We Must Be Alert to the Threat of Islamic Terror

          This article is controversial. I am pointing out that we must be aware of Islamic terror bringing a gun battle to our streets and that by carrying a gun that we may not have to be defenseless if we are caught in the crossfire. Additionally, I personally feel the need to highlight the fact that Islam indeed calls for violent jihad against unbelievers. Please don’t mistake this article as a personal attack against individual Muslims or a call to violence. If you’re stupid enough to think the solution to the problem is violence, I’d love to be the first to vote you off the island.

            James Holmes, the psychotic murderer of twelve and injured 70 others watching a Batman premiere in a theater in Aurora, Colorado, was convicted on all counts today. Earlier in the day, a gunman, Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez, a naturalized Kuwaiti-American, shot a police officer and murdered four US Marines. As a younger man working at my suburban California law enforcement agency, it was only after the Aurora shooting that the attitude in the department changed to “carry everywhere.” You see, in our county of farms and suburbs, we felt safe. The crazed gunman changed that mindset.

            Aurora was when my partners and a large part of America’s gun owners realized the need to protect themselves. Today, Americans and citizen carriers in particular need to heed the signs of the times and protect themselves. This new threat isn’t from some crazy, young white kid. We have known about them since the Columbine tragedy.   

            We must now be aware of a new threat to America and prepare to defend ourselves against Islamic terrorists who plan to wage war against the United States. It is not an isolated phenomenon like the mentally ill massacre perpetrators we have seen, it is a war driven by Islamic theology. Denying that Islam is behind these attacks is as foolish as saying our absolutely criminal handling of the mentally ill isn’t responsible for the mass shootings we’ve seen in recent years. As we have identified disturbed young men off their meds with too little supervision, we must identify the source of this new threat against us.

            Today America must wake up and face the reality of widespread Islamic terror coming to our shores. More and more indicators that the Tennessee shooter was a Muslim engaging in his own private jihad are emerging. ISIS praised the attacks and took credit for it. It is impossible to ignore this information. In this new phase in the War on Terror, we are facing an enemy who is bent on conquering the Middle East and bringing war to our shores. Twice this year, we have seen such-lone wolf attacks upon our shores.

            Only by the grace of God have we been spared a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11. Such spectacular and complicated attacks are very far and few in between. Much more likely is the ‘lone-wolf’ style attack we saw today against symbolic soft targets. The next organized terrorist attack is likely to be a mass shooting style event, probably targeting a school, sporting event, or mall. We have been warned about these ‘lone wolves’, American residents who self-radicalize and take jihad upon themselves. From Boston, to Texas, and Now Tennessee, we have seen it firsthand.

            This is not a call to arms against Islam; rather it is a call to awareness of a new threat. Citizen carriers expect the threat to be a burglary, a robbery, or at the extreme, a mall or school shooting. In Charleston, we saw a Christian church shot-up by a racist targeting blacks, spreading the evil of mass murder (with a gun, rather than a bomb) in a new way. As our schools and theaters have become targets, our society at large is becoming a target. Three Islamic terror attacks in a little over two years are not coincidence, but evidence of a pattern of jihad against America.

            The attackers will not always target Marines or conventions insulting their prophet. They will not be as inept as the people arrested by the FBI over this Independence Day period. What if instead of planes on 9/11, they used guns? Gun attacks are very popular overseas. Charlie Hebdo is a prime example, where a Parisian police officer begged for his life before being shot. A Metro officer or state trooper would certainly not go down that way. 147 were gunned down at a Kenyan University. We are not just looking for bombings, hijacked planes, random lone-wolfs, or the crazy white guy off his meds. The next major terrorist attack will likely be with guns striking a soft, civilian target, like a school.[1]

            Today, we were caught unaware. We shouldn’t have been. Those Marines should have had a fighting chance. We don’t know the circumstances of their deaths in any detail to play Monday morning quarterback, but none of them had a concealed weapon (it’s illegal on military bases) and there was no sentry watching over them with his M16.

            American gun owners must carry now and expect these kinds of threats—rifle and large scale shootings—in addition to what we have already planned for. No target is too soft, as we have seen... As the tide of Islamic radicalism creeps over the Middle East, their rhetoric splashes across the Atlantic to stain our nation. Our enemies within are beginning to rise up.

            Of course, this isn’t a call to a pogrom or a warning that the elderly Muslim couple down the street is dangerous. You could be getting your tinfoil hat all in a bunch over them when the disturbed kid next door stops taking his meds and the voices suggest he goes out and shoots up the mall. Be vigilant against a new threat; don’t be a vigilante.

            We are not facing mere terrorism. Rather, this is the dawn in an unfortunate era of jihad against America and the West. ISIS and the radical elements of Islam have declared war on us. The Quran even calls for Muslims to engage in jihad—to kill kaffirs, unbelievers. Meanwhile, our feckless president refuses to decisively engage these monsters, even failing to call ISIS and Islam the scourge that it is. Lord only knows what is motivation is, but the president is putting America in grave danger and has already cost American lives. Our president can’t even call the Fort Hood attack an act of Muslim terror, thought the suspect himself admitted it was jihad.           

“It’s clear to anyone [...] that the world’s enemy is radical Islam. But sadly, it’s more not just ‘radical Islam’. Let’s stop being politically correct. Islam itself is a problem. Millions of Muslims who aren’t ‘radical’ support and even celebrate intolerance and terrorism. [...] Call it Islam…call it radical Islam…call it Jihad…call it fundamental Islam. The fact is Islam is producing hate, intolerance and death.” (Wayne Allen Root) 

            Admittedly, these are harsh words. Yet we find the truth in the Quran, the Islamic scriptures which unambiguously call for violence and slaughter for those who don’t believe. 

And kill them wherever you find them, and get them out from whence they got you out. And the sedition is worse than the killing. And do not engage in war with them at the forbidden mosque until they engage in war with you in it. So if they do engage in war with you, so kill them; likewise it is the reward of the infidel. [...] And engage in war with then until there be no sedition and the religion be to Allah. 2:191-193
 I will cast a terror into the hearts of those who became infidels. So chop on their necks, and chop off every finger from them. 8:12
 And engage in war with them until there will not be sedition and the religion will be completely to Allah. 8:39[2] 

            I am aware my words are very controversial. I am pointing out the truth about Islam, the Quran’s role in Islamic terror, and the face of a new threat to our country. While some may find it difficult, we must separate the peaceful Muslims from the actual jihadists. In America, our First Amendment right to freedom of religion allows Muslims to be Muslims. We sacrifice any credit we have by calling for their deportation, arrest, or genocide based on religion. That is downright un-American. As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, we judge men on the content of their character. I saw some pretty vile comments being made about Muslims on Twitter today. Don’t paint all Muslims with the same brush. Saying all Muslims is violent because the Quran calls for jihad is like calling all Christians who sin hypocrites because the Bible tells us not to.

            I caution you to carry your gun everywhere you legally can because you never know when danger will strike or its face. It need not be a robbery. It could be the recruiting office next to the pizza joint you’re having lunch at. While you can’t use a gun to stop a bombing, you can use a gun to stop a mass shooting. Maybe if more gun owners started carrying, we could intimidate those crazy white guys and jihadists into staying home.

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[1] An excellent, but highly upsetting, fictional account of what one gun writer believes such an attack would look like is posted at The Truth About Guns and highlights our unpreparedness.

[2] Verses taken from: The Generous Quran, An accurate, modern English translation of the Qur'an, Islam's holiest book. Copyright 2009. Used by permission of Usama Dakdok Publishing LLC.