What should a free man do?

Hit and run jihad

An article written by Ryan Mauro adds some unction to things I've been thinking recently because of news items I've seen, um... recently. Ryan writes:

A radical Islamic terrorist attack doesn’t necessarily need several participants or a direct connection to a terrorist organization. It doesn’t need to be spectacular or done by someone motivated by nothing other than theology. It just needs to be an act of violence aimed at instilling fear in order to advance the cause of radical Islam, and it is because of this failure to understand what qualifies as a “terrorist attack” that the country does not see how many such acts have actually occurred. The increasingly ridiculous argument over whether Major Hasan’s Fort Hood shooting can be considered a terrorist attack underscores this point.

Read it all here.

Pretty cool car, huh?

Anyway, back on task.

I've written on vehicle attacks in the past here ~ be sure to watch all of the video posted at the bottom of the page there ~ but I'm beginning to believe that there is more free-lance jihad going on out there than we know a/o care to recognize.

Below are some stories about Muslims behaving badly while driving:

In the story here we can get a stomach-full of the Islamo-thug Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar who tried to kill students at the campus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill by driving over them in his SUV.

And then here we can read and see the video about the self-confessed jihadist who drove over and into as many people as he could on the way to San Francisco Jewish Center.

Here is the story of an Arizona Muslim who decided to re-arrange the shelves at his former place of employment by crashing his SUV through the doors.

Here we can read a little mystery about a Muslim man who decided, out of the blue evidently, to ram his car into another car. Was the driver on his own little jihad? I don't know. I'll keep you posted.

Here's a story about a Muslim man with terror links crashing his car in NYC in what was probably at least a suicide attempt... and I don't think it's a stretch to suggest he was trying to take as many infidels with him as he could.

And, item last; we have this film clip showing two girls in Los Angeles being deliberately struck and run over by a driver who apparently does nothing to slow down or avoid the collision and, in fact, continues to drive on, away from the scene. I don't know if the driver of the car was Muslim. But, given the attacks cited above, I won't be surprised if that's how it turns out.

So, what can we do about this? As always, the choice is up to you.

Here is a list of the Hit and Run laws in all 50 states. Here are general laws on Voluntary Manslaughter, Involuntary Manslaughter, and First Degree and Second Degree Murder. You need to familiarize yourself with these statutes in the states and provinces and shires where you live. Why? So you can make a reasonable man assessment as to the level of criminal behavior you might be witnessing another commit in your presence, and so you can know what the law says you can do about it legally, if that's what you choose to do.

If you're on foot and see this type of attack, one or more of these ideas miiiight work for someone who miiiight decide to take just a liiiittle bit of action:

• Throw your latte on the driver-side windshield ~ your over-priced beverage will obscure his vision at least momentarily and might whip up into a nice froth when he turns on the wipers.
• Throw a metal trash can or chair, a brick onto the driver-side windshield ~ anything hard and a bit heavy in order to bust up the windshield and obscure the driver's view and to mark the vehicle for later identification.
• Throw something through an open driver-side window and try to hit the driver and distract him. Um, hold onto your car keys. Odds are that you won't hit him if you throw a rock or something that size. I'm talking about throwing your lunch, assuming you're at a nice little bistro, or a bag of groceries or a newspaper or a handful of trash, some roadkill, a skateboard ~ anything to distract and slow down the driver. Best bet, seems to me, would be a hot beverage in the face. Nothing like a vente' Americano in the eyes to make you slam on the brakes and try to cool down and dry off. And, here's a thought: when he's stopped, maybe someone(s) can pull that fucker out of the car and restrain him using reasonable force until the cops show up. I'm just sayin'.
• Toss a sidewalk cafe table in front of the vehicle, or trash cans, newspaper boxes, something to slow the driver down either because he has to take time to avoid the obstacle or he hits them and the thrown object(s) acts as an anchor... or something.
• Key the car if it's not going too fast and you can do so without being injured ~ it will mark the vehicle and help the cops identify it if the driver gets away. Make sure you tell the cops that you keyed it and where.
• Bust a mirror off as the car goes by, to help cops identify it later.

If you're driving and see this type of attack, here are some options:

If the attack vehicle is in front you, get in close and lay on your horn to at least let pedestrians ahead of you know that trouble's comin'.

Maybe give the attack vehicle a bumper tap to let the driver know you're there and see him, and to tag the vehicle to make it easier to identify later, if he gets away.

You can try to jump to get out of the path of the approaching vehicle. Jump upwards and pull your legs up into your chest, like a cannonball into the pool, but put your hands behind your head and tuck your chin into your chest to protect your noggin. Try to land so the vehicle strikes you on the side. If all goes well, you'll roll over the top of the car and land on your ass on the ground. If you drop to the ground, the car might be low enough to crush you. And of course, you're going to get dragged down the street for a while.

Watch this video of a stuntman doing a nice roll over. He really sticks the landing. I give him a solid 8.5. If you're going to practice this drill, maybe you shouldn't let your ex drive the car, hmmm?

