This IS a wakeup call!

[MrJT]

Ok. I live in NEPA, a considerable distance away from Boston but within driving distance, especially over a few days.

I'll admit I kept my M&P 45 just a little closer these past few days. While I'm always in the same room as a firearm, I rarely carry while at home. Unless I just got home in which case I may have my 642 on me for a while.

These past few days I carried my M&P around the house. I'm in Scranton which could be a potential stop for someone making their way south from the north east. Right along I-81.

Was I paranoid? Not in my opinion. Just being a little extra cautious. I can only imagine how the poor people of Boston felt.

If this isn't a wake up call about the importance of the Second Amendment I don't know what is. Imagine having to hold up in your house because violent killers are on the loose in your streets! These maniacs had explosives and firearms!

Yet there are those who would have us defend ourselves with a baseball bat and a call to 911.

This should be a wake up call to those opposing the Second Amendment. How dare they try to deny anybody the right to protect themself and their family.

Concealed carry and self defense are so important, and this past week really emphasized that.

 

[cth49]

Amen! Not one item in any bill under consideration would affect a terrorist! It would just put law abiding citizens at their mercy!

 

[Poodle Soup]

Its to bad a guy holding up in his house with a rifle didnt drop the scum bags from down the block and end it there.

 

[MrJT]

I guess the boat / home owner found him in the boat. He saw his tarp was loose an that a tie down was cut. He got a ladder and poked his head in an saw someone curled up in a pool of blood...

Should've been armed!

 

[SMSgt]

Apples and oranges. There has been zero instances of any armed civilian (or LEO for that matter) preventing a bombing or terrorist attack.

You should be far more concerned about defending yourself from the typical BG than any terrorist, domestic or otherwise.

 

[USAF385]

Apples and oranges. There has been zero instances of any armed civilian (or LEO for that matter) preventing a bombing or terrorist attack.

You should be far more concerned about defending yourself from the typical BG than any terrorist, domestic or otherwise.

I don't think preventing is necessarily the concern here, but protecting yourself in your home when there's someone like this on the loose. With such a large manhunt going on the wanted individual will likely be more desperate.

 

[walkin' trails]

Apples and oranges. There has been zero instances of any armed civilian (or LEO for that matter) preventing a bombing or terrorist attack.

You should be far more concerned about defending yourself from the typical BG than any terrorist, domestic or otherwise.

Something to keep in mind, considering that beginning Thursday night, they robbed a convenience store, ambushed and murdered a police officer, and jacked a car keeping the driver as hostage. I wonder if they would have taken into consideration that the driver would have been armed and capable of defending himself against them?

The only method of defense I can think of that would apply to bombs is awareness of your surroundings.

 

[Sebago Son]

Getting It Straight....

Apples and oranges. There has been zero instances of any armed civilian (or LEO for that matter) preventing a bombing or terrorist attack.

The bombing itself is secondary.

The primary mission of the terrorist is to cause unreasoning fear. If by being armed we are no longer afraid, we have defeated the terrorist without even coming into contact with him.

 

[cmort666]

I wonder if they would have taken into consideration that the driver would have been armed and capable of defending himself against them?

I don't think they've published the actual circumstances of the carjacking, but I have to wonder why the driver didn't simply run them over. That's always my plan for self-defense when I make my rare visits to Chicago to visit my mother.

My guess would be the pernicious campaign to train the public at large to be passive victims who "retain the moral highground"... while occupying six feet of earth.

 

[TexasArmed]

Apples and oranges. There has been zero instances of any armed civilian (or LEO for that matter) preventing a bombing or terrorist attack.

You should be far more concerned about defending yourself from the typical BG than any terrorist, domestic or otherwise.

That might very well be true. Nonetheless I did not give it much thought to the "workplace violence" that happened at Ft Hood. That is when I made my decision that I would not delegate to the government my homeland security. I decided then that from now on I will be ready for any carjacker, home invader, mugger,. or any jihadist attacker.

While I might not can stop a Boston bomber, I won't be their victim at some shopping mall if I can return fire or cafeteria and they will not like my doctored hollow points. Of course I don't plan to make my self an easy victim by being in a gun free zone if I can help it. Without a gun one has zero chance and even with one maybe a small chance. But they can bleed just like I can.

 

[shouldazagged]

I believe the police have determined that the robbery of the convenience store was unrelated to the bombers. But it bothers me that most owners of those stop-and-robs forbid their employees to carry weapons. It's a terribly dangerous job--I have a friend who has been held up at gunpoint five times in ten years. And increasingly the robbers seem to shoot clerks just for the hell of it.

 

[El Bombardero]

The bombing itself is secondary.

The primary mission of the terrorist is to cause unreasoning fear. If by being armed we are no longer afraid, we have defeated the terrorist without even coming into contact with him.

I don't need a gun to remain unafraid of terrorism. I keep guns to protect myself, but fear has nothing to do with it.

The terrorists have already won, look what has happened to our Constitution in the last 12 years.

 

[Sebago Son]

I don't need a gun to remain unafraid of terrorism. I keep guns to protect myself, but fear has nothing to do with it.

The terrorists have already won, look what has happened to our Constitution in the last 12 years.

They only win when you concede.

The tertiary mission for terrorists is to create oppression from the government upon all of it's citizens to in an effort to suppress further terrorist activity.

 

[El Bombardero]

They only win when you concede.

The tertiary mission for terrorists is to create oppression from the government upon all of it's citizens to in an effort to suppress further terrorist activity.

