Normal people recoil from scenes of gruesome slaughter.  We remember the sight of people throwing themselves from the burning floors of the World Trade Center and every year September 11th comes around.  There are newspaper articles that remind us of the “tragedy”, as though it was some act of nature.  Earthquakes and hurricanes create tragedies; terrorists inflict carnage that result from purposeful acts of war- usually against against unarmed civilians for the purpose of creating horrified confusion.

Somehow it is easier to frame the burning twin towers as a tragedy because  jets were used as giant missiles in a manner that was impersonal, yet devastating.  Shooting innocent people requires the shooter to look at the victims’ eyes and the victim sees the face of his or her murderer.  In Mumbai many deaths came slowly; in many cases, the victim not only lived to experience the painful aftermath but will remember the horrified looks of surprise on the faces of loved ones and the faces of the young men that were sent to wound and kill as many as possible.

As in Mumbai, September 11th resulted in recriminations against our government, partisan bickering, denial that it could happen again and public discussions about whether the American government should suspend civil liberties and do away with traditional protection of privacy.  All kinds of proposals are on the table to protect the American people from an enemy that is already here in the homeland waiting to strike.  I just looked at the Brady gun control website and they have been telling us that gun shows are bad because that is where terrorists can buy guns! 

If the Brady campaign is really concerned about terrorists attacking with the automatic weapons similar to those that were deployed in Mumbai (they should be concerned but you cannot buy full automatics at gun shows)- Sarah Brady and friends should favor getting as many ordinary people that can be armed and trained out into public places with guns.  Keep in mind- there is nothing that says terrorist tactical teams cannot walk down your street doing the same thing they did in Mumbai.  Outlawing pistols or gun shows or high capacity magazines will not stop terrorists from acquiring whatever they need.  Most high powered modern weapons have been illegal in India since the days of British colonialism and the penalties for owning any weapons without licensing (very difficult) are very harsh.

The New York Times in an article entitled “Wounds Heal, but Grief Lingers in Mumbai“  observes that “grief has hardly dissipated from the wards of Mumbai’s largest public hospital. To travel down its spit-stained corridors is to witness physical wounds healing but mental ones that may linger for years.”

The article gives a fairly clear idea of what it feels like to survive being shot three times and then have your throat slit:

“The stitches have been removed from Harish Chandra’s neck. Mr. Chandra, a 56-year-old civil servant, has little trouble telling how one of the attackers held his forehead and slit his throat and how he saved himself by kneeing the man in the groin.”

Others will agonize over lost loved ones for the rest of their lives:

“But in a nearby ward, Malati Devi Gupta, a metal brace on her badly fractured left leg, cries out for her son and refuses to believe he is not coming back. “If you can arrange it, I just want to meet Vinod,” she tells a visitor. Vinod, relatives say, died in her lap, blood gurgling from his mouth, after being wounded by a grenade at Mumbai’s main train station on Nov. 26.”

The terrorists also caused a certain impact on the world because the tactic of deploying small arms caused a protracted period of horrified confusion.  Whereas terrorist bombings have previously caused more loss of life in India, the damage from a bombing is almost instantaneous. 

The inability to control anything once a bomb goes off makes it almost akin to an act of nature in the mind of the victim and the wider society.  But shooters moving people around in various parts of the city, executing large numbers over the course of hours and even days as others ran away created agony and desperation.  And anger toward the government for disarming the people and then standing helplessly before the apparently inexorable onslaught of terror.  In Beslan, Russia, terrorists created a similar protracted scenario of horror.  Beslan was carried out by men and women on September 1, 2004, claiming that they were serving God by declaring war on school children!  No place in the world is immune from these attacks!  The attackers eagerly anticipate murder of innocents in Asia, Europe, Africa and North America.

 “Kanish Chhabria, 11, found out that his parents had been killed at the Oberoi hotel when a friend sent him a condolence message on his Facebook page, according to the boy’s uncle, Ajay Chhabria,” according to the NY Times article.

The New York Times article analyzes class issues by quoting a doctor as to how victims’ economic status impacts the ability to deal with the emotional anguish of grief. “Better-educated victims are likely to be more traumatized because they often are more introspective.  They think more.”

What we need is less of this kind of “analysis” and more anger and indignation; less about “tragedy” and more about about how to make sure it does not happen here!  Has anyone seen an editorial in the New York Times or other major daily newspaper analyzing the possibility that such an attack could happen here in the U.S.  The attacks were very successful from the standpoint of the planners’ objective in executing the mayhem in Mumbai. 

They intended to accomplish much more killing but the emotional shock wave that has rocked the world and media and government reactions provide plenty of encouragement fpr the terrorists to do it again.  The action necessary to discourage further horrific scenarios in the U.S. is for a few average American citizens to drop the jihadists right where they stand. 

The United States is about the only place such a result is likely to happen.  We will not drop them in “gun-free” zones, however, unless many law abiding Americans decide to disobey the laws and carry our big .357 magnums. 44 mags and semi-auto pistols and little snub-nose revolvers, .380s and God only knows what other fire power our hard working, honest American citizens are carrying (many, including off-duty cops, are now keeping assault rifles in the trunks of their cars). 

Keep in mind that the enemy will shoot the men in blue first if they can.  Our police officers are training like never before- with AR-15 rifles, .40 caliber pistols and shot guns.  Surveys show that most police, including the higher levels in the chain of command, believe it is just a matter of time before we have a WMD or small arms attacks like Mumbai experienced.

“Wounds are healing, doctors expect many more patients to seek treatment for flashbacks, nightmares and insomnia.  Mr. Chandra, whose throat was slit, was also shot three times in the back. The last bullet, lodged in a kidney, was to be removed this week. But more than the pain from his injuries, he will have a hard time forgetting the viciousness of the attacker’s screaming curse as he cut Mr. Chandra’s neck. Several times in the past two decades, doctors here have rushed to treat victims of bombings and communal riots.”

The article continues:

The hospital took in what Dr. Upsani described as entire families of wounded people, most from the nearby Chhatrapati Shivaji train station, also known as Victoria station, where two attackers spent at least half an hour throwing grenades and shooting at travelers, shopkeepers, passers-by and the police.

Kalpana Pawar, 24 and shy, was initially told that her husband’s foot had been injured. Then the police showed up at her house with his body.

 “My mother-in-law is very old, and they didn’t want to alarm her,” said Mrs. Pawar, fidgeting nervously in an interview. Her husband, a police officer, was off duty and traveling through the train station when the attackers struck. A newspaper photographer saw him pick up an old rifle from a fellow officer and fire in vain at the two terrorists.

The attackers were better armed. They tracked down and killed Mr. Pawar, who was the family’s only breadwinner. “He used to call home during the day,” Mrs. Pawar said. “Sometimes I feel that he will call again.”

Everyone needs to listen to the testimony from Texas State Rep. Suzanna Gratia-Hupp who saw her parents killed in a restaurant.  The impassioned testimony at a Senate hearing describes how she could have stopped the cold blooded executions of her mom and dad if she had not been required to leave her pistol in her car.