Paul Dragu

Lock ’n Load, America

 By Paul Dragu

On October 7, the world was shocked, angered, and saddened to learn that a small army of barbarians living like sardines in a 25-mile stretch of desert broke through Israel’s usually impenetrable southern border and killed more than a thousand Jewish civilians.

But the emotion that seemed to take up the most real estate in Western hearts was moral shock at the animalistic brutality of the Hamas terrorists. It didn’t matter how harmless the Jews they came across were, or that they posed no physical threat. Hamas killed them. The few they let live were taken hostage.

Hamas terrorists killed indiscriminately. It was as if they were playing a round of Grand Theft Auto. The goal was to mow down as many people as possible. Old people, children, women — it didn’t matter. They were Jews, that’s what counted.

They also paraded women they had just raped through the streets of Gaza like captured exotic animals, as Palestinian onlookers cheered their approval. Hamas terrorists made video recordings of themselves desecrating dead Jewish bodies and posted them on the internet. And during their entire murderous rampage, they laughed about it.  

These are not people, these are animals, commentators noted. Israeli officials referred to Hamas terrorists as savages. Ben Shapiro put it accurately and succinctly: This is what evil looks like.

After the surprise attack, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir made a move to arm more Israeli civilians. On October 8, he said in a post on X, “Today I directed the Firearms Licensing Division to go on an emergency operation, in order to allow as many citizens as possible to arm themselves.”

Oddly enough, Israel, a country literally surrounded by enemies that have for generations tried to wipe them off the face of the planet, makes it difficult for its citizens to arm themselves. For thousands of years, Jews have endured persecution and attempts at complete annihilation. One of those attempts happened within recent memory — we have witnesses and documentation, including photos of dead Jews stacked up like piles of chopped wood. Yet, despite every Jew being born with the knowledge of its embattled existence, the nation’s leaders do not consider easy access to effective self-defense means a natural right. The New York Times reported, “The United States considers handgun ownership a constitutionally protected right, while Israel considers gun permits a privilege, granted by the Ministry of Public Security strictly on the basis of need.”

This is bonkers.

According to Israel’s Ministry of National Security, citizens who want personal firearms need to meet several requirements, including citizenship or permanent residency, fluency in Hebrew, the minimum age, clearance from a doctor, and complete firearms training. While those requirements may seem reasonable to some (not me), that’s only the beginning. Israelis also need to make a case for why they “need” a firearm. And once they satisfy that inane criterion, they must adhere to restrictions on how many firearms and how much ammunition they can own. In most cases, the weapon allowed is a pistol with a limit of fifty bullets. Fifty! Many Americans can find that many bullets by cleaning out their pickup. Furthermore, in Israel, the government grants a license only for a specific firearm, and if you want another firearm, you need another license.

This has proven to be a lethally stupid approach. In the week after the attack, stories already emerged proving that had Israelis been more armed, the body count would’ve been lower. The Times reported on the Levi family, who hid in a room with a reinforced door. When the terrorists sprayed it with bullets, Mr. Levi shot back through the holes. Eventually, the terrorists moved on to easier targets, which tragically proved easy to find. This is universally true of predators — they target the weak and defenseless.

Given the latest holocaust, maybe the country’s firearms laws will now change. There are signs that Israel’s leadership is beginning to understand the error of its ways. Ben-Gvir announced on October 10 that his ministry is buying 10,000 rifles to arm civilian security teams, specifically those in towns close to Israel’s borders, as well as mixed Jewish-Arab cities and West Bank settlements.

But it sounds like they are still missing the point. All law-abiding Israelis should be able to buy a firearm — whenever they’d like and with ease. It should not matter where they live, and they shouldn’t have to justify their “need” for one. Law-abiding Israelis should be able to walk into a gun store, pick out the firearm of their choice, mention to the clerk that they plan to use it as a paperweight, pass a quick criminal background check, and go home with a firearm and plenty of bullets. This is how it works in America, despite efforts to change that.

For decades, American politicians have tried to undermine Americans’ inalienable right to own firearms. They have made a number of arguments, each more baseless than the other, yet all with the goal of making it incrementally difficult for Americans to own firearms. They’ve tried to punish law-abiding citizens for suicides, crime, and, of course, mass shootings, by trying to make it more difficult to obtain firearms. Like the opportunist sociopaths many of them are, Democrats have usually made gun-control pushes after tragedies involving some lunatic who violates the law forbidding murder by murdering people. They don’t even wait for the blood to be rinsed from the crime scene before circling the scene like vultures. Politicians have discussed or drafted legislation with the intention of banning the popular and scary-looking AR-15 rifle (as they did in the ’90s) or guns with magazines that hold more than ten rounds. They’ve drafted legislation that would require firearm owners to have “gun insurance,” hold gun manufacturers responsible for shootings, and implement a national gun registry.

