USA – -(Ammoland.com)- The predictable reaction from doctrinaire gun-grabbers following the Florida school atrocities has been to ignore demonstrable causal factors and focus on citizen disarmament. What we see unfolding in the latest “children’s crusade” tactic is but a variation of the preferred “progressive” approach of using emotion to inflame “feelings.”
That doesn’t change the fact that the world works based on what is, not the way we might wish it to be. And the fact remains you could give the antis everything they ask for… scratch that, everything they demand, and here’s what happened in a country that did:
“The Beslan school siege (also referred to as the Beslan school hostage crisis or Beslan massacre started on 1 September 2004, lasted three days, involved the illegal imprisonment of over 1,100 people as hostages (including 777 children), and ended with the deaths of at least 334 people. The crisis began when a group of armed Islamic militants, mostly Ingush and Chechen, occupied School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia (an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation) on 1 September 2004. The hostage-takers were the Riyadus-Salikhin Battalion, sent by the Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev, who demanded recognition of the independence of Chechnya, and Russian withdrawal from Chechnya. On the third day of the standoff, Russian security forces stormed the building with the use of tanks, incendiary rockets and other heavy weapons. As of December 2006, 334 people (excluding terrorists) were killed, including 186 children.”
Now let’s look at Russian “gun laws.” From GunPolicy.org, a (currently unfunded) decidedly anti-gun project started by Philip Alpers of the Sydney School of Public Health, but nonetheless an accurate recorder of national and international bans and controls:
- The regulation of guns in Russia is categorised as restrictive
- In Russia, the right to private gun ownership is not guaranteed by law
- In Russia, civilians are not allowed to possess automatic firearms and handguns
- In Russia, only licensed gun owners may lawfully acquire, possess or transfer a firearm or ammunition
- Applicants for a gun owner’s licence in Russia are required to establish a genuine reason to possess a firearm, for example hunting, target shooting, collection, personal protection, security
- An applicant for a firearm licence in Russia must pass a background check which considers criminal, mental health, and medical records
- In Russia, an understanding of firearm safety and the law, tested in a theoretical and/or practical training course is required for a firearm licence
- In Russia, gun owners must re-apply and re-qualify for their firearm licence every five years
- In Russia, the law requires that a record of the acquisition, possession and transfer of each privately held firearm be retained in an official register
- Firearm regulations in Russia include written specifications for the lawful safe storage of private firearms and ammunition by licensed gun owners
- In Russia, carrying a firearm in plain view in a public place is prohibited, with some exceptions [hunters, security guards, sport shooters]
- In Russia, carrying a concealed firearm in a public place is prohibited, with some exceptions
None of which stopped the terrorists from obtaining military-grade weaponry and affecting the slaughter of innocents.
Now think what the emotion-driven antis, vampire politicians and the DSM would do if a school massacre on that scale were to take place in the United States, especially on the heels of Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
Unlikely? Besides, the Russian atrocities were cultural and political clashes that could never happen here?
Oh really? And what’s stopping it?
- Iranian Book Celebrating Suicide Bombers Found in Arizona Desert
- Southern Command Warns Sunni Extremists Infiltrating From South
- Foreign ‘Terrorists’ Breach U.S. Border
- Hezbollah uses Mexican drug routes into U.S.
I could do this all day, but the point is made – except to reiterate that despite years of warning, U.S. schools are still (deliberately!) unprepared for such attacks. And the ones responsible accuse NRA (meaning all gun owner rights advocates) of having blood on its/our hands.
It’s no coincidence the same subversives screaming “Xenophobes!” at those who want to secure the border and provide thorough vetting of foreigners admitted into the United States are the very ones determined to disarm their countrymen. Based on results, they have no shortage of childlike useful idiot followers joining in their suicidal demands. And no shortage of cowardly establishment (including NRA “A”-rated) Republicans ready to cave to people who will never vote for them regardless, but still toss those who have under the bus…
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.
In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
Comparing a terrorist attack by a satellite state fighting for it’s independence to the current gun debate and school shootings is absurd. They are two completely different scenarios. It wasn’t a Russian citizen on a shooting spree with a easily bought semi auto. It was a Islamic separatist terror group with arms left behind or bought from a corrupt Russian army. Even if Russians had the same gun laws as the US or if the teachers were armed to the teeth, they could not have prevented that attack.
