Citizens' Defense Force

Who said that citizens cannot use self defense against mobsters and organized crime? If there's enough of them, and angry enough, they can mount a significant resistance:

Two members of a gang led by detained leader John Kei reportedly died in a clash with residents of Jl. Rawa Bambu, Tytyan Indah, Kalibaru, Bekasi, West Java, on Tuesday morning.[...]
The wounded man (a mobster who harassed locals and was fought off, ed.) later returned to the scene with other gang members to search for his attacker. During their search, they attacked Septian Yahya Saputra, 19, who suffered knife wounds to his back, head and left hand. Septian was later treated at Ananda Hospital in Bekasi.
Enraged by the attack, about 200 residents mobbed a gang member’s house in the Tytyan Indah housing complex on Monday evening.

Only problem is, Indonesain villagers are even too ready to use this kind of violence: against members of other tribes/religions, people accused of sorcery, policemen mistaken (more or less deliberately) as thieves etc.

Other strange news from Indonesia, by the way. "Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia’s biggest Muslim organization", last year held this ceremony:

Chairman Saiful Chalim of NU Surabaya branch said on Friday as quoted by tempointeraktif.com that his organization wanted Muslim people to understand carefully that the concept of jihad was not merely a war against infidels.
“In 1945, NU called on its adult members to perform jihad by joining Indonesian soldiers fighting against the Netherlands and Britain. This monument will be a reminder of our past struggle and the meaning of jihad,” Chalim said.

Now they oppose the notorious FPI:

JAKARTA: The country’s largest Muslim organization, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), says it has thrown its weight behind a new outfit set up to counter the onslaught of firebrand organizations like the Islam Defenders Front (FPI).

NU secretary-general Marsudi Suhud said that the new outfit, called the Ahlussunnah Wal Jamaah (Aswaja) militia, had a similar mission to that of the NU in promoting pluralism, moderation and justice.

“The two institutions must work together to protect the ideology of pluralism against those who threaten violence and use bullying to scare off the public,” Marsudi said in a statement.

No Guns Required #2

After all, it's not that cricket bats, golf clubs, metal poles and a sword can be used to kill anyone, right?

Mengamuk 2007

It is interesting to explore a bit of the history and distribution of killing sprees. Mengamuk (to go mad with rage) is the Malay word for the phenomenon, but many languages have equivalent expressions - in Italian, an episode of murderous rage is often called raptus (di follia - "of insanity" is frequently attached). The words raptus and rapture share the same root. The Norse instead had the berserker, a warrior unleashing his fury against the enemies in battle. Cases of "divine possession" of warriors who then fight with superhuman vigor are part even of the Greek mithology.

Notice anything? Yes, the mengamuk phenomenon vastly predates the invention of firearms. Even today, in south-east Asia the weapons of choice remain bladed ones.
One may argue that firearms make killing sprees more lethal, but even that is debatable: the Filipino man in the story cited above killed 10 people with a bladed weapon; according to the 1911 Webster Enciclopedia:

Thus, in 1634, the eldest son of the raja of Jodhpur ran amok at the court of Shah Jahan, failing in his attack on the emperor, but killing five of his officials. During the 18th century, again, at Hyderabad (Sind), two envoys, sent by the Jodhpur chief in regard to a quarrel between the two states, stabbed the prince and twenty-six of his suite before they themselves fell.

These casualty figures are similar if not higher than those of some modern-day killing sprees involving firearms.

Episodes of raptus (as separated from passional murder) in Italy occur most often within married couples or families, and rarely involve people out of blood or close friendship bonds. The weapons used by the killers are the most disparate: I've heard of knives, axes, hammers, iron bars and other blunt objects - and of course guns. In a particularly horrible case, a petrol station owner being tried (if I remember correctly; it was long ago) for sexual violence against his children forced himself and his whole family into a puddle of gasoline and set everything on fire.

There is something dark and bloody in the human heart.

Indeed, I say, and no amount of gun control is going to change that.

No Guns Required

A view implicit in many statements regarding the Virginia Tech massacre, or Columbine, is that firearms (and particularly, full-auto assualt rifles or submachineguns) are necessary to commit mass murder, and without them killing a large number of people before the cops will intervene is nearly impossible. But maybe things aren't so straightforward.

