Guns Don't Kill People, Cars Do.

I put an article up recently, titled Aramoana and the “American Disease” – Fear in the Land of The Brave, that dealt with gun violence, but a new disease is spreading and this one might be a lot harder to contain. Countries with tighter restrictions on firearms are finding themselves the target of a new type of terrorist.

The vehicular rampage driver is gaining popularity with those who may have obstacles in their way when it comes to obtaining a firearm. The danger with this, is that in most jurisdictions globally, it’s easier to get a driver’s licence than a firearms licence. You don’t even have to be rich enough to buy a car, rentals are surprisingly cheap.

Think about it, when someone decides to drive a car into a crowd of pedestrians, it really doesn’t matter if they bothered to pay the bills or spent it on their weapon. They will most likely end the day dead or imprisoned. And the damage will already have been done.

The Aramoana article discussed the availability of weapons designed purely to kill people and the flow on effect of those weapons being purchased by civilians and subsequently used in massacres.

This article will address another point made in Aramoana, the one about how people who want to kill other people will achieve their aims by means aside from firearms. Bombs were the weapon of choice for a while there and seem to be making somewhat of a resurgence these days. Knives have always been popular, but the motor vehicle has become the cool new thing amongst mass murderers.

We’re told that the September 11 Terror Attacks were carried out by a bunch of blokes with nail clippers. I don’t dispute this, I’m not trying to foment conspiracy theories, I’m only pointing out that if you put your mind to it, you can turn near anything into a weapon.

My mate Scroll, who travels regularly for work, has told me of a chap in line before him who had his nail clippers taken from him at the security point. This bloke would agree with me. He then, allegedly, (Scroll is a trustworthy guy), rolled his boarding pass into a cone, folded the open end closed and proceeded to punch it an inch into an apple. The clippers were still confiscated but he kept his boarding pass and took that potentially deadly weapon on an international flight.

The biggest question from that story is, what happened to the apple?

Incidences of vehicular massacres is on the rise in Western Democracies, kicked off by the attack in Nice on Bastille Day 2016. There have, of course been incidences before, but since that moment, the regularity of these attacks has increased. Most of the more recent ones have been linked to Islamic Extremism, but a few have been kicked into the Mental Illness category and now we have this guy in Toronto who apparently did it because women wouldn’t sleep with him. Alek Minassian will more than likely end up in the insane basket unless any credible evidence can be found that he is part of some weird online misogynist organisation.

 Which brings us to the way that terrorism is publicly perceived. The mainstream media and some of the more xenophobic politicians tell us that all terrorists are Muslim. This is a falsity that needs to be addressed. Everyone seems to forget that before September 11, the worst terrorist attack on American soil was a result of Timothy McVeigh detonating a bomb in front of the Oklahoma State Building and The Unabomber wasn’t a member of Hezbollah or any other recognised terror organisation.

Blaming everything on Muslims is counterproductive in the current geopolitical situation we find ourselves in. True Terrorism is race and religion neutral. In January 2017, James Gargasoulas terrorised the entire city of Melbourne by driving a car down the footpath of Bourke Street. His actions probably had a ripple effect around other major cities. Gargasoulas has no links to Islamic extremism that have been found or as far as I can ascertain, no political affiliations whatsoever. He’s mounting the mental incapacity defence and his lawyers will be able to find a psychiatrist who will give a favourable assessment. No terrorism charges have been laid against him, so it’s likely his defence strategy will work in his favour.

Perhaps the legislation needs to be changed to represent the effects on the community in which the act occurred rather than just being limited to acts that are deemed politically, ideologically or religiously motivated. I’m not suggesting that mental illness can’t be a contributing or singular motivation for vehicular (or other) massacres, just that it doesn’t preclude an act from being terrorism in its truest form. A credible argument could be mounted to suggest that all of those who survived their attacks and are now in the Criminal Justice System, having been charged with terrorism offences, are mentally unsound.

Which, by itself, is not enough to assert that all terrorists are mentally unsound, simply that those who commit the acts may have a tendency to be so. It is no secret that terrorist groomers focus their attention on disenfranchised youth and to infer those youth suffer from a mental condition such as depression/anxiety does not require too much of an imagination stretch. In the same way that pimps, paedophiles and other degenerates choose their targets, terrorist groomers follow the same modus operandi. Target the weak and vulnerable, appeal to their sensitivities and eventually they’ll agree to do what you have suggested.

