Also, who says the clock starts in 1830? Perhaps some earlier consideration of the history of Muslim North Africa might be in order.

War and imperialism are what they are, but there is no reason to characterize Muslims at any point in time as vast nations of put-upon innocents.

Police fired 5000 rounds (for two kills) in Paris Saint-Denis raid

That’s funny because they use Ruger Minis, the A-Teams firearm!
“For when you don’t really want to hit the target, just somewhere close to it.”

From the American Rifleman:

“As Americans are shocked and horrified by the carnage of another extremist Islamic attack in Paris—this one far worse than the Charlie Hebdo and Kosher market massacres—one of America’s most popular rifles is once again on the frontline in the war against terror. And it’s not a gun familiar from the nightly news. That gun is a nearly 30-year-old variant of the Ruger Mini-14 called the Mousqueton A.M.D., the latter is an abbreviation for Armement Moyen de Défense. The veteran rifles from Ruger have appeared on broadcasts around the world in hands of helmeted French police. And the guns are typically older than many of officers carrying them.”

Tho some are now equipped with another oldie, the Spaghetti Uzi.

The French security forces need visualizing training pronto! Is Michael Yon free?

Maybe The Secret should be required reading as well.

The essential problem is one of game theory. The safest thing for the group to do is mass rush the gunman/gunmen. But the immediately safest thing for each individual to do is to remain motionless and hope someone else gets shot.

Reading the account of the concert hall shooting, the striking thing was the way in which everyone just lay there doing nothing while the gunmen were reloading. Now, it sounds like they were trained well enough to have one cover while the other was reloading, but there were well over 300 people in there; an AK-47 magazine holds 30 rounds. It reminded me a little of the scene in Band of Brothers when Easy Company is attacking Foy and Lt. Dike loses his nerve.

Despite the major and the other officers repeatedly bellowing “keep moving, keep moving”, he can’t find the courage to do it with the Germans shooting at them, and the rest of the troops are pinned down as well. Not until Lt. Speirs relieved Dike and took command of Easy Company were they able to get moving again.

So, the assumption has to be that most people won’t do anything unless they think it is reasonably safe for them to act.

James LaFond weights in:

As in fighting, habits save your ass, not decisions. When the hate hits Hell’s gate the right habit beats the right decision.

Decisions are for thinkers.

Habits are for fighters.

The ironic thing is, once you have developed survivable habits—as with fighting—you now have the option to make timely decisions on the fly. Such clutch, actionable decisions are denied the man who does not cultivate survivable habits and thinks that he will just think himself out of whatever shit situation he might find himself in.

Even more LaFond, paraphrased:

Okay, France, under various regimes, spent from the 1830s to the 1960s slaughtering and terrorizing various Islamic peoples, primarily so that the British would not get to have all of the fun and be the only nation enslaving the lesser peoples of the world. I am not making any judgments here, simply wondering why a rapist nation would then invite as many of the descendents of its victims into its country as possible in a sappy quest for intergenerational penance. The fact that French people today think that they can atone for sins committed by long dead people is just as insane as American liberals trying to atone for the crimes of slave masters past, and merely encourages violence on the part of those who identify themselves as moral or racial descendents of past victims.

In my three-decade study of violence and aggression I have found only three necessary elements to predict aggression:

1. The confidence in one’s ability to successful execute an attack

2. A sense of justification for the desired aggression

3. Proximity, or, as with the U.S. Military, the ability to nullify proximity through technology such as drones

When a nation expresses guilt, extols non-violence and encourages and accepts the descendents of those its nation oppressed in the past, it sets all three of the necessary elements of aggression in motion, and violence becomes inevitable from that point.

And yes we are at war, but at war like with poverty and drugs, the keep it going so the money keeps flowing sort of war.

Waiting for them to run out of ammo is not a plan

It is largely our plan in the West at the moment.

We really have to become more martial; just a fact of life in a crowded world. It would be nice to have more space between people; so one could see trouble coming; and be farther away from it in the first place. But, alas, the womb and all that.

Our central authorities want to have the monopoly power on violence, and take credit for “keeping us safe” (Jeb Bush, circa 2015); but they might have to share.