But a vociferous and uncompromising bloc of Americans has always met these unconstitutional flirtations with stiff resistance. The propagandists posing as journalists and the geniuses making up the punditry class like to blame the failure of gun control on the gun lobby’s strength. This is like saying the reason I catch big fish is because hook manufacturers make big hooks. Gun control doesn’t pass because Americans know it is a dangerously stupid and unconstitutional idea, and they push back with great force whenever it’s brought up.

Many Americans who weren’t convinced of the need for personal protection learned the error of their ways during the “mostly peaceful” riots of 2020. That’s when the police were overpowered or sidelined by a homegrown insurrection class led by Marxist-trained revolutionaries and made up of a combination of naïve, ignorant, and brainwashed college-educated yuppies and street thugs. These useful idiots burned police cruisers and police stations, looted private businesses, and assaulted American citizens with impunity. In response, average Americans set a new record for gun purchases, with the FBI tallying a new high of 21 million background checks over that year.

Three years later, we are busy defending values and truths previous generations never even dreamed would ever be on trial. We allowed amoral windbags to take over academia and medical associations, who then invented “genders,” social grievances, and existential threats. Then they spilled that poison into the mainstream. And now we have to explain to our children why Donnie can never be Danielle and that nobody is responsible for the actions of someone else just because they share the same skin color.

Meanwhile, while we’re busy defending basic biology that humans have accepted for thousands of years, there exist real threats like those made good on Israel.

On American soil dwell demonic savages with no qualms about taking human life — and doing so in the most inhumane manner. These are people who have no problem cutting your heart out and mailing it to your family, axing your child to pieces in front of you, or submerging you in a barrel of acid to watch you die slowly and very painfully. This is what Salvadorian and Mexican gang members who are in the United States have done.

But despite the threat Central and South American gang members have posed for years, the Biden administration has flung wide open the doors of the U.S. border. Since fiscal year 2021, at least 7.5 million illegal immigrants have crossed into the U.S., according to Customs and Border Protection. This administration has sent very few illegals back, and it has never broadcast a satisfactory explanation for why it’s allowing so many illegal immigrants into a sovereign nation. It hasn’t even admitted that is what it’s doing. Alejandro Mayorkas, the subversive leading the Department of Homeland Security, has lied to Congress with impunity. He has looked congressmen in the eye and said the border is not open, despite the government’s own data saying that it is very much wide open.

But Hamas’ October 7 holocaust should remind Americans that we face more than the threat of MS-13 and Mexican cartel gangsters. The number of illegal immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere has more than doubled over the last year. According to the 2024 Homeland Threat Assessment, it has risen from 110,000 Eastern Hemisphere migrants in fiscal year 2022 to 228,000 so far in fiscal year 2023. The Eastern Hemisphere includes Africa and the Middle East, among other areas.

It gets better. DHS reports that “Individuals with potential terrorism connections continue to attempt to enter the Homeland.” And, no surprise, they’re exploiting our porous border: “Terrorists and criminal actors may exploit the elevated flow and increasingly complex security environment to enter the United States.” Did you catch that sneaky euphemism? Increasingly complex security environment. Who said bureaucrats aren’t creative?

The number of people on the FBI’s terror watchlist crossing the border is up, too. From DHS: “As of July, approximately 160 non-US persons [on the terrorist watchlist] attempted to enter the United States via the southern border this year, most of whom were encountered attempting to illegally enter between ports of entry. This represents an increase from the approximately 100 encounters in all of FY 2022.”

DHS admits that terrorists like the ones who butchered Israelis are already here: “Iran relies on individuals with pre-existing access to the United States for surveillance and lethal plotting — using dual nationals, members of criminal networks, and private investigators — and has attempted plots that do not require international travel for operatives.” Furthermore, “Foreign terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS are seeking to rebuild overseas, and they maintain worldwide networks of supporters that could seek to target the Homeland.” Remember, it only took 19 men to pull off 9/11.

Americans need to face reality. The potential for Hamas-like carnage on American soil is very real. In 2020, we learned that our law enforcement departments can’t always maintain order. And if radical Muslims have their way, it’ll make the BLM and Antifa riots of 2020 look like a carousel ride.

Americans would be foolish to dismiss Israel’s horrific ordeal as an impossibility here. The terrorists are already here. Our own government admits this. They were here before Biden’s installment in the White House, and more have likely sneaked in since.

Citizens need to organize and pressure legislators to prioritize sealing the border. We must also expand the scope of the Second Amendment. Twenty-six states have passed constitutional carry; that means there are 24 that haven’t. Law-abiding citizens should not need special permission to carry a concealed firearm.

In the meantime, we need to remain watchful and ready to protect our families and communities. The world is a dangerous place, and that includes here in America. We must be prepared for the worst, and work to ensure it never happens.

Paul Dragu

Paul Dragu is the communications director for The John Birch Society and the host of The New American Daily TV and radio show. He is an award-winning investigative journalist and the collaborative writer of Defector: A True Story of Tyranny, Liberty and Purpose. Paul immigrated to the United States from communist Romania as a boy.

Published with permission of thenewamerican.com