Not all mass murderers are groomed. Some of them figure it out on their own. Others are what most media call ‘inspired’, i.e. saw something on youtube or a similar service and figured it might be a good idea to murder their fellow humans after being provided with a template to do so. What I’m really surprised about, is that no one has resorted to that old fail safe – video games. Most of the perpetrators regarding this kind of terror attack are of an age where having played anything from the Grand Theft Auto video game franchise isn’t beyond the realms of possibility and is probably likely. While the link between video games and mass murder is as tenuous as linking Heavy Metal music to suicides in the eighties and nineties, I expected at least one morals campaigner to have had a crack at Rockstar Games.

What it all really comes down to is the availability of weapons and what the definition of a weapon is. As a pedestrian, I am well aware that a car in the hands of an incompetent driver can be as deadly as a firearm, but no one is suggesting that every driving exam be accompanied by a psychiatric assessment and it’s not like you need a licence to buy a knife or a screw driver, or nail clippers.

We find ourselves in a fractious political situation at present. The rise in extremism on all sides of the spectrum is becoming more relevant with every passing day and societies are being forced to adapt to this situation. Bollards and barriers are becoming commonplace in areas of public gatherings, transport hubs and pedestrian precincts globally. While quite effective in stopping a vehicular massacre, they do nothing to prevent someone on foot with a firearm or knife. This was demonstrated separately at Westminster and London Bridge in 2017 when the two techniques were combined and resulted in a total of 13 casualties. But if you want to talk about knife massacres you really need to talk to the Japanese.

Since the end of The Second World War, guns have been essentially illegal in Japan for anyone that doesn’t need one for their job. But knives are as available as they are in any other country and have been used to great effect over the last few decades. In 2008, Tomohiro Kato killed seven people when he ran through an anime/manga sales centre randomly stabbing people and in 2016, Satoshi Uematsu decided to further the cause of euthanasia by murdering 19 people in a nursing home. These aren’t isolated incidents, but they provide us with more examples of how those that wish to do harm will find a way to do so. Don’t get me wrong, I support euthanasia and hope it’s legal by the time I want to die, it’s only most of those people probably didn’t want to die yet and if they did, I’m pretty comfortable saying they would’ve preferred a method other than stabbing.

Japan, in terms of mass killings is probably best known for the attack on The Tokyo Subway Network in 1995 by the Aum Shinrikyo Cult, led by Shoko Asahara, that left 12 people dead and above 5000 injured. But Sarin is something that requires the resources to produce it. That rules out most ‘lone wolf’ terrorists – unless you have access to a laboratory and the precursors and equipment required, you’re screwed when it comes to perpetrating a chemical attack.

But you don’t need even need a licence or the capital to rent a vehicle to commit a vehicular massacre, you can steal a vehicle. You need even less to buy a knife, hell, you could use the blade to carjack someone. You can even make them if you want to, just watch any prison show – if you can sharpen it, you can stab someone with it, hell. Or you could speak to a teacher. I once had a mate in such a situation and he used to show me the videos of the fights that the kids at the high school where he taught. One time he threw a wooden shiv on my couch and told me he’d confiscated it from a fourteen-year old kid that morning. The child had made it in woodshop.

Just like breaking the leg off a bar stool in a bar brawl or finding a piece of chain or crowbar in a bikie clubhouse used to be the improvised weapons used in violent attacks. Baseball and cricket bats have also been popular. But in terms of lethality, these are limited in their scope when it comes to mass killings. They are still weapons, however, and can be just a lethal a bullet, blade or Barina. If you want to use a blunt weapon to cause bulk damage you’re picking the wrong tool. Someone would have to have trained and be well versed in using such weapons in a combat situation to have any significant body count by the end of their spree. Imagine someone running through a crowded thoroughfare such as a city mall swinging a blunt object with abandon. Being much harder to conceal than a knife, something such as a baseball bat being brandished as a weapon will terrorise most people close enough to the initial victim to flee the scene.