We have conceded, we have failed to stand up for our rights.

 

[WC145]

Apples and oranges. There has been zero instances of any armed civilian (or LEO for that matter) preventing a bombing or terrorist attack.

You should be far more concerned about defending yourself from the typical BG than any terrorist, domestic or otherwise.

There have been numerous instances of armed civilians stopping homicide bombers in Israel. More law abiding Americans armed and vigilant will result in more crimes of all types stopped in progress, that is simple math.

To the OP - No, I wouldn't consider that paranoia. Anything that causes us concern is justification for an increased level of preparedness. I'm a LEO in a very small town way up the coast of Maine, right on Route 1, a good long ways from Boston but an out of the way route to Canada and I'd be lying if I said that the thought didn't cross my mind that if they didn't catch this guy we'd be stepping things up around here. The world is a much smaller place these days, it's very easy to cover long distances in short amounts of time. Had he slipped out of Boston, this guy could have easily been in your neighborhood or my town in a matter of hours.

 

[weatherby]

This was a teaching example for my kids.
They are also instructed to grab a knife "before" dialing 911

 

[Sebago Son]

Wrong.

We have conceded, we have failed to stand up for our rights.

It's annoying that you would use the Royal "We". You do not speak for all, especially me.

 

[El Bombardero]

It's annoying that you would use the Royal "We". You do not speak for all, especially me.

We implies us as a country.

By the way, what significant thing have you done to stop it? Not that I have done anything, I'm just asking.

 

[Sebago Son]

We implies us as a country.

By the way, what significant thing have you done to stop it? Not that I have done anything, I'm just asking.

Ahhhhh.... so now you get speak for the whole country. Nice. Wrong again.

I have done much on an organic level in my family, my community, my state. All of it is significant.

 

[El Bombardero]

Ahhhhh.... so now you get speak for the whole country. Nice. Wrong again.

I have done much on an organic level in my family, my community, my state. All of it is significant.

Would you disagree that we have fallen way off the original plan for this country? We as a country, do not enjoy our rights as they were written or intended. When the conversation revolves around whether the Boston bomber should be tortured before or after he is read his Miranda rights, I'd say We as a country have failed to stand up for our rights.

 

[vigil617]

The bombing itself is secondary.

The primary mission of the terrorist is to cause unreasoning fear. If by being armed we are no longer afraid, we have defeated the terrorist without even coming into contact with him.

Armed or not, I couldn't have stopped those two scumbags from leaving their pressure-cooker bombs next to the group of people I happened to be standing with.

We can point to good reasons to carry. Stopping terrorist attacks ain't one of 'em. The "unreasoning fear" that terrorists cause is as a result of what they do, not the threat that they are going to do it.

I wish I could defeat a terrorist by his knowing I was armed. But wishing doesn't make it so.

He is a coward, operating in the shadows, attacking in secret, and running away. So he's hard to stop -- although thankfully, our federal, state, and local law enforcement has done an incredible job since 9/11 stopping anything like what happened then. These two bozos were, I think, off the grid and therefore very difficult to detect ahead of time.

I hate it, but it's so.

Still, God bless Boston, the injured and killed and their families, and the often-demonized federal and state and local governments and law enforcers that put all their resources toward tracking down these cowards.

 

[Sebago Son]

Apples and oranges. There has been zero instances of any armed civilian (or LEO for that matter) preventing a bombing or terrorist attack.

Wrong. Flight 93.

 

[El Bombardero]

Wrong. Flight 93.

If you believe what they said, maybe.

Also they weren't armed, or at least not with guns.

 

[Sebago Son]

"El Bombardero" = The Bomber?

Would you disagree that we have fallen way off the original plan for this country? We as a country, do not enjoy our rights as they were written or intended. When the conversation revolves around whether the Boston bomber should be tortured before or after he is read his Miranda rights, I'd say We as a country have failed to stand up for our rights.

So just what point are you trying to make? Your defeatist drivel is wandering back and forth across itself. Or are you simply trying to "change the tone"?

You said that "WE" have failed to stand up for our rights.

This is clearly wrong.

My point is that YOU do not speak for me or mine, so YOU are not authorized to speak for "WE".

 

[Sebago Son]

If you believe what they said, maybe...

Oh please. Not tonight. My tinfoil hat is at the cleaners.

 

[El Bombardero]

So just what point are you trying to make? Your defeatist drivel is wandering back and forth across itself. Or are you simply trying to "change the tone"?

You said that "WE" have failed to stand up for our rights.

This is clearly wrong.

My point is that YOU do not speak for me or mine, so YOU are not authorized to speak for "WE".

I can say "we" when "we" under the right circumstances no longer have the right to privacy, the right to a trial, the right to see the evidence against us, the right to remain silent, the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment or the right to being secure in our effects.

 

[cmort666]

We can point to good reasons to carry. Stopping terrorist attacks ain't one of 'em.

Do you think that the victims of Mumbai were better off being unarmed and helpless, or would they have been better off able to defend themselves?

 

[Sebago Son]

I can say "we" when "we" under the right circumstances no longer have the right to privacy, the right to a trial, the right to see the evidence against us, the right to remain silent, the right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment or the right to being secure in our effects.

Damn. Another one.



Thats three so far this weekend.

 

[El Bombardero]

I'm not trolling man. If I were trolling, you wouldn't even see it coming.

 

[Sebago Son]

Whatever you say "Bomber"...