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Regarding the Beltway Sniper

By Theresa Fritz Camoriano

I have a great idea!  After the beltway sniper incident, it is clear that we need some new laws to protect us against future snipers.  So let’s make it against the law to shoot innocent people in parking lots, on the street, and while pumping gas.  Surely that law will stop any future snipers!

But seriously, this sniper scenario should remind us all that it is very difficult for the police or any government employees to protect us from someone who is intent on being destructive and doing harm.  We need to realize that, the vast majority of the time, our safety depends on our fellow private citizens voluntarily looking out for one another and refraining from harming each other.

So what would really make us safer?  – Two things:

1.      The government agencies that should be protecting us need to do their jobs more consistently and effectively.  The beltway snipers would not have been out there sniping if the agencies that were supposed to be protecting us had followed their own rules.  If the INS had followed its own rules and kept the illegal Jamaican immigrant John Lee Malvo in jail until he was deported, he would not have been out shooting people.  And if the policeman who had stopped John Allen Muhammad had run a routine background check on him, he would have learned of the outstanding warrants and arrested him, taking him off the street so he could not have been out shooting people.   (Perhaps if these agencies were putting their energies into stopping the bad guys who would harm us instead of wasting time and money trying to stop voluntary acts among consenting adults, they might be more effective.)  

2.      People should arm themselves so they can shoot back.  When the good guys are armed, the bad guys no longer have free rein to terrorize us.  Guns save lives.  There is nothing like a heavily armed populace to encourage people to be more polite to one another!

Also see:

JFPO’s take on the sniper http://www.jpfo.org/alert20021023.htm

Why is illegal alien, Jamaican sniper Lee Malvo, in the U.S.?  http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin.html

The Snipers in context By Daniel Pipes 
          It came as no surprise to learn that the lead suspect as the Washington, D.C.-area sniper is John Allen Muhammad, an African-American who converted to Islam about seventeen years ago. Nor did it surprise that seven years ago he provided security for Louis Farrakhan's "Million Man March." Even less does it amaze that he reportedly sympathized with the 9/11 attacks carried out by militant Islamic elements.
          All this was near-predictable because it fits into a well-established tradition of American blacks who convert to Islam turning against their country. http://jewishworldreview.com/1002/pipes.html

And:  Putting the risk of the sniper in perspective:

"Because at least 12 persons in the (Washington, DC) metropolitan area have been shot by the sniper and nine have died, there is about a 1-in-357,692 chance of being shot by the sniper and a 1-in-465,000 chance of being killed, based on the number of shootings and the total population.

"That compares to the 1-in-400 chance of dying of a heart attack this year, the one-in-5,304 chance of dying in a fall, the 1-in-5,877 chance of dying in a car accident and the 1-in-81,487 chance of dying in a house fire."

- Washington Times, 10/23/02

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