With a diminishing number of potential victims and a weapon that requires, in most cases, multiple strikes to be effectively lethal, this kind of attack may not even reach the FBI’s measure of mass killings as ‘four or more’ fatalities. It will, however most likely cause fear and panic until the perpetrator is subdued, but possibly for much longer. Knives will cause many more deaths in such a situation, not only for their concealability, but the ability to hit a victim in various locations, any of which could prove fatal as the victim bleeds out before first responders can respond. It is in situations like this where selfless bravery is often displayed.

Kirsty Boden, an Australian nurse ran towards the victims of the London Bridge Attack and tragically lost her life doing what she was trained to do. Wayne Marques is another example from that same attack. A London Transport Officer armed only with a billy club took on the three attackers. He fortunately survived and perversely proves my point about what constitutes a weapon. His training and courage enabled him to do what he did with nothing more than a glorified stick. My understanding is that The Victoria Cross Medal is often presented to those who placed themselves in personal danger to render assistance or rescue their comrades. If either of these two examples had been active service members in a war zone, there is little scope to imagine them not at least being recommended for the award and any Commanding Officer would be remiss not to petition for the recognition of their actions.

But the actions of two individuals, as admirable (and un-isolated as they were) is not the answer to the problem. After attacks of a similar nature, reports of strangers administering assistance to strangers abound. The Nice and Bourke Street Attacks contain many accounts of similar behaviour, as have attacks in Berlin and New York. The Toronto attack was no exception either. The selfless and heroic actions of such individuals as Boden and Marques are indicative of the fact that humanity is not completely screwed, yet.

As with most things that involve injury or loss of life, prevention is better than a cure. The predicament Liberal Democracies find themselves in, is that, “The Disease” has already taken hold. Unlike firearms, cars and knives are incredibly easy to access and many of the attackers are citizens of the country in which they commit their crime. Homegrown radicalisation is probably the most dangerous threat regarding public safety in Western Nations of the modern era. Sure, you can argue Nuclear War and Climate Change as greater threats, but not immediately, not when you wake up in the morning, leave the house and attempt to go about your daily business when someone runs you over in a vehicle on your lunch break.

Death by Nukes was on the back-burner for a moment until Trump decided to turn the heat back up on Iran and no one, except maybe the Pacific Islands seem to be that concerned with global warming. I could expand on these topics, but I might leave them for a later date. This rambling analysis of the world we find ourselves in has almost run its length. For millennia, humans have used their vehicles as weapons. From the Ancient Greeks, setting their boats alight and navigating them into enemy fleets, to The Japanese in World War Two with their kamikaze pilots and culminating in the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. I find it hard to believe that The World Trade Centre attacks will be duplicated anytime soon. At least not in a first world country. The security measures seem to be working, unless you know how to fashion cardboard into a weapon as mentioned earlier. But, you can still carry a litre bottle of Jack onto a plane in your duty-free bag. I know I’m not alone in my assumption that the shattered end of a bottle of Whiskey would be more dangerous than a set of nail clippers, but there are few restrictions regarding alcohol containers on flights. The sharp edge of an aluminium can could effectively cause more damage than clippers as well, and these are served on flights.

And you can still access vehicular transport or buy a cheap steak knife from the $2 Dollar Shop and cause significant harm. People killing people is nothing new. Even using cars, trucks and motorbikes is not a phenomenon unique to this century. Vehicles have long been popular tools for murder in The Middle East, but they’ve traditionally had a bomb attached to them, most notably, the attack on the US Embassy in Beirut in 1982. While the IRA were fans of driving a bomb to the door using construction machinery. It’s this modern trend of driving into crowds and not exploding that is of most concern in Western Democracies where access to explosives and the knowledge to use them is not common, though growing.

Which raises more concern about returning foreign fighters and the Dark Web spreading the capabilities and know how globally. The Australian Authorities keep bringing up the fact they foiled a plot to get a bomb on a passenger plane in August 2014, proving this is beginning to happen. The combination of these two methods would cause mass casualties if successful and we would be ill prepared to defend against it. While major public events in the Capital Cities, such as Grand Finals and Music Concerts is probably the best it can be, we are a country that loves the outdoors. Suburban or Regional sporting matches can attract crowds of hundreds or thousands for derby games and have nowhere near the resources to prevent such an attack. Thousands more leave the Capital Cities throughout the year to congregate in Regional Towns for outdoor music festivals and it is these activities that will present as Soft Targets if this practice becomes commonplace.