"Since 9/11, more Americans have died from terrorism with guns than bombs!"I guess all those IEDs don't count because the Bradyites don't consider out opponents as "terrorists" or our servicemen and -women as "Americans".
The Brady Bunch has always shown that they're willing to dance in blood at the drop of a victim's hat, but dancing in decade-old blood is just gross.
Is it really terrorism to use improvised explosives against soldiers that you are engaged in armed conflict with? Maybe I'm speaking from ignorance (submarine vet-no ground combat training or experience) but it seems to me that it is a very short walk indeed from a landmine or claymore to an IED.
ReplyDeleteWhether or not IED is a legitimate tactic of war (whatever the hell that means) is, I think, a separate issue from whether or not they constitute terrorism.
LC Scotty,
ReplyDeleteInsurgencies make for blurry lines.
If a guy detonates a car bomb in the middle of a crowded marketplace to kill civilians from a different sect or faction, we can all agree that he is a terrorist.
If, the next day, he detonates an IED under a HMWWV, does he get a day off from being a terrorist and is a Soldier-For-A-Day?
Interesting article in Slate yesterday about the perverse way people perceive risk. One example was that it appears that heightened airport security is killing more people than terrorists by diverting people from flying to driving, where they're more likely to be killed.
ReplyDeleteAnother example of how the terrorists' real successes are entirely due to our own preposterous over-reactions to terrorism.
Alath
Carmel IN
Ya see, they want our country to be like the others but they don't want to talk about them.
ReplyDeleteHistory is full of lose of countries that disarmed the general populace only to have thugs, criminals and the government prey on them.
Personally I think their numbers are specious at best. Their metric was created to capture only violence that involves guns that are not in the hands of the only ones.
Its like the question, When did you stop beating your spouse? The answer is never part of the sound bite.
Eck!
Actually, the lesson I get out of this is, DD need to be removed from the NFA restrictions, since they clearly aren't as dangerous in the hands of terrorists and criminals as guns would be (according to them).
ReplyDeleteThanks to the Brady bunch for leading this charge! We can count on your support on this, right Helmke? Hey hey, ho ho, the NFA has to go!
Tam,
ReplyDeleteInsurgencies do indeed create some blurry lines. If the terrorist switches targets for a day from civilian to military, is he no longer a terrorist? No, he's still a terrorist. However not everything that a terrorist does is terrorism.
Consider the lowly journalist. When they write a column for the bird cage liner that employs them, it's journalism. When they write a letter to Mama it's not. Are they still a jounalist? I'd say so. Essentially the same act, different "target" so it has a different name.
"If, the next day, he detonates an IED under a HMWWV, does he get a day off from being a terrorist and is a Soldier-For-A-Day?"
ReplyDeleteIs he wearing a uniform that clearly identifies him as a combatant rather than a civilian?
If so, he is a soldier.
If not, it doesn't matter whether he is attacking civilians or military, he is a terrorist.
Of course they are not Americans. They are from flyover country. America stops at the Hudson river, and resumes somewhere in the Sierra Nevada.
ReplyDeleteWell, I don't count the Bradys as human, so I guess it's even. When they stop the blood dancing I'll consider them real people again.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they think dry blood will get them better traction?
ReplyDeleteI find this kind of like looking at a train wreck. While I'm fascinated by the depths to which the loons will lower themselves in an effort to disarm the populace, I'm horrified by the prospect that it is the gun blogs themselves that are driving most the internet traffic they see.
ReplyDeleteTerrorists are just one man wars...
ReplyDeleteSometimes with a multitude of allies.
deadcenter,
ReplyDelete"I'm horrified by the prospect that it is the gun blogs themselves that are driving most the internet traffic they see."
It's not like they're going to change the gunbloggers' minds.
Personally, I don't link to them or engage in those interminable arguing-on-the-internet comment wars, but mostly because it just strikes me as deadly dull.
No, they're not going to change our minds and the reason shooters go to their sites is more along the lines of 'point and laugh' or 'I wonder what the loons are going to say next', kind of like Howard Stern back in the days when he was edgy and funny.
ReplyDeleteBut, those clowns are so desperate that any traffic they get is, probably, seen as 'see, we're reaching people' and is used in the next press release asking for more money so that they can reach out to more people.
I dunno, just a thought I had after seeing Sebastian's post.