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Late Wednesday, a woman was killed and five others were injured when a terrorist went on a stabbing spree in London, tragically proving yet again that evildoers bent on hurting a boatload of people aren’t dissuaded by gun laws or a lack of access to firearms.
But those same gun restrictions that don’t stop bad people from doing bad things sure as heck make it harder for the good guys.
Mere hours after the attack, the Wall Street Journal reported this fun fact about the U.K.’s police department and guns:
In the U.K., more than 90% of police officers are unarmed, with only specialist firearms teams permitted to carry submachine guns and pistols capable of killing a hostile suspect.
Extremists have launched attacks recently in France, Belgium and Germany, and their methods have included multiple shooters and lone assailants using weapons including guns and heavy vehicles. That has left authorities across Europe scrambling to adapt.
In January, following the massacre in Paris late last year, U.K. authorities said they would add 600 officers trained to handle weapons to the 2,200 already in London. Those are the officers who are now ready to be deployed.
The U.K. also plans to train an additional 900 officers to handle firearms by the end of 2017, more than a quarter of whom will be stationed outside of London.
The WSJ also notes that “[t]he terror threat level in the U.K. is currently at the second-highest ranking of 'severe,' indicating authorities believe an attack is highly likely.”
So let me get this straight. Guns are bad, so you don’t let your officers carry them. Then a bunch of bad people start going after your citizens – who can’t defend themselves thanks to your asinine gun laws – with a knife, and now you’re rethinking that whole firearms issue. You know, since that whole gun-laws-will-stop-evil-people theory didn’t work out so well.
Better late than never, I suppose.
Wednesday's attack in London proves a valuable point in this war on guns, namely that terrorists will use just about anything to inflict damage, including knives. And pressure cookers, And homemade bombs. And machetes. And trucks. The common denominator throughout these horrific assaults on innocent people isn’t the gun – it’s evil. But if you're looking for a common thread, here's one: guess what’s been used to stop these terrorists in just about every case? Guns.
Someone with a gun ultimately stopped the terrorist who killed 84 people with a truck in Nice last month.
Police armed with guns shot and killed the Munich killer just two weeks ago, a guy who'd somehow ended up with a firearm despite the country’s strict gun laws, which were exactly no help to anyone.
And that attack came exactly three days after another ISIS-inspired teen stabbed five passengers on a German train. And guess how that ended? Police shot him to death. With guns.
In fact, no matter what a terrorist is armed with, you never hear about anyone stopping the killer with their wallet or their iPhone or their homemade anti-NRA poster. If anything stops a terrorist aside from his own suicide vest, it’s almost always a person with a gun.
So unless we plan on banning all sharp objects, vehicles, crock pots and just about everything they sell at Home Depot, maybe we should abandon this self-righteous and blatantly political attack on guns and focus on the actual problem.
But hey, at least London’s wising up.