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The common refrain from gun loving people here in the United States following the terrorist attacks in Paris is that more good guys with guns on the scene would have saved lives. After all, if we can save just one life with concealed carry it will be worth it, right? There are some news reports circulating from foreign media sites which indicate that a couple people in that Paris restaurant were indeed armed and did in fact return fire, killing the terrorists and saving lives. There’s just one problem: they were reportedly drug traffickers.

The website hechoinformativo.com (translated via Google) reports a second hand story about the incident from Europe 1:

According to French media in a typical restaurant in the town, which at the time was crowded shortly after 2130 hours two armed assailants they entered and began firing.

But according to journalist Armand Stroke of the Europe Radio 1 radio station, who was in this restaurant, when the attack rose 3 people at a table, drew their weapons and brutally killed the two attackers.

Immediately several elements of the French police could arrest these heroes who managed a possible slaughter by killing two members of the terrorist group ISIS.

French police reported these two unsung heroes are from Columbia and were identified as cartel operators in northern Columbia.

TTAG was unable to independently verify the authenticity of the story, but there are a bunch of news sources in foreign languages running the exact same story.

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103 COMMENTS

    • Yup – if this is true, they earned a dual “get out of jail” and “get out of France” ticket.

      Still, think what could have been accomplished if there had been actual armed good guys present?

      • You must have missed Gavin Newsome’s assertion that having armed good guys accidentally shoot *some* people is far worse than letting terrorists kill everyone.

    • The right to bear arms in self defense is a natural right, even if you are a scumbag drug trafficker. A bad guy with a gun who uses it for a good cause, rather than to promote his criminal agenda, is for that moment a good guy with a gun.

      If they are/were known criminals then why were they at large and enjoying a meal at a public restaurant? You don’t have to like them now any more than you did before the shootings, but to punish them for this when you had no reason to punish them before, apparently, is ludicrous.

      • Here’s the thing: we need to investigate if we *do* have reason to arrest them. They may very well have been on sabbatical for a few murders in the drug cartel service. I wouldn’t excuse unforeseen crimes entirely without at least first knowing what they were.

  4. So the question is…did the cartel guys recognize the ISIS-tards for who they were and simply take action to prevent loss of life including their own, or did they think the Bulgarians, Albanians or other competing cartel was coming for them specifically?

    • Doesnt really matter does it. Yes, they may be “bad guys” but ignoring that, they are people that are armed and obviously have a high situational awareness due to being in the business they are in (unlike most sheeple who walk around clueless).

      They see a threat and respond. Regardless of if they knew WHO the threat was specifically from (another cartel, a hit squad from their own, or terrorists) they knew there was a deadly threat, and when the bullets start coming, it doesnt matter the motivation does it? After the fact it matters. but during? it doesnt matter one little bit. Only newsies will down play it.

      • To me it doesn’t matter. A dead tango is one more clogging up the line to get in to see Allah. Not sure what number they’re serving today…

        To the anti’s it appears that only bad guys carry guns…and even when they save innocents by design or as a by product of their own self defense, it’s still a bad guy. Remember in a Feinstein/Schumer/Bloomberg world, it’s better to just be dead waiting on a badged guy with a gun to come, than to cloud the narrative…

      • “High situational awareness”? When rifle rounds are coming through the restaurant window, only Ted Williams’ frozen head doesn’t know what’s going on.

        • Uh, negative on that, Chief. Most people are frozen, trying to figure out ‘what’s that? did a waiter drop a glass? Firecrackers?…’ The last thing that finally jumps into their head is hostile gunfire because that just seems completely surreal to them in the moment. Unless you have experience hearing gunfire, or you’ve one way or another trained yourself to respond to it, you’ll freeze. In moments of stress you act as you train- it’s all response and reaction- no deep thoughts or heavy processing in the frontal cortex, it’s all down to the lower brain and motor response tracks.

  5. So, the terrorists managed to work around France’s gun control laws. The violent criminals managed to work around France’s gun control laws.

    The only ones disarmed – and slaughtered en masse – were the law-abiding citizens.

    • @Chip Bennett: And, even though they are the bad guys, they were able to stop a terrorist attack because they were armed. Two points that are made on here often.
      1. Bad guys still get guns regardless of the laws 2. Armed people can slow down or stop an attack if they have the tools to do so.

      • Never forget the research of the great John Lott comes from cases involving criminals using guns to defend themselves against other criminals. And most of the time the trigger Is never pulled.

  7. fucking priceless. the only people who had the power to respond where the ones that don’t respect the laws thereby enabling them to SAVE LIVES!!!!!!!!!

