“We are one giant soft target.”
Our buddy, Jim Hanson, was on Fox News this morning and made the point that “We are one giant soft target” because we’re Americans and we like to gather in large crowds to do the things we like with other Americans;
“Every place where you’ve got more than a couple dozen people, are you going to check the surrounding areas to make sure no one can get to high ground and shoot down on people?” he asked. “That’s what the Secret Service has to do to protect the president, and it’s a massive undertaking. So I don’t know that that’s the solution to this problem.”
He said the sad reality is that the world is a dangerous place, and we cannot assume that there will be a “magic solution” to death and destruction.
Hanson said one of the most effective ways to prevent attacks like what happened Sunday in Vegas is, “If you see something, say something.”
On September 12th, 2001, I made a walking pass through Washington, DC just to see how things had changed in the intervening hours after the terrorist attack. I walked through Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House and there was a large, unattended suitcase sitting only several yards from the White House. I pointed it out to the Park Police and he responded, “Oh, we know whose it is.”
It was large enough to contain a fairly destructive bomb, but because the police knew which homeless guy had left it there, they assumed that it was safe.
I’d been in Germany which was much more in tune with terrorist threats – their policemen patrolled the cities with automatic firearms at the ready.
US Forces towed a car out on to the runaway at Rhein Mein airport and blew it up because a woman was seen running from the car into the PX Exchange facility. Of course, she was in a hurry, and there was no bomb in her car, but still….A few weeks before that, an airman had been killed for his ID card so some Red Brigade terrorists could drive a car bomb on the airbase and detonate, luckily injuring no one.
We probably wouldn’t allow that to happen here, because we don’t want to be bothered to be vigilant – we expect the government to do that for us. They’ve been so good at it so far.
Category: Terror War
Folks have been killing folks since Cain murdered Able.
There is evil and danger in the world. We can watch for it, we can prepare for it, we can hinder it, but we cannot prevent it from hurting us or those we love.
It’s called “risk mitigation,” for risk avoidance is impossible.
Brother Hanson speaks the truth.
This is why I’m teaching my kids to pay attention and shoot back. It breaks my heart that there’s more that they need to know about the world than what they learn from “Harry the Bunny,” but there are bad people out there. Those bad people will do bad things to good people until they die. Even some people who aren’t that bad might do bad things for some stupid reason. Good people who shoot back are harder targets.
Well said, TOW.
ALWAYS maintain good situational awareness, regardless of activity and location.
ALWAYS carry a CCW weapon, spare loaded magazines, a good tactical knife, and a small tactical flashlight, and be well trained/rehearsed in their coordinated use.
Thank you Mick!!! My wife gets on me sometimes when we enter a venue or restaurant and I stop and look around for where I want to sit, who is there, where the exits are so forth. I do carry concealed and it’s for reasons like these events and more, for the dickhead stick up ass holes. As far as hotels using metal detectors and checking bags, when I travel I carry. If it’s not in a reciprocity state, it’s in my baggage and then readily available in my room. If that becomes the norm, I’ll stay at smaller places without that hassle.
With you on that Mick. I took the Cp journal Marine Combat Hunter course online to be to the Left of Bang. Great course covering the art of reading body language and stay left of bang. I took the course for people in security. they offered the Military, Police and for people in School security. Carry for me is a Springfield XDSC S&W.40 and two spare mags.
Speaking of Uncle Jimbo, what happened to Blackfive.net? It used to be one of the better military blogs, but every time I’ve gone there recently, all it is is book reviews, mostly of detective novels, and hardly ever any new military-related content.
Matt got wrapped up in his new job and being a Dad. He’s still around. Jim is too busy being successful on Fox News all the time and taking care of his new fiance.
Understood. Life happens.
Thanks for the update.
Charles Whitman, August 1, 1966, went to the clock tower at the University of Texas in Austin and started shooting people, after he killed his wife and mother.
You – no, WE – have no way of knowing who is or is not likely to be one of these people with a chip on the shoulder.