One example may be the Rwandan genocide, which has been carried out in large part with machetes (apparently, purchased in bulk from China).

As for the Virginia Tech shooting, according to the official statements Cho fired over 170 rounds from a .22 (Walther) and a 9mm (Glock) semiautomatic handguns in about 9 minutes. Other sources estimate that he had 7 magazines for his Walther and 2 for the Glock: this means that Cho had to manually reaload his magazines at some point - and he could do so without being confronted.

At Columbine, instead, Harris and Klebold carried a variety of weapons, but interestingly no full-auto firearms. What they had, instead, was plenty of homemade bombs of various types. They also used sawed-off shotguns shorter than 26 in., which made them illegal under existing laws.

Anyway, there is another recent story of a massacre perpetrated without guns, but only with a bladed weapon (at least, if reporting is accurate): a man in the Samar province of the Philippines went on a rampage*, killed 10 people, among them many children, and wounded 14 others before surrendering to another villager. The article describes the weapon as a "21-inch-long knife", but I speculate that it may have been something different, a parang or a bolo perhaps (this is, admittely, a minor point).

But then, the response of the lefty elites would be to ban knives too - actually they have already done it.

Note: The post title has been changed from "Guns Required" on 8 Jun.
*It is an altogether different language, but the Malay/Bahasa Indonesia word mengamuk is fitting.

Stopping Measures

There's another consideration about the Blacksburg massacre that I'd like to see addressed.

It seems to be a common, implicit opinion (and noto nly on the gun-control side) that if Cho could not buy his guns at the shop, the massacre would not have happened.

Is it actually so?

Cho, that is clear, was a seriously disturbed individual. A paranoid schizophrenic, he exhibited the willingness to die in order to complete his murderous plan. If the sale of guns had been denied to him, would he have given up his intentions?

I frankly doubt it. I think he was too far gone to recover - except maybe with strong and mandatory mental health treatment. There are many other methods that a determined individual can use to kill a large number of people - especially if he does not care about getting away: bombs, fire, poison... A technical university like the one he attended almost surely stores a number of chemicals that can be used for mass-murder (and be happy with this paucity of detail about it). My take is that the only way to stop Cho from causing mayhem would have been to institutionalize him - or kill/disable him in the early stages of his rampage.

Both these alternatives are harsh and unpleasant, but there seems to be no better one.

Morte in Virginia

Notizia dell'ultima ora, un uomo armato è entrato nel campus del Virginia Tech ed ha aperto il fuoco contro gli studenti in almeno due riprese - uccidendone un numero che secondo le fonti varia da 22 a 32, egli stesso compreso.

E' una tragedia che tanti giovani siano ammazzati così barbaramente. Poi sapremo chi era l'assassino, e perchè (se di un perchè si può parlare) ha commesso questa strage, ma per ora mi preme fare presenti due punti che penso pochi discuteranno.

1 - La prima sparatoria Il primo assalto è avvenuto due-tre ore prima del secondo. In questo lasso di tempo, la polizia non solo non è riuscita a neutralizzare l'assassino, ma nemmeno ha evacuato il campus (che è, certamente, molto grande). Invece, è stato imposto un lockdown - ossia, agli studenti è stato ordinato di rimanere dove si trovavano ed attendere altre istruzioni.

2 - Il porto di armi era già strettamente vietato nel campus. Una proposta di legge per eliminare il divieto è stata rifiutata nel Gennaio 2006 dalla commissione competente, ancora prima di arrivare al voto dell'Assemblea della Virginia. In un caso di amara ironia, il portavoce dell'università all'epoca dichiarò di apprezzare la decisione dell'Assemblea perchè avrebbe aiutato tutte le persone nel campus a sentirsi più sicure - la sottile ma reale differenza fra sentirsi sicuri ed esserlo realmente.

N.B. - La situazione si sta ancora evolvendo, quindi alcuni dei dettagli della strage riportati qui e nelle fonti collegate potrebbero non corrispondere al vero.