  9. I’m beginning to see a pattern. Seems like to be secure in my person and property I’ll have to join a cartel. I’ll get more respect from governments than I do now. Make more money than I do now. Have more rights than I do now.
    Only a complete sucker would remain a respectable, law-abiding citizen these days. Hell, the politicians aren’t even respectable, law-abiding or citizens.

    • “You can’t hire them. They’re making too much money.”

      After a brief out on data security and similar that included the stories of several major uses of purloined data, most of the Q&A was technical questions. I asked the presenter (FBI, from a joint task force): “How do I hire these guys?”

      He was a little nonplussed, so I explained:

      “Not to do anything nefarious, but the story you told: saw an opportunity, marshaled resources to go for it, experimented and iterated, orchestrated operations, identified problems & found work-arounds, identified and invented supporting tech to allow the big get to be used, and more. Tech savvy, outstanding project management, program / risk management as good as I have ever seen, and as you said, they got away with it, which counts as “made it work.””

      “I can’t find people who can do half of that. So, how can I hire these guys.”

      He replied: “You can’t. They’re making too much money.”

      I may be confused, but that strikes me as food for thought.

    • Many people think it is better to just carry illegally than it is to get a permit to carry and be known by the official class

    • That’s arguably how the Europeans converted to feudalism after the Mediterranean collapse brought on by the destruction of trade and communications by Islam.

  10. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. And, it should be noted that apparently there aren’t ISIS cells in Sicily and the New York mafia said that there won’t be ISIS problems in Sicilian neighborhoods.

    • Although I understand its propaganda value, I really dislike that phrase since it is not entirely accurate. It would be better to say: “The enemy of my enemy is not currently my enemy.”

      Alliances are formed for expediency, not lasting courtships. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, it does not guarantee a long and happy marriage.

      • {musing mode}

        Could this be taken as a good reason to move toward a more Isolationist position?

        There seems to be some merit in reversing the trend of trying to make friends/figure out who IS our friend. Just keep to ourselves (as a nation) and take care of ourselves. Isn’t this “Take care of home” the basis of many POTG’s personal defense strategy?

        An “isolationist” foreign policy does not have to suffocate global trade, either. It’s just…”Here’s the deal we need to trade with you…accept it or don’t” and stop with all the wheeling and dealing and forgetting who was promised what….etc.

        In other words, to a degree…they are all enemies, until a LONG period of trust building goes by.

        {/musing mode}

    • ..” And, it should be noted that apparently there aren’t ISIS cells in Sicily ..”

      Central Asians and Albanians have virtually shut the Mafia out of the lucrative European opiate trade, though…. Used to be Myanmar to who knows where to Sicily and onwards. Now it’s Afghanistan to Albania and so forth….

      The mob in New York have been shut out of the most lucrative games for a long time, as well. By Jamaicans and others. Spoils tend to go to those with the most 12-17 year old crazies to spare. Even the poor Mexican meanos, simply by virtue of having something, anything, however little, to lose; are having a rough time with Salvadorean teenagers with absolutely nothing, jumping a few southern borders to get to their version of the wealthy promised land to the north….

  11. It would not surprise me if it turned out to be true. Most Americans don’t know about how the Mafia helped the military in world War two. Killing German American spies on request by the FBI, that worked the big city coastal shipping ports.
    Or their help in the invasion of Sicily that helped reduce the number of casualties of American soldiers.

    • The traditional European cartels and mafia have historically tried to keep their business out of public view, the Sicilian vendettas in the early 20th Century were not the norm. The influx of Eastern European and African cartels in the 90’s briefly saw an uptick in violence, but for the most part publicity is bad for everyone’s business. If the public or tourists get nervous, nobody wins.

  12. If this is true then western governments will do everything they can to influence the media and not report on it. Can’t have citizens under the delusional idea that they might be able to provide for their own security against assassins.

  13. Let’s get this straight: Anonymous does our hacking, Russia does our bombing, and the Cartels do our policing. Either Obama is a master at outsourcing or we truly are living in BizzaroJerry World. America has lost its rightful place as leader of the (free) world. Sad days indeed.

  14. Heroism by gangsters?,
    Touchy situation.

    Can’t validate criminals,
    Nor civilian firearms.

    Troops and badges.

  15. Oh, this is gold. Kudos to those Colombians if true. They may be criminals, but criminals are better than ISIS any day.

    • “Crime was always with us, he reasoned, and therefore, if you were going to have crime, it at least should be organized crime.. ” – Lord Vetinari

      • Organized crime mostly kills willing participants, and its “clients” (johns, degenerate gamblers, junkies, etc.). It’s disorganized crime that tends to kill random folks (street crime, muggings, knockout game, etc,).