In regard to this incident in Las Vegas, Paddock sent his girlfriend, a Philippina, out of the country before he went to Las Vegas. She has returned and the first report is that she thinks he did that so that she wouldn’t try to stop him.
Mr. Hanson is correct: we are a soft target, far too soft. We are far too trusting. That’s the real problem.
There were also people in the crowd that started shooting back at Charles Whitman. Unlikely to see that nowadays
IIRC those armed citizens provided the cover fire necessary for the Texas Ranger who put Whitman down to reach the bell tower in the first place.
Well, I was just pointing out that shooting what is essentially sitting ducks is not something new.
The media’s tendency to react with astonishment to these events and then hang on like the leeches they are, trying to outdo law enforcement in “discovering” things has grown worse since Whitman’s murderous event, and grown even worse since the advent of online instant communications.
If you’ll recall, in the hours after the Boston Marathon bomring, when that skanky creature Tsarnaev when on the run with his brother – whom he ran over with the pickup truck – the media posted photos of him online and every teenage girl in the country was sure he wasn’t the other bomber, because he was too cute to be like that.
Ted Bundy was a political candidate, an outgoing affable guy, when he wasn’t hunting, brutalizing and killing women. He went unnoticed until one of his victims managed to get away from him and notify the police.
The media try to put things in the order they want them to be and will continue to do so until they are stopped cold. All their guesswork and pseudo-analytical stuff, supported by people they pay to give them feedback, only makes it worse for the real results to come to the surface.
There was a lot of guessing about Whitman in the aftermath of his rampage. A lot of it was baloney. He simply went on a rampage, which is what I see in this shooting rampage in Las Vegas.
The two incidents are very similar, and the media are now asking if Paddock was mimicking Whitman. The only differences so far are that Whitman hit fewer targets and the police shot and killed him.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2017/10/02/from-the-ut-tower-to-a-las-vegas-hotel-the-carnage-when-shooters-take-aim-from-above/?utm_term=.25375d6dc637
@ EX-PH-2:
If in my elderly dotage, I remember correctly something that happened so many years ago, the autopsy of Charles Whitman revealed a large brain tumor, although medical personnel stated that they didn’t think the brain tumor caused him to become a mass murderer.
Ex-PH2; When they did the autopsy on Whitman, they found out he had a brain tumor. I thought about Whitman and wondered if Paddock has the same thing, but the autopsy will hopefully find something. I was a short timer on the OKIE 3 when Whitman did the tower thing.
Could be he was just mimicking, too.
I’ve personally had the pleasure to have a few drinks with Jim on a couple of occasions when I lived in DC. Along with Matt of BlackFive, and Neptunus Lex (sadly Lex is no longer with us, RIP), and a few other former prominent Mil-Bloggers.
Blackfive, Lex (Gone but never forgotten), Greyeagle (spotted her once in a DFAC in Iraq, but didn’t want to be that guy), and Castle Aaaaargh were my introductions to the Milblog world. Found TAH through them. No better bunch ever existed.
I’ve worked as a security guard for a mall and a government center. 90% of my coworkers were lazy shits who got offended when they actually had to do their job because I would catch a criminal. It got to the point where they were trying to get me fired and harass me by not letting me go on my lunch break on time. It was mostly a political game of “kiss the bosses ass” to get promoted. If you ever wonder why a terrorist attack will succeed it’s because those who are paid to “see something say something” aren’t seeing shit because they’re to busy not “observing and reporting”.
I worked 5 years as a mall cop. Every 6 months as I watched things eventually I would catch a burglar or worse. Not one of my coworkers ever did the same. Why? They didn’t simply “see something say something”.
I had 10+ years in private security in downtown Houston.
IME, a lot depends upon the type of screening the personnel department does, and what the parent company (if any) wants out of their security group.
When it becomes low-bid-wins with it’s resultant low-wage-paid, and the eligibility test is “are they breathing?” you get low-education, low-motivation folks. There is no denying that it is, or can be, mind-numbing work, without a lot of respect from others in the community. (I remember clearly a businessman saying to me “You minimum-wage folks think too much of yourselves.” when I made him sign-in after hours.)
