Op-Ed: Mall safety: Take a cue from Israel

June 18, 2004
Cincinnati Enquirer

Your voice: Chad D. Baus

The specter of suicide bombers in shopping areas has long been a concern for citizens in Israel. That country has responded by encouraging citizens to be trained in defensive firearms use. Stories like this prove the success of Israel's efforts to curb terror:

• March 7, 2003 - The Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports that a young plainclothes cop named Salim Barakat was parked outside when a terrorist began to fire into a crowd of people. Officer Barakat shot and wounded the terrorist. But the gunman fought back, stabbing the policeman in the chest and killing him on the spot. Only then, reports Ha'aretz, did a "civilian on the scene shoot the gunman in the head, killing him."

• Feb. 22, 2002 - The Jerusalem Post reports an alert customer shot dead a terrorist who tried to set off an explosive device in a supermarket a few minutes ago in Efrat. The town is in Gush Etzion, a block of Jewish communities in Judea, south of Bethlehem.

Keith Batcher, chairperson of United Sportsmen of Maryland, has noted that having citizens armed does, in point of fact, translate into enhanced public safety. One of the most prominent, he noted, occurred in 1991 in Tel Aviv. Three Palestine Liberation Organization terrorists opened fire in a crowded restaurant, using fully automatic arms. They only managed to wound a couple of patrons before they were dispatched by Israeli citizens using their private arms.

The situation in Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas, also in 1991, had a much more distressing outcome, with 23 innocent lives lost. Texas legislators, not wishing any repeats of that incident, and comparing it to the occurrence in Israel, passed a "shall-issue" concealed-carry law, which allows citizens to carry concealed guns unless the state can prove a reason why they can't.

Already this year, the FBI has issued warnings that terrorists plan to target American shopping malls and city busses.

Yet some Ohio mall managers (listed at www.ohioccw.org) would rather disarm their customers than allow a law to work that just might save the lives of countless people should an attacker attempt to detonate an explosive.

Given the fact that the millions of concealed-carry permit holders in our nation are known as the most law-abiding of citizens, while terrorists continue to exhibit their desire to murder innocent Americans at will, why are some Ohioans more concerned about law-abiding citizens than they are about terrorists?

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Chad D. Baus of Archbold, Ohio is a spokesperson for Ohioans for Concealed Carry (www.ohioccw.org).

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