Curious Incident at Stansted

While I was at the gate waiting for my plane - on Sunday 18 March, at 11:30 - 11:40 - I was witness to an incident involving police: four armed officers (equipped with thoroughly tacti-cooled MP-5s or similar) escorted a cuffed suspect into the gate building - he was coming from outside, presumably - but I don't know whether he was a passenger on a flight. After a while, the two remaining officers escorted the subject out of the building and into a police car that had arrived in the meantime, and so the episode ended.

The perp was a white caucasian male, 25-30 years old, rather tall and slender. I would say he had an eastern-european appearance, but I can be wrong. He wore black jeans, a grayish striped jumper and a sleeveless, dark blue quilt jacket. He was quiet and meek while held into custody - and I repeat, he had nothing of the Black, Arab, Pakistani or generally Muslim look.

Scam Mail Warning

I received an e-mail saying:

British Petroleum (BP)
PLCHuman Resource Department
1 St James's Square London,SW1Y 4PD
TEL: +44-703-184-1852
Ref: 01/007/HRD/BPPLC
Date:15/01/2007



JOB ALERT!

Could you be the right person for this job offer? What if our judgement was wrong? You might want to try your hands on it but unfortunately we are only looking for professionals with expectional expertise, highly spirited individuals who are ready to take up a rewarding challenges in the oil and gas industry.

BP, a well established and reputable oil/gas company with rapidly growing wide network of outlets around the world, seeks to attract resourceful individuals craving for a refreshing opportunity yet characteristically possesses the skill and uprightness to excellently deliver amidst limited assistance.

JOB LOCATIONS
- South-Africa
- Europe
- U.S.A

METHOD OF APPLICATION
- All interested candidates should reply via mail with updated Resumes (CV).- Interested applicants must specify job location
- Only applicants who possess the required qualifications will be short-listed whence consequently contacted.

All Resumes should be fowarded to: bp_recruitingsection@yahoo.co.uk
*********************************************
HR
DepartmentRecruitment
SectionLondon(UK)
*********************************************

That comes complete of a nice BP logo in the top left corner. Well, I've gone through the real BP recruitment process, and it's not like that. Especially, the yahoo.co.uk e-mail address should be a giveaway. Applications should instead be submitted online at this address only; there is no other legit way.

What may happen to those sending their resume to the fake BP, I don't know. But I can speculate that at least their personal information will be used to target them with all sorts of spam. In the worst case, their identity may be stolen. So beware. If I am wrong, please serve me a succulent roast crow.

By the way, forging communications in this fashin may very well be a legal offense. But I'm sure BP can take care of its own legal affairs by itself.

Mugged by Reality (Maghrebis)

That's what happened to my mate on the New Year's Eve night in Parma. To make a long story short, a few of us walked down the stairs to a square below street level, to take a leak in the urinals down there. After a little while, a bunch of youngsters, probably Moroccan or anyway from the Maghreb began insulting us with "Fucking Italians" and the like. I told the screamin one to get lost, then I noticed my mates were orderly retreating up the stairs, so I joined them and from upstairs I even threw a firecracker at the thugs (but it went way off target... alcohol doesn't help with aim).

The the Moroccans or whatever ran away, and I thought they placed a big salute somewhere. But at that point the last of my mates emerged from a archway below - unscathed, but utterly surprised (and drunk) yelled "I think they got my wallet... and cell phone!". He got isolated and was surrounded by four attackers - who did not harm or even threaten him, but with quick hands extracted his goods from his pockets. If we remained grouped, they wouldn't have done anything.

When he calmed down a bit, we called the cops, which arrived a while later, and told us they couldn't do much anyway, especially with the crowd in the streets. One of them also used epithets for the muggers that in London would get him fired from the Police and tried for "racism".

Truth to be told, my mate was very obnoxious that night, and bound to land into trouble. However, his luck ran out not with a citizen understandably pissed off by his antics, but with a gang of thugs out there to cause mayhem. They didn't try to touch me tho. Maybe it's just good luck, but I also am more street-wise than him, and meaner - even in the looks.

The most worrysome part is not the mugging itself, but the close resemblance to what's happening with the Algerians and the like in France. I should get enrolled with the range here as soon as possible...