth, it could hardly be worse than what they have now.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, November 2, 2005, at the time of 11:43 PM

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Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Arms For the Poor:

» "PARIS UNREST" = MUSLIM IMMIGRANT GANG VIOLENCE from Michelle Malkin
The blogosphere has the best ongoing coverage, commentary, and analysis of the Muslim immigrant gang violence (otherwise known in the politically correct MSM as the "Paris unrest") that has plagued France for more than week. Here's a sample of the... [Read More]

Tracked on November 4, 2005 5:40 AM

» Paris ‘unrest’? No, Muslims Riot from Brian's Brain Blog
The MSM is covering for violent Muslim extremists again. This time in Paris with their reports of ‘unrest’ and rioting. Michelle Malkin has a good list of blogs covering the “The Paris Intifada” as LGF is calling it. ... [Read More]

Tracked on November 4, 2005 6:06 AM

» THOUGHTS ON THE INSURGENCY IN FRANCE from Benedict
A Defining Issue First, a question: Why isn't the mainstream media using the term "insurgents" to refer to the rioters in France? The dictionary I keep next to my desk (Random House College Dictionary, 1975 edition) defines insurgency as follows:... [Read More]

Tracked on November 7, 2005 12:18 PM

Comments

The following hissed in response by: Eg

You can bet there'll be no arming of the peasants, they've already been there, done that, and all that got was one lousy revolution, a reign of terror and a socialist regime thrown in to-boot.

The current 'collective security thinking' is, 'lets give the caliph a try.'

About a month ago Blair made a statement to the effect, the borders of Europe we indefensable and you'd have thought by the reaction that he whizzed in the punchbowl while everyone watched and snickered.

You can't have, or increase, a standing army - to which they're loath to have to begin with - if your too busy putting few million jihadi's through bomb-making school while feeding the rest of the family. Nope, it ain't gunna happen. What will happen is they'll get Iran's Revolution Guard and a few of the proxy forces, Hamas, Hizbullah, along with some of the others, to guard the gates of hell.

You know the saying about the 'fork?' Their there.

The above hissed in response by: Eg [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 3, 2005 3:36 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dirty Dingus

Agree with the arming issue, but it is worth pointing out that France acually has a lot of hunting weapons (not handguns I admit) in circulation. The French police are as unequipped to enforce law and order as any other police force is in an area where there is no general acceptance of the rule of law and trust of the police.

I have some other comments at my blog FWIW - http://www.d2.nu/blog.htm?20051103

The above hissed in response by: Dirty Dingus [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 3, 2005 8:25 AM

The following hissed in response by: Anondson

There are other tyrannies to defend oneself against than the tyranny of the state. Paris this past week reminds us of another. It should be a civil right that when the state fails to protect against criminals, the citizenry should be able to do it for themselves.

The above hissed in response by: Anondson [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 3, 2005 10:07 AM

The following hissed in response by: SDN

One of the classic signs of a guerilla war is the establishment of "no-go areas" for government forces. Sounds like they're there.

The above hissed in response by: SDN [TypeKey Profile Page] at November 4, 2005 8:03 AM

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