Definitely clutching at straws using this example.
Jeff, I think you are grasping at straws. The Beslan massacre was not perpetrated by a lone terrorist but by a group, with a plan and a commander. The Parkland massacre was the result of a single terrorist with no training other than what he had been able to pick up through violent video games. He could have been stopped if a Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy on scene had intervened. Both incidents were failures of government: intelligence, and acting on that intelligence.
Tio there have been 12 mass school shootings in our country since 2004, when the Breslan massacre occurred. I’ll leave it to tyou to guess how many have occurred outside America in that time.
I’m glad that some other mass shootings were stopped by whatever means. That doesn’tt change the fact we have a particular problem with mass school shootings in America.
We should do something that. if you don’t want to restrict the weapon of choice in these shootings, what do you propose? (Let’s see where more guns in schools gets us, eh?)
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/03/no_author/dont-believe-the-media-school-shootings-are-not-an-epidemic-theyre-decreasing/ School shootings are actually decreasing. Not to mention that five times as many people are stabbed to death every year than killed with all rifle types combined according to fbi stats. Yet you want to ban rifles instead of pistols, shich arr involved in a great deal more murders. Why are you focusing the type of firearm that was involved in 374 total homicides in 2016 in a nation of 300 million plus? As far as your snark about more guns equaling more crime in schools, anti gun types like you predicted a crime explosion two decades ago as… Read more »
As usual, an excellent column by codrea. This should be shared and passed around to all of your friends and relatives, goa and nra social media accounts, and in response to far left radical repeating billionaire talking points written out by bloomberg and soros.
“that despite years of warning, U.S. schools are still (deliberately!) unprepared for such attacks”
Hell, they’re too busy facilitating additional attacks by coddling their own student thugs against police intervention.
did you mean indoctrination of kids so they will do what some of the students in Florida are doing right now ? obviously it is working just as the libs/dems and soros types have been planning all along .
No, I mean conspiring with the local PD to suppress all record of the crimes committed by their students so that the school’s reputation will improve on paper.
You did hear about that, right? It’s crucial to the story. The liberals are screaming for more laws, while simultaneously conspiring to evade all the existing laws.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/26/jack-cashill-incompetence-wasnt-the-problem-in-broward-county/
Preventing Recidivism through Opportunities, Mentoring, Interventions, Support and Education. Better known as the Promise Program. Another Obama era piece of chicanery that should be thoroughly investigated with the sole purpose of jailing anyone involved in it’s implementation.
The Beslan school massacre MIGHT have been reduced or averted if during the negotiations, the Ruskies had told the terrorists that when they found their bodies – and identified them – that the Russians would appropriately kill ALL of THEIR families. Uh-oh…not politically correct – but might have made some of those ‘heroes’ to second think their actions, as there blood line would immediately cease. Harsh? Not harsh enough if they were killing MY kids…..
Oh, yeah, and of course they couldn’t tell the press about this – ’cause they’d feel the Russians weren’t being fair to the terrorists.
You have to take a hard line with extremists. The Russians know this because they have a great deal of ethnic Muslims in country. As does America, and this could happen here also and no amount of gun law as seen with Russia would stop it. It strengthens the case against gun-control, but the left will twist the facts despite the overwhelming amount of information that indicates otherwise.
There were at least 334 deaths at Beslan. There is at least one excellent book out there should anyone wish to order it, or find it at a local library. Terror at Beslan by John Giduck. I was fortunate enough to hear both David Grossman (On Killing author) and Mr. Giduck speak at a counter-terrorism conference about 12 yrs ago. If you ever get the chance to see either one of them speak-GO! Time well spent. Both spoke for well over an hour, and nobody wanted them to quit. Grossman has studied and understands a lot of the psychology of… Read more »
If you’d like to understand the Bresland Seige better, read here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege
Most of the deaths were the result of the Russian government response indeed “in a 2017 ruling criticised Russia for not taking sufficient precautions before the event, and for using excessive lethal force when concluding the siege which violated the “right to life”.