What about trying to ram an attacking vehicle? If that's what you decide to do, remember to not stop your vehicle to begin your approach, you need the momentum of a moving vehicle behind you when you strike. Pick whatever spot on the attacking vehicle that you can hit most efficaciously... the driver-side door is probably the best spot to aim for though it might not be accessible. Hold the gearshift lever in place because it could pop out of gear upon impact. You decide on the speed, but if you’re going too slow at impact or if you stop, you won’t have enough power and momentum to change the path of the attacking vehicle. And remember; you risk personal injury if you try to do this. And, of course, you'll be causing mechanical damage to your vehicle, which may disable it. If your vehicle has airbags, ramming might cause them to deploy, depending on a number of variables. Some engines are automatically shut off when an airbag is deployed. You should know what your vehicle will do upon impact because, if you hit smack into some guy as described above and he bails out of his vehicle with a gun, you'd better be able to get away. Quickly. Or shoot back. Quickly.

If you're feeling rrrrrreally adventurous, and the cops haven't shown up yet to save the day, take a look at the video above of the Oklahoma Highway Patrol (now you know why there's a picture of a bitchin' OHP patrol car up there) chasing and doing a spinout ~ eventually ~ on a stolen car. That's how you do it and you get a good look at three solid attempts that didn't work because of bad-guy driver skill and one final successful attempt that works because of good cop aggressiveness and determination. If you're going to practice this drill on your ex, let him or her know in advance.

What if you feel a moral obligation to do something more to stop this deadly attack? Here is the general definition of Justifiable Homicide, which you might have to commit if the totality of circumstances leads you to the reasonable conclusion that you need to use deadly force to end the threat posed by a particular driver, whatever his or her religion.

• Shoot what will probably amount to lots of bullets, into the driver. In order to accomplish this, you will have to shoot into and then through the driver-side windshield as the vehicle is approaching you or into the side windows as the vehicle passes you. Remember to take into account what's behind and beyond the target you're engaging. Your call totally.
• You must remember that the law in most states says that to stop a deadly attack by someone in a vehicle, you need to be shooting at the driver, not the vehicle. The driver controls the vehicle, therefore if you stop the driver, you stop the vehicle and stop the threat.
• If you're carrying a semi-automatic ~ and if you're not, I'll want to know why ~ you need to have at least one mag of hard-ball ammo available to fire in cases like this. Have more mags of hollowpoints for stopping people, but you'll need to be shooting hard-ball into the car. The more ammo the better, so 9mm is best in my view. For those of you who don't know the difference, I'm sure you'll be able to tell the difference by looking below. Something like #5 should do nicely for people, #4, #7, #9, #13 for cars.

Okay, then.

Jasper Schuringa

The flight coming in from Europe to Detroit on Christmas Day was carrying, in addition to the dirtbag I call the Wedgie Jihadist, a genuine unerschrocken hero, Jasper Schuringa, about whom you can read here.

 

Nice lookin' fella, eh? And, like former NYC mayor Ed Koch wondered in an editorial I can no longer find; where is praise and thanks from Obama to this hero? Nowhere. He's quick to wrongly say a police officer "acted stupidly" when arresting a black man, but there are no words of appreciation or even of acknowledgment to a genuine hero.

Be that as it may, it looks like others, according to Jasper at least, lent a hand although there were some who panicked and screamed.  I mean, what a pitifully stupid use of human energy in such a situation: to stand there and scream. If you're afraid to fight or can't get in any punches or kicks, then just pick a side and cheer ~ do a bake-sale or a car-wash for your guy ~ but don't stand there and scream.

Mark Steyn has written a couple of pertinent articles, here and here, which are both insightful and amusing. 

So now it looks like the wizards at TSA are going to solve the whole thing by screwing us over again. I agree with Mark Steyn; if they search you ~ someone wholly innocent ~ it's not because they're doing something right, it's because they're doing something wrong by not looking for or at the people who really need to be checked out thoroughly. Some of the new TSA rules, which may or may not be obeyed by the airlines, only kick in near the end of the flight. Why, oh why?

The reason detonation attempts are made just before landing are these: 

• Bombers would want to inflict maximum damage over a city both to horrify those on the ground and to kill as many as possible with the falling debris and fire, but it would not be easy to put a fully assembled bomb on a plane and detonate it within seconds of take-off. 
• Search procedures and equipment might detect a fully assembled device prior to emplacement on a plane so the components must be brought on separately and assembled in the air, which takes time to be done right.

That's the why. Here's the how:

• Depending on the complexity a/o size of the device, there might be as many or as few as three people carrying different components aboard, to assemble in-flight:
  • detonator, which can be as small as a cigarette lighter or a pencil
  • small booster charge into which the detonator would be placed
  • larger charge of  low-sensitivity/high energy explosive such as PETN
• For maximum damage to the plane, the charge would need to be detonated by someone in a window seat, over the wing fuel tanks. The charge would ideally be put on the floor to maximize explosive thrust through the floor into the tank, and up against the bulkhead to punch a hole in the wall, depressurizing the cabin and perhaps busting a chunk of the wing off so that it is more likely to separate from the fuselage, causing catastrophic failure and destruction of the aircraft. 

