In my post on Libertarians and Mass Shootings, I wrote,
As of this morning, that still would be my guess. A Charles Manson who happens to be Arab-American.
Of course, I have plenty of opportunity to be wrong.
Just to be clear, I was wrong. What made me doubt that Islamic radicalism was a factor was the place where the couple committed terrorism. I am still puzzled that they chose a low-value target. I find myself wondering that perhaps their real goal was to kill police with the bomb that they reportedly left at the scene (which either did not explode or was not a bomb), and the initial murders were a way of getting the police to come en masse. But in any case, the facts as they have emerged do not make a good case for gun control as a solution.
Seems more we are moving into a period of retail terrorism. Take the random stabbings in Israel. They aren’t high value targets, but they are “any man” targets which brings the terrorism home to the average Israel.
Same here, a holiday party in a suburb, hit by that nice Muslim couple who you just gave a baby shower. No more thinking, well terrorist go for NYC or DC, or the Trade Center or the Pentagon. No, they go for gatherings of their co-workers at county agencies. Or shoot up random recruiting offices and then successfully kill Marines and sailors with the police hot on their tail.
Of course, the wild card is will people be scared and will the Left get their gun control that won’t keep guns from the suburban Muslim terrorist, or will they arm up and go armed as the upstate NY sheriff has recommended. In America, my vote is on the latter regardless what the political “elite” pass or support.
It almost sounds like they were planning something bigger and then got pissed off at a party and said YOLO. That terrorists don’t have great coping skills may be an understatement.
I hate to say this, but if terrorists wanted to spread fear as far as possible, they’d attack seemingly random ‘low value’ targets in out-of-the-way places (which, of course, are also easier to hit). If they focus exclusively on ‘high value’ targets in major cities, people in the suburbs and throughout ‘flyover country’ (which is the vast majority) have little to fear. But if they hit more places like San Bernardino, people in every little town in the country will start freaking out.
So why don’t they? I assume it’s because their audience of supporters wouldn’t be impressed and might think of, say, attacking small towns in Iowa as pathetic, boring, and a sign of weakness.
San Bernardino is not a small town. It has 200K people and is part of the Inland Empire, which includes Riverside, Temecula, and Ontario, with 4.5M across two counties. (It is urban Suburb.) They are part of the LA region.
Yeah, I’ve spent time in the area — I know it’s not a small town. But the point is the same — as far as international reputation goes, it’s obscure and unknown. And a couple of days ago, I doubt that more than a small minority of Americans could have said where San Bernardino was (other than maybe ‘somewhere in California’) or whether it had 20 or 200 thousand residents.
Megan McArdle once stated it is scarier to think about the thousands of Terrorist/Mass Shooting attacks that did not occur (but the FBI knew about) than it is the far lower number of attacks that did happen. Most mass shooting/terrorist are probably not the smartest bunch and definitely not like Osama Bin Laden.
Otherwise, it could have been a mix of terrorist/workplace attack. The shooter did not want to maximize body count but instead shoot people he did not like. (FYI My autism son gets services at that building.)
The low-value target was the location of the holiday party of the organization for which one of the terrorists worked. He has the opportunity to become completely familiar with the attack site.
The <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3344350/Devout-Muslim-citizen-Saudi-wife-living-American-Dream-identified-heavily-armed-duo-burst-office-holiday-party-slaughtered-14-leaving-baby-mother.html"Daily Mail has some additional information that might illuminate the choice of location and motivation, to include his ‘clashes over religion’ with a Messianic Jewish coworker who was slain in the attacks.
It is also a completely common occurrence throughout the history of political violence to use many occasions such as these to settle scores and petty grudges.
My guess is that the IRC was their primary target all along – target of opportunity that they knew well. Went back home to reload & hit target #2. Were not expecting the police to ID them so quickly and were intercepted before they could hit #2. Probably had a 3rd & even 4th target IDed as well, given the stocks they had.
Much is always sensationalized about the number of guns and rounds “stockpiled” after an incident. It doesn’t follow. I have thousands of rounds “stockpiled” and I’m a dabbler. It is how they come and they are cheap.
me too . . . but I don’t happen to have any pipe bombs laying around
I was surprised at the number of explosive devices that that the Columbine killers had at their disposal. But once you break the seal on your first one I bet the marginal cost is low.
Another reminder it is often the first generation rather than the immigrant that is the risk.
We need a terrorist Razzies award.
We can’t even figure out if you are terrorists you dead dumbass.
Perhaps we should discard the concept of a low value target. Any successful attack regardless of its location would seem to have significant positive repurcussions. It’s not conventional war in which the value of a target is quantifiable, rather random attacks intended to inflict psychological damage in excess of the actual physical carnage. Why risk attacking an NFL game at which the authorities are on high alert and the risk of failure is significant (failure in such an attack would be a devestating setback) when soft targets abound, are so numerous as to render protection infeasible and the resultant chaos attains approximately the same goals.
Still, terrorism is of minute concern. Jeez, 13,000 people a year are murdered by drunk drivers.
When you go out on a bike ride, are you afraid of a terrorist, or a boozerhead behind the wheel of an SUV?
Terrorists are the least of our concerns…
Indeed. In the macro sense we should go about our day as if these events don’t happen. However, the fact that they are small in number while having an outsized influence implies that a limited, surgical response may be worthwile.
Good form, sir.
Here is my 3 point plan for terrorist organizations.
1. Mossad-style counterterrorism. The enemy is violence against innocents. Therefore we don’t do violence against innocents. We defang the snake.
2. Ground Marshalls. We legalize and reward citizens who run toward the gunfire and do SOMETHING.
3. We shame the f… out of these losers who shoot people because they want to hurt innocents for them being losers.