Social Combat Against Terrorists

Mumbai terrorist 2008

You are in a restaurant, looking at the menu, when suddenly the door crashes open and you hear someone shouting "Allahu Akbar", followed by shots. LOUD shots. You look up, and 3 metres from you stands a man carrying a gun, with his back to you. A surge of adrenaline hits. Your perception of space and time changes. This is IT.

How do you react? You have a choice.

First option, get under the table and wait to die. The gunman can stroll around, picking you all off one by one, at leisure. Let's call this the Passivity Option.

Second option: you, and others, rush forward and overpower him. Call it the Resistance Option.

Both options carry the risk of death, but the scale is different. 

The Passivity Option means as many people die as he has bullets in his gun and on his belt. Could be everyone in the place, including you.

The Resistance Option means no-one may die, or maybe one or two resistance fighters may get injured or die, depending how many respond.

If only one person goes for it, s/he will probably fail and die, but then s/he will probably die in the Passivity Option also. If on the other hand, three or four other able bodied people in the restaurant have the same reaction, everyone may survive. And they will have a good story to tell.

Resistance has to be the best option. It could play an important part in putting an end to the kind of attacks that Daesh carried out on Charlie Hebdo and the Eagles of Death Metal concert. Terrorism uses violence against vulnerable unarmed, civilians. It is the warfare practised by cowards. When cowards find that people fight back, they tend to stop.

And it is not just terrorists. If you live in the USA, you are far more likely to be killed by a freedom-loving gun owner, and the Social Combat technique works on these guys too.

Social Resistance has been practised a few times already - on one of the 9/11 planes, and in August 2015, when four passengers overpowered a shooter on a train in France. Jasper Schuringa acted on an airline when someone tried to blow it up. The July 2016 Nice attack was shortened by a man who wrestled a gun off the killer.

These actions were spontaneous. It will be easier once we have got this  idea to spread. 

It needs to become a meme, a viral idea. We need a movement. A badge or ribbon maybe. A name. Social Combat Against Terrorists  maybe?

There is no point in expecting Government to give advice and leadership on this. I've asked them, twice, and they will have nothing to do with it. I get the impression they fear getting sued by someone who has a go and gets hurt.

So it is up to us, as citizens, to take responsibility. 

Discuss.

More on this:
The Schuringa Rule
Why the government does not want us to tackle gunmen
Spotting the flaw in the Government's logic