I
Why isn’t the crime levied on the criminal and not on the law abiding? I hear no senator or congressman putting forth a bill to create a law calling for a quick and speedy trail for perpetrator’s who use guns in crimes with the only sentence is the death penalty. No life sentence( for the rest of us to pay to keep them), no deportation so others can be this persons victims, no 10 years of appeals, no mental derivatives. Use a gun for a crime and die. You don’t hear the gun grabbers propose a bill like this as… Read more »
Why would MORE special laws be a good idea? Is murder somehow different if a gun is used? A uniform and serious due process is needed to address any aggression. The use, or not, of a gun should not be material. Dead is dead…
Why make special rules for using a gun? Isn’t dead, dead enough? ANY taking of life without proper due process and cause is a capital crime. The perp who rented a Home Depot truck and killed eight on a bike path left eight dead victims in his wake. Should he be punished any less because he did NOT use a gun? That’s insanity. Or the wierdo who cut off the hea of a co-worker at a packing plant, with an edged tool. Would she be any more dead, he any more culpable, had he used a gun instead? Its never… Read more »
And, in China where guns are seriously outlawed has had a bunch of knife attacks killing and injuring many people over the last two years (most unreported–Chinese censorship and our U.S. non-reporting, BBC gets it sometimes). Again, the hard core socialists and worse heading up the top tier of the Democrat Party have got to get the guns out of citizen’s hands before other “controls for the good of the people can be put in place.”
The Beslan Massacre was one of the worst that we have heard about and took place in Russia which has heavy gun control.
If we were to add medical/mental information to background checks, the anti-gunners would be screaming about the violation of a Patient’s Rights!
And, by the way, the worst school massacre in the US was in Michigan in 1927. The perpetrator used explosives wired into the school where he worked as an electrician. He killed 38 students and numerous adults. He also blew himself up in a truck killing several bystanders.
YES, IT COULD HAPPEN HERE!!
The Beslan School siege was a terrorist act by a Chechen/Ingush suicide cell who wired the school with explosives. Could that happen here by some unnamed terrorist group wiring a school? Yes. Student deaths were a foregone conclusion. The number of student deaths was magnified by the actions of the Russian government’s use of indiscriminate force. The result was 334 dead, a cover up, media censorship and the consolidation of power into the Russian President’s hands. The latter being a serious ongoing problem for advocates of democracy in Russia and a main support for the current autocracy/kleptocracy. The Beslan School… Read more »
Politicians and Law enforcement management in a lot of places woefully behind the curve ball in many places. They are very willing to play the odds it well not happen here. So far we have been very lucky that these attacks on or schools and churches have not been carried out by a well trained team of attackers. In a lot of rural America 10 attackers would out number the law enforcement response for hours. Even in a area where one would expect a larger number of responders a well trained team well kill many responders. Yes we have been… Read more »
Preaching to the choir, brother. However, thank you for the facts we can interject (calmly) into a conversation with a liberal. We won’t change them, but anyone listening will see that we don’t look like a ranting fool and that we have facts, not emotionally charged, memorized, rhetoric. IF.. we do our part calmly.
Wow. You found a school shooting in another country! Remind me how many we’ve had since 2004? I’ve lost count.
Larry, really? You’ve lost count? That either means you’re not great at counting, or you are being intentionally hyperbolic. But, please, for the rest of us ignoramuses, list them all with the number of casualties each and teach us a lesson and begin a real dialogue. Or just come back with something pithy and snide or say nothing. Then we will at least know your true agenda. (like we don’t already)
Hi James. For the literal people out there, I looked it up here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States
There have literally been HUNDREDS of school shootings since 2004.
And of this list, since 2004 there have been 12 were mass school shootings (four or more fatalities), several with over 20 people murdered in each incident.
This is a lot more than I thought. I guess I’ve become numb to them too, there are that many now.
Larry, two mass shooting with over twenty people murdered since 2004 is not “several with over twenty people murdered in each incident.” It would be more realistic to say that there have been several with more than ten or more murdered in each incident since 1999 (there have been six “mass shootings with ten or more murder victims since 1999). However, that is not quite as sensational as your statement, but why should we worry ourselves with facts? A good lie is far better for one’s position than facts isn’t it?
Larry the Ostrich, have you spent the past few years with your head in a hole in the ground? There have been a number of signficant school massacres in other parts of the world. The DIFFERENCE IS< and please mark this well: such incidents are not useful to the gun grabbing eedjits in this country, the servants of Bloomburg, Soros, the kinyun, the CLintons, He and She: the ones who want us all disarmed. Remember the assault at an Ohio (?) school, where a madman got a car, set off the fire alarm to empty the college building, then ran… Read more »