By Kurt Schlichter
Monday, April 22, 2013
The smoke and flame had not even dissipated before it was
crystal clear that the terrorists had lost again. There was the flash, the
boom, then a few brief moments to get their bearings before, almost as one,
Americans began running toward the fire.
It wasn’t just the cops and the soldiers. It was
spectators, bystanders, even runners themselves who seconds before had been
struggling to cross the finish line after 26 brutal miles. In one terrible
moment that shredded bodies and lives, they went from being ordinary Americans
to something extraordinary.
Scratch that – “extraordinary” is the natural condition
of Americans. That is neither mere sentiment nor some wishful thinking about
American exceptionalism. It is a fact, demonstrated again and again, in peace
and in war. Americans don’t wait. They don’t hesitate. They act.
We’ve seen the footage of 9/11 where injured people are
clearing the area while long lines of rescuers head into the carnage. But those
folks departing are often helping the injured or the fearful, even as the grim
firefighters trudge toward their fate, utterly unwilling to allow those trapped
in the towers to be lost without a fight.
The Americans on Flight 93 didn’t wait for rescue. They
knew what lay ahead and chose death on their feet fighting to save others on
the ground over cowering in their seats.
The Americans who ran toward the wounded on Patriot’s Day
in Boston showed courage not just because they willingly faced the bloody
slaughter of an anti-personnel IED but because, as everyone knows, terrorists
delight in planting follow-on devices to kill those coming to the aid of the
original victims. Watching video of the Massachusetts Army National Guardsmen
ripping through the metal barrier to use their combat lifesaver skills on the
wounded, you could see the right shoulder insignia one wore. It was a
“Screaming Eagle” 101st Airborne “combat patch,” earned in action in Iraq or
Afghanistan – maybe both. That American warrior knew exactly what the risks
were, and he didn’t hesitate.
You don’t see this kind of commitment in every other
country. Certainly, other nations have their heroes and bravery is not uniquely
American, but what is exceptional is our attitude, our individual, personal
commitment – even at great risk – to act to protect our nation and our fellow
citizens. We don’t wait for someone to come save us. To paraphrase the
President, we are the ones we are waiting for.
In Boston, the first militia units formed almost 400
years ago – regular members of the community banding together in the defense of
their people. Such groups fired the first shots of the Revolutionary War.
Modern Massachusetts Guard units still carry the lineage of those ancient
companies today; no doubt some of the camo-clad citizen-soldiers treating the
injured were members.
But that sense of responsibility wasn’t limited to
combat. Communities worked together to fight fires – and today in many places
volunteer fire departments provide that lifesaving service. Many other citizens
volunteer as reserve police officers. Millions get Red Cross lifesaver training
every year.
It is our sense of ownership and personal commitment to
our country and fellow citizens that make us act. We are unwilling to stand
aside, to wait for someone else, to leave it solely to the professionals and thereby
exempt ourselves from our own individual duty to our community.
That in no way belittles our heroic emergency personnel
or somehow dismisses their vital contribution. With their equipment and
advanced training, they are crucial for building on the initial foundation
provided by the Americans at the scene. Basic first aid skills – stopping the
bleeding, immobilizing the injury, treating for shock – are well within the
ability of any healthy adult and are crucial to a badly wounded victim’s survival
in the minutes before trained paramedics can take over. Yes, sometimes the best
thing civilians can do is get the heck out of the way. But not always.
There are people who do not understand this American
instinct, and some who even want to undercut the notion that ordinary Americans
have anything to contribute to their own safety. These people believe that only
the “experts” should do so, experts who inevitably come from the government,
and therefore who inevitably work for these same people. They prefer Americans
helpless, docile, and dependant. It makes them easier to control.
The push for gun control highlights this schism between
Americans who wish to rely upon themselves first, and those who seek to require
other Americans’ reliance. Americans don’t wish to retain their sacred right to
keep and bear effective arms because they imagine themselves Rambos or because
– if you listen to the clowns at MSNBC – they somehow wish to empower the
killers of children. Just the opposite.
Americans refuse to part with their weapons because they
wish to protect themselves, their families, their communities and their
Constitution. They demand their right to be armed not to avoid risk but to
accept it, to stand up and protect the defenseless, to draw the fire of lunatics
and criminals upon themselves and, if need be, to die protecting their fellow
citizens.
Americans are not asking for the favor of being allowed
to do so. They are refusing to relinquish their fundamental right to do so. And
to do so with the kind of effective, modern weaponry that allows them the
ability to go toe-to-toe with the kind of sociopaths who shoot up school houses
or blow up crowds.
Liberals laughed when gun freedom advocates suggested
armed personnel in schools – and then stopped laughing when they realized that
the American people saw the wisdom in it. All over the country, states are
expanding concealed carry laws to allow individual citizens the ability to be
armed and to protect themselves and others. Of course, Democrat-run localities
are resisting this civil rights trend just as Democrat-run localities resisted
other civil rights trends a half-century ago. The bloody battlefields of
Washington, D.C., and Chicago bear witness to the moral and intellectual
bankruptcy of their latest fight against basic freedoms.
It falls upon each of us to be ready when disaster
strikes, whether it is a shopper collapsing with a heart attack in a mall or a
psycho gunman opening fire in public or an earthquake that levels a city. Being
an American citizen does not just mean you get to live here – no, you have a
duty.
We must each assess what we are capable of, physically
and emotionally, and be prepared to respond in time of need. Learn basic first
aid skills and carry a medical kit in your car. You never know when you may be
20 minutes from a fire station on a country road and have to stop a crash
victim’s arterial bleeding. Stockpile a few day’s food in case disaster hits so
you can contribute to relief operations instead of being a burden.
You need to take the next step as well, and to be able to
participate in the defense of your community. I recall a Twitter conversation
with Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memorandum in which he dismissed my
advocacy of universal gun ownership by asking when I had ever seen society
collapse such that I’d need an “assault weapon.” He asked the wrong guy – the
answer was April 1992, when I spent three weeks with the Army on the streets of
Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots.
So, when it comes to your safety, you can listen to the
fussy metrosexual blogger or the guy who packed a M16A1 during the chaos in
L.A. The latter says that you need to own firearms. You need to be trained on
their use, and you need to have ammunition. Without that capability you are unable
to effectively defend yourself – much less others – when things go very, very
bad.
You can be a sheep or a sheepdog when the wolves come
out. I say no American worth the name should ever choose to be a sheep.
The courage and the personal commitment to the community
that we saw on display in Boston is something to be encouraged, not
discouraged. This is our country. We are the first responders.
And we will always run toward the fire.
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