        Most governments are willing to tolerate properly organized crime as long as the criminals have the good taste not to embarrass the politicians.

        • That’s pretty much the Japanese Yakuza model. But don’t be fooled, the mafia will extort anyone it can.

        • Considering the recent reports that police are taking more money from the public through asset forfeiture than is being stolen in burglaries, then add in the cost of police pay and pensions, as well as the amount taken in the form of speeding tickets, and you see where the largest organized crime syndicate is…

      • This is why government tries to take down criminal rackets. They are competition for government criminality. When both work in concert, they feel no need to alter the deal, When one tries to outdo the other, that’s when strife occurs. There would be little in the way of mafia if government did not create laws, creating ooutlaws who profit from black market operations. One thing for sure government overreach can make for lucrative criminal networks. Prohibition, and now anti-drug laws, proved that.

        • + A million.

          Good guys vastly outnumber bad guys everywhere (DC might be the exception.) Were it not for the government running interference for bad guys, they would be summarily disposed of in an instant.

  16. What I love about this is that is reverses the CSGV narrative. Sometimes even a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Or at least a guy with a gun doing good things.

    • That’s the real take away lesson. The terrorists seemed to have to problem circumventing the hyper string French gun control laws. And there are apparently enough criminals in France that also had no trouble circumventing the super-duper string French gun control that the two armed groups collided in some random cafe. Either those are some long odds or there are a lot of armed criminals in Paris,…. I’ll wager on the latter.

      Thus the take away lesson. When you ban guns, only the law abiding are disarmed. The criminals and terrorists are still armed and now the law abiding are defenseless.

  19. Could be what is known as circular reporting. There is only one real source but a chain of sources simply repeats the story. You need to trace the sourcing.

    It was quite common during the Cold War for the Soviets to plant a story in a foreign newspaper then let third parties spread the story and only then quote the the “Western Sources” in TASS, Pravda and Ivestiya.

  20. I remember seeing an article on reddit’s /r/notheonion where a mobster said they could protect people better than the feds. In the case of France, it certainly appears true.

  22. Hilarious IF TRUE.

    Reminds me of the old line in Casablanca… “There are certain sections of New York, Major, that I wouldn’t advise you to try to invade.”

  23. Most certainly a hoax, with such little detail, and Europe Radio 1 being cited as the source, nothing seems to be panning out to validate the sources.

    Would have been nice had it been true however!

  26. Bad guys with guns, stop worse bad guys with guns? Awkward.
    Think there are any medal ceremonies in their future?

    • And perhaps this post /\/\ is an example of tdiinva’s comment just a few posts earlier:

      “It was quite common during the Cold War for the Soviets to plant a story in a foreign newspaper then let third parties spread the story and only then quote the the “Western Sources” in TASS, Pravda and Ivestiya.”

      Gotta tamp this story down before it gets out of hand.

  29. Not buying it. Excellent if, true, of course, but color me skeptical. There were survivor interviews pretty quickly and someone would have said something about that happening before the ‘censors’ could kick in.

  30. Sooooooo…Columbian narco terrorist/violent drug dealers take out moose-lim terrorists who finance jihad with drug dealing and are high to get “allah style” courage? Yep- bizzaro/enemy of my enemy fruitloop world. I’m not a fan of either but I’m pretty comfortable around the spanglish. And both groups are invading southern Cook Co,IL. Cartel murders a few blocks away-tons of syrian arabic speaking “immigrants”…

  32. Better a drug trafficker than a snackbar, and at least these guys didn’t flay any bystanders while they were there, unlike the Mexican cartel guys.

  33. My standard riff on gun prohibition – the one the anti’s haven’t heard before – goes:

    “So, how much do you want to enrich the cartels? Also why?”

    Start with prohibition doesn’t work real well. You’d think we’d get that after a few millennia of trying.
    BUT weapons prohibition creates a complementary business to drugs with operating synergies beyond the wildest fantasies of besuited MBAs the world over. Seriously, it’s a textbook synergistic business: huge overlap of market, operations, & sourcing; huge reinforcement in the same markets, operations & sourcing. The products even have similar characteristics: non-perishable, small, inert, robust, moderate technical sophistication to product, transport, distribute and use, difficult to detect, etc.

    “You got to carry weapons, because you always carry cash.”

  34. What’s the official story on who stopped the pub shooters? I’ve looked a bit and can’t find if the cops stopped them.

  39. [Complete story translation]

    3 Colombian narcos stop a terrorist attack and saved dozens of people

    Little by little they know more details of the different terrorist attacks that occurred on Friday in Paris, capital of France, which left at least 130 people dead.

    The most serious attack took place at the Bataclan theater, because a concert that brought together more than 1500 people