I was fortunate to be working for an in-house security company for a management team who screened their applicants well and paid higher-than-market wages. We had a top-flight team. In other companies, self-motivation to do a good job was the only impetus to be like you.
That doesn’t surprise me in the least. A lot of these guards are paid very little. When you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Simple as that.
Even in the company I worked for we had the occasional new-hire I had to terminate before his/her trial period was done.
All my terminations were “clean kills” for just and well-documented cause, but they dinged me on my evals for high turnover. I think personnel was embarrassed that they let the monkeys through in the first place.
lily, my wife worked for a private security firm here in MN for a few years.
It was a revolving door for personnel. Apparently it’s mostly the dregs of society that works for security firms (present company exclude, of course), can’t think for themselves, lazy, just after a paycheck – you name it. There are the few (like you) who actually do their job with pride and competence, but they seem to be the exception, rather than the rule.
The government is good at collecting and spending our money (taxes) and big ass shooting wars (small wars are debatable) and not much else.
The sooner the majority of the country figures that out, the better.
I have a friend who worked security for a year. The second week (Yes, week) he was made a supervisor. In a month he was a LT (?), responsible for a dozen others. Why? He was the only person still there after one month with any sense of responsibility, so he got the job by default. He was good at his job but b/c he was put in a position of responsibility so soon, he found himself being called in for no-shows. He had to quit after a year … he was actually worn down to nothing. It’s not the job that highly responsible people with an eye on retirement gravitate toward. As was so nicely said above, when you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. With a few exceptions.
Doesn’t the hotel have their own full-time, in-house security personnel?
Once the shooting began, why did an armed response take so long?
In a life or death emergency, the hotel security weren’t required to wait for the police to arrive, and determining which floor, and which suite(s) the shooting was in should not have taken more than a few minutes.
Even a private citizen could have reacted with their own weapon, and it would have been legal to do so.
Also, with all those Country Western music fans, there must have been a few good ol’ boys with pickup trucks and scoped deer rifles that could have returned fire.
Would a window on the thirty-second floor of the hotel across the street be out of range for the average deer rifle, such as my own Savage 110 bolt-action 30.06 caliber, with the Deerfield 3×9 scope?
Maybe that’s a justifiable reason for private citizens to be able to own and carry the .50 caliber sniper rifle, which can easily shoot that distance accurately.
Of course, no one would have been shot if they’d obeyed the Lord’s commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy, for they wouldn’t have been there.
But, that’s one of the symptoms of moral decay in our society, for many, many years ago, when I was young and growing up in the unapologetic racially segregated Bible Belt, things were different, and folks were more religiously observant.
And while I’m discoursing, I’d never go to one of those concerts, or even watch it on television, because so-called “Country” music is NOT Country!
Call it between 400 and 500 yards. Not excessive range but not exactly point blank, either. Had it not been crowded, between the high rate of fire and the range his odds of hitting targets with non-magnifying sights would have been poor. Pictures showed an EoTech on on rifle and a scope on another. Drive around Vegas with a deer rifle showing in the back of your truck and you will be minus a rifle within minutes of parking it.
@ DAVID:
Here in the high desert, the community where I live is white and mostly Mormon, composed of cowboys and oil field roughnecks, and the surrounding country is almost entirely Indian reservation.
Thus, almost everybody drives a four wheel drive pickup truck, and they are generally armed, although you won’t see the weapons displayed.
I have seen one or two pickup trucks out on the ranch with the combination of a rifle and a fishing rod in the gun rack mounted on the rear window, but that is VERY rare.
But, folks here stay armed and ready.
Back in the mid seventies I lived on a dairy farm. The owner had to travel to Massachusetts to pick up a part and had his lever action Marlin in the rear window rack. He was genuinly surprised when the State Police pulled him over.
They let him go after he took it out of rear window and stowed it out of sight.
