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Armed Citizens the Best Defense Against Terrorists
Phil Brennan, NewsMax.com
Saturday Sept. 29, 2001
Ordinary,
responsible Americans need to be armed, just as Israelis are in the war against terrorism, writes author/researcher John R.
Lott Jr., who says that's the only adequate response to the terrorist threat Americans now face.
Writing in today's Wall
Street Journal, Lott notes the security problems the nation faces and insists that not matter how tight restrictions are,
and no matter how many air marshals ride planes, nothing beats having an armed citizenry in the fight against terrorism.
Lott, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and author of "More Guns, Less Crime" (University
of Chicago Press, 2000). itemizes the flaws in most of the security measures now in effect or being considered:
Screening at airports, while important, will always be inadequate, he writes, noting that terrorists can always figure
find some way around the controls such as bribing airport employees.
Strengthening cockpit doors, he says, is probably
a good idea, " but given current airline design it may create dangerous differences in air pressure between the cockpit
and cabin. In any case, the door must be opened sometime, to allow pilots to go to the bathroom or get food."
The
marshals program is more promising. He cites research by Bill Landes at the University of Chicago that showed that between
a third and a half of the drop in airplane hijackings during the 1970s were the probable result of having armed U.S. marshals
on planes as well as law enforcement's increased ability to catch and punish hijackers.
Putting merely one air marshal
aboard every daily flight in the U.S. would require an army of at least 35,000 officers-a far greater number than total of
all those who now work for the FBI, Secret Service and the U.S. Marshal Service combined (17,000). Moreover, he adds that
one marshal might not be enough to foil a whole gang of hijackers, of the kind used by Osama bin Laden. Clearly, he says,
it will take a long time to deploy enough marshals.
In response to these and other problems, Lott suggests that the 600,000
active state and local law enforcement officers in the U.S. today who are currently forbidden to bring their guns on airplanes
should not only be allowed to board planes but even be given discount fares if they fly with their guns. Moreover, since most
pilots have also had military experience they should be armed as their union, and NewsMax.com's Chris Ruddy have demanded,
exactly as Israel's El Al been doing all along.
Lott dismisses fears of having guns aboard planes, explaining that
the special, high-velocity handgun ammunition used on planes packs quite a wallop but is designed not to penetrate the aluminum
skin of the plane. Even with regular bullets he notes, the worst-case outcome would simply be to force the plane to fly at
a lower altitude, where the air pressure is higher.
But using guns to stop terrorists shouldn't be limited to airplanes,
he insists. "We should encourage off-duty police, and responsible citizens, to carry guns in most public places because
cops can't be everywhere.
In Israel, for example, Lott explains that about 10% of Jewish adults have permits to
carry concealed handguns. Just to match that rate of permit holding, Americans would have to increase the number of permits
from 3.5 million to almost 21 million, he wrote.
"Thirty-three states currently have "right-to-carry"
laws, which allow the law-abiding to obtain a permit if they are above a certain age and pay a fee. Half of these states require
some training. We should encourage more states to pass such laws, and possibly even subsidize firearms training," Lott
maintains.
He concludes by noting that the states that do pass concealed handgun laws "experience drops in
violent crimes, especially in multiple victim shootings - the type of attack most associated with terrorism. "Bill Landes
and I found that deaths and injuries from multiple-victim public shootings fell by 80% after states passed right-to-carry
laws."
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