The Islamist assault in San Bernardino may prove to be the turning point in the Islamist war on America. Americans are realizing that it’s time to get deadly serious about self-defense.
- The cavalry is not coming: we must defend ourselves.
- We need a national movement for a trained, deputized Citizens Reserve Militia.
Islamist assassins are here, and by “here” I do not mean in New York or Washington, D.C. Islamist radicals are in every state and in your community — in San Bernardino, Phoenix, Portland, Miami, Chicago, and for certain, Minneapolis, Detroit and San Francisco. Also, in Peoria, Aspen and Topeka.
The FBI has said there are 900 investigations under way in all 50 states, and 48 Islamists “deserve” round-the-clock surveillance. Most likely there are 9,000 Islamists who deserve that 24-hour surveillance and monitoring, but the FBI does not have the resources for that task.
So, here we are.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and the New York Times are worried more about the oceans rising two inches over the next 50 years than about keeping radical Muslims out of our country. But that’s not the worst of it.
Our problem is no longer national security, it is hometown security.
The solution is not a bigger defense department, it is a homeland reserve militia trained in self-defense – trained for defense of our communities, our neighborhoods, our schools, our sports events, our shopping malls — in short, the everyday defense of our way of life.
Consider the dire condition of our law enforcement capabilities.
- The FBI is not given the resources to do its job in preventing radical Islamists from acting on their plans. Stopping nine out of ten plots probably means a hundred mass killings not blocked.
- The CIA and other intelligence agencies issue warnings that are ignored by our leaders—it doesn’t fit the head-in-the-sand political narrative.
- The Republican-controlled Congress refuses to halt the flow of refugees from regions known to be infused with radical Islamists.
- Our LEGAL immigration and asylum policies allow a half-million Muslims into the country each year.
- The local police are great but are 5-to-10 minutes away after a 911 call.
We can wait to fix all of those obstacles to self-defense through the political process, or we can act while we work on those fixes. We can act to defend ourselves by arming ourselves. If attacked, do you call 911 and wait for police to arrive, or do you take the bastards down?
In San Bernardino, the police arrived in 4 minutes of the first shots, and still 14 people were slaughtered. Next time it could be 140 or 400.
In San Bernardino, the assassins were two “self-radicalized” Islamist jihadists, one of them an American-born Muslim of Pakistani immigrant parents. The mastermind of the Paris attack of last month was not a refugee, he was a French citizen born to Moroccan immigrants. The female half of that pair of assassins had been “vetted” by two federal agencies and awarded a visa.
It’s time to wake up and smell the ashes of self-delusion.
In response to radical Islam’s declaration of war on America, Barack Obama plays golf and Hillary Clinton wants to have a “national conversation” about gun confiscation. Let’s hope she continues with such vapid stupidities, as it will be a fitting final chapter to her political biography.
If President Obama or any president ever attempts gun confiscation in America, there should be and will be a second civil war. An America disarmed is an America in subjugation.
But there are things government can do — if citizens will demand it. In the absence of statesmanship and leadership from above, it’s time for states and communities to act in their own self-defense.
- Without any action by Congress, under the Tenth Amendment states and local governments can organize local reserve militias, a properly trained and deputized battalion of local citizens who serve as backup to local law enforcement.
- Reserve militia members will be sworn to uphold the Constitution and protect communities from violent assaults from any quarter.
- States and communities can also declare an end to so-called “gun free zones,” which are nothing but suicide pacts formed by delusional escapists.
- States and communities can allow and indeed encourage more private citizens to obtain concealed carry permits and arm themselves.
To show we are serious about empowering 100 million citizens for self-defense, we should seriously consider subsidizing the purchase of firearms by low-income citizens. Terrorists and criminals already know how to obtain guns, so why not help the defenseless? If we can afford food stamps and housing subsidies, why not gun stamps to help urban citizens survive the next Islamist assault?
We now live in a very polarized nation, divided not between Republicans and Democrats but between those who want to defend our liberties and those who want to defend politically correct stupidities.
Citizens should not wait for the politically correct and our cowardly Congress to wake up; they can act now at the state and local level. Before it really is too late.
Tom Tancredo is the founder of the Rocky Mountain Foundation and founder and co-chairman of Team America PAC.
Tom represented Colorado’s sixth congressional district in the United States House of Representatives from 1999 to 2009, and he is a former presidential candidate.
He is the author of In Mortal Danger: The Battle for America’s Border and Security.