Try that today.
Read what you wrote, JRM:
“Of course, no one would have been shot if they’d obeyed the Lord’s commandmant, to keep the Sabbath Day holy, for they wouldn’t have been there.”
(1) Not everyone practices Christianity. There are other Faiths…and there are those who don’t believe in a Deity. That was a judgmental remark that IMO, you could have kept to yourself.
(2) You consistently tell others about your trip to Israel. FYI, I have been there as well…and guess what? Israel’s Sabbath is on a SATURDAY. That is their “7th Day.” When I was there, banks, some institutions and businesses were closed. On SATURDAY. Not Sunday. That was a closed minded statement you wrote.
(3). Last. Can’t believe how insensitive you are on your statement you wrote. Tell that to the families who lost their love ones because of that Madman..or tell it to the surviving victims and their families. IMO, that was a very crude, crass comment on your part.
Don’t know what you were thinking when you made that comment, but IMO, you should be ashamed of yourself.
so, your beef is that they scheduled Sunday, not Saturday, thus the lunatic didn’t move his rampage to Saturday?
Or are you saying that the guy who went big on breaking “thou shalt not murder” would have obeyed that commandment if concert-goers had kept the Sabbath?
Distilled down, you just put the blame on the victims. The blame is squarely on the evil/crazy person that did the shooting, and -no one- else.
I think you put a boot in your mouth, big-time, with this one.
11B-Mailclerk:
Amen and spot on on what you commented to JRM on his post about the “Sabboth”. 👍👍
Am still very disturbed on his cold and cruel comment “no one would have been shot if they’d obeyed the Lord’s commandant..”
What a holier than thou attitude. And a warped, irrational one as well. Seems to me I recalled less than 2 weeks ago that folks were shot in a church in Antioch, TN on a SUNDAY (JRM’s “Sabboth”).
JRM did indeed put the blame on the victims and not the lunatic.
And it is obvious he does not read the same Bible I read. One of the 10 Commandments state that folks should not WORK on the 7th day, i.e. take a break, rest, chill out.
He read the same book. Free will gives us the ability to interpret. Man, being man, that interpretation can go -way- off the rails. The arguments over the interpretations can become… heated.
Agree.👍
Thank you!
Here’s the URL for an interesting, and possibly informative, video recording postulating about the mass murder in Las Vegas.
https://youtu.be/9OzcNR-Ao00
I agree with the comments, “be aware of your surroundings.” And I have drilled that into my kids. When you are in public – Look, Listen, and be aware of where you are. They are passing this on to my grandkids.
Here’s the URL for yet another opinion regarding the mass murder in Las Vegas:
http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2017-10-04.html#read_more
Like many others on this site, I carry concealed everywhere
I keep a Sig 938 in my pocket and a CZ Scorpion cable locked in my car
Any shot over 100 yards is very difficult to justify in a self defense situation
Except in this one unusual case of domestic terrorism
Doc,
This isn’t a slam, but this is not a “just shoot back” problem.
Even a pistol caliber carbine is unlikely to reach 300 meters with sufficient accuracy to hit that lunatic. With a handgun, most would be hard put to hit the general area of the hotel where he was.
“Shoot back” from the concert site is rifle work, a decent one with a good man working it.
What is the pistol’s drop at that range? Group size? Run to the hotel and go up to the floor, and you might get pistol results.
I have used a -big- revolver (.44) to make 200 yard shots on a man-sized target. At the ranges described, I would likely be hitting other rooms. That is not going to be effective, and probably kills bystanders and responders.
So the CCW folks can rush the guiding, but cannot effectively act from the site. (On reflection, is this what you meant?)
Again, no slam intended. “What could we have done if we are there” is useful effort, as we will learn from it. And it takes away fear and powerlessness, thus defeating the goal of those who seek to terrify victims and bystanders.
Did you see the clip of the leg-shot victim that -stood- to greet the President and First Lady? That dude is -not- defeated. Show -that- film to the NFL, eh?