Below you can see the seats most likely to hold terrorists intent on bringing down a plane ~ in this case a Boeing 757.  Generally speaking, the most likely place a man or woman with a bomb will be seated is:

• Two-class configuration
  • Seats A or F, rows 12-22 for attempt to explode fuel tanks
  • Seats A or F, rows 21 or 22 to try to take off the wing, too
• Three class configuration
  • Seats A or F, rows 7-16 for attempt to blow fuel tanks
  • Seats A 0r F rows, 15 or 16 to try to take wing off, too

This area was where the Wedgie Jihadist sat, and where Richard Reid sat on his flight, as well.

 
Richard Reid, AKA: The Shoe Bomber

 
A reasonable facsimile of Reid's device

So, adjust those letters and numbers depending on which make and size of aircraft you're getting on. Basically, they want to get over the fuel tanks, against the wall, close to the trailing edge of the wing.

Maybe you'd like to keep an extra-open eye on people sitting in those seats.  I'm just sayin'. And, depending on the size of the bomb, there may be more than three people, in fact dry runs have been done in the past with as many as fourteen people.

Quick quiz: Anybody remember American Airlines Flight 587? No? Take a look here and let me know what you think: accident or successful attack. Witnesses on the ground that day said they heard two explosions ~ the sound of the plane going boom when it hit the ground and a smaller explosion a few moments before that ~ and saw there was a small explosion at the side of the plane, where the back of the wing meets the fuselage, and then the engine fell off and the plane crashed.

Okay, since nobody's going to be sneaking any shoe-bombs past those eagle-eyes at TSA, let's get back to the set-up we were discussing; three people trying to get a bomb on board a plane.

We know where the guy or girl with the explosives will be sitting.  What about the other two? My guess is they'd sit in front of the terrorist with the bomb so they can be seen by him when they go to the lavatory, which will probably be the lav closest to and in front of the terrorist with the bomb.

Assuming the terrorists rehearsed this many times, which they did, it might go like this:

• A team of three terrorists would buy tickets from a small airport ~ such as John Wayne or Ontario Airports near LA ~ trying to get on the biggest plane that flies out of there to the farthest destination to which planes from there can fly.
• At the proper time ~ generally, when there is less than an hour of flight-time left ~ the guy with the detonator goes to the designated lavatory and hides it.  The detonator is small and so can be hidden easily.
• When he's done, right behind him comes the one with the booster charge who finds the detonator and puts it into the small explosive charge and then hides the device again, which just got bigger, so there are fewer hiding places now. He may have had to carry the booster charge in a small container such as a paper bag or shaving kit. The device might be so large at this point that there is nowhere in the itsy-bitsy lav to hide it, so, one way or another it's going to be really really important that the guy with the bomb gets in the lav next.
• The guy wearing the bomb is waiting outside the lavatory door to enter when the guy who just hid the booster leaves. In order to pull this off, he might have to jump to the head of the line. His or her rude attempt might raise a ruckus so, if I were the genius putting this attack together, I'd use a woman for this part because men are more likely to let her jump the line without complaint. Plus, she can hide larger chunks of explosives in a bra or fake pregnancy device... whatever that's called.  She goes in with a travel bag ~ a large purse, or the pregnancy hump, perhaps ~ attaches the booster w/detonator to the chunk of explosive she's carrying and then proceeds back to her seat. At that time, the device is fully assembled, ready for her to detonate it, which will most likely be done as the aircraft is at a height where you can make out people on the ground. 
• Between the time the lady comes out of the latrine and the landing gear goes down, I wouldn't be surprised to see one or both of the others on the team walk up/down the aisle and give a signal to the woman; something like a thumbs-up of encouragement or to ask if she's ready to go.

So, below you can see what PETN in sheets  looks like on the roll. That's about 18" wide. It can be molded to body parts and would be almost impossible to detect if a full body scanner were not used. Magnanometers/wands won't pick it up, pat-down might not.  A dog probably would pick it up, though.  If it can be bought here or anywhere else in the country, then bad-guys can steal it, too.

 

So here's the deal: before you buy tickets for a flight, take a look at the layout of the plane, diagrams of which you can find at Ask.com or Bing.com, if the airline doesn't have them posted on their site.  If for some reason you plan to do absolutely nothing if the shit hits the fan, then get a seat in the back of the plane so you can stay out of the way.  If you intend to report suspicious activity to the flight crew a/o fight back in event of an attempted aircraft bombing/takeover, entirely your decision, you need to buy tickets for the seats terrorists want~ as discussed and depicted above ~ before they can purchase them.  If you can't get those, then get the seats next to or behind them. If you buy seats in front of them, then you blow your cover as you watch them, and lose the element of surprise if you choose to fight.

Take a look here at one of my previous posts on fighting on an airplane, and another post here with some more detail. Be sure to watch the video here made by a former Navy SEAL on how to take back a hijacked plane.

Suck it up, unerschrocken. It ain't gonna get better soon.

Hey, check this out.

Update: Take a look at this story if you aren't convinced they will try to blow up the plane on take-off.