“Rush the -building-“
Read the same article, 11B, on the shooting victim who stood up when President Trump visited him in the hospital.
Those NFL players who refuse to stand are just Attention Seeking, “Look At Me!” children. The more the media shows their pictures or videos of their defiance to include raising the Black Power Fist, the more they are going to
do it.
Take the spotlight off of them instead if enabling their poor behavior in public.
‘……….one giant soft target…….’
CONCUR…given how Washington has basically been a wink and a nod for decades regarding security at borders (should be called sieves) and the laughable ‘visa’ policy featuring among other easy entries the 90 day finace program.
Who is the intellectually challenged who thinks up such, but better yet, who is it who approves of it all?
It has remained a question in my mind for years. That has remained a mystery to me for years
Am I the only one who remembers that the worst mass murder event in US history occurred at Wounded Knee?
One could make the argument that the final day of Gettysburg might qualify…but that is an indirect form of murder and considered a “mistake”.
One could also argue that sending unescorted ships into the Atlantic in 1942 is tantamount to murder–also considered a “mistake”.
Apparently, it does not count as murder when the government or its agents do it. I’m not indicting anyone here, just pointing out that our esteemed “leaders” have sanctioned and participated in far worse. I am also not giving the perp in the Las Vegas shooting a pass. He probably solely owns the primary responsibility for his actions (even if he was mentally ill). But I am observing that it is somewhat misleading to pretend that this behavior is unique or unusual in in history.
Some “activists” in the USA continuously observe that our government is complicit in many horrors–and to some extent they may have a point…however, their arguments are invalid because they are bat shit crazy to think the same government can provide solutions when it is at least complicit in them.
This is the real argument for small and low powered government at all levels.
I think this guy takes the “single guy acting alone” title.
(No evidence for active accomplices so far)
Mobs have killed hundreds on a number of occasions.
Governments racked up something like 100-200 million dead civilians in the 20th century.
Single-actor massacres are rare.
they are, but I’m sick of the media blitz that makes it seem that the government is the solution to all of this…
You cannot crazy-proof a free society.
I keep saying that. Might as well be farting in a hurricane, sometimes. But I will keep pointing it out.
Prisons are ultra-violent places, yet they are totally controlled. Some morons think they can build a prison society and gain paradise, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
In regards to hotel security I saw an article about a guard that attempted to break in on this lunatic in Drudge I believe. He was unarmed and got shot in the leg but he is the one who notified the Cavalry as to his where abouts.
Also, good to hear from Jim Hanson again. I do not know him but enjoyed his input when he was on Blackfive.
Yeah, its on Drudge on the uper left side in red. I don’t know how to link it.
Steve1371: Is this the story you are speaking if? I found it on Drudge:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/unarmed-security-guard-jesus-campos-took-on-las-vegas-killer-stephen-paddock
Yes, thank God for people like Jesus Campos! Just think what he might have done if armed with some serious fire power. Many lives could have been saved or spared.
How do you link stuff like that?
Steve, yes, thank goodness for heroes such as Jesus Campos.
On my smartphone (I use Android) when I went to the story, I pressed down on the link, which gave me the option of copy or paste. I pressed “copy”, then came back to this site to “paste” the link.
On a PC, I highlight the link, then use the left click on the mouse to copy. I then go back to a site and click to paste ( I use Windows).
Hope that helps.
Thanks again for sharing about Campos!
I have an apple I-Mac. I will give it a try. Thanks for the tip.
As my favorite founding father once said, “Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.”
There are two translations that have been attributed to this turn of phrase.
Translation #1 “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery ”
Translation #2 “I prefer the tumult of liberty to the quiet of servitude.”
When I studied Latin I would have gone with translation #1 and was unaware of version #2 until a few years back…consequently I have an affinity for the first translation because not only does it coincide with my poor memory of Latin class, but it coincides with my world view. Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
Listening to all the nonsense about “gun control” at the moment I am also reminded of my reading of the Gulag Archipelago….these words have forever stuck in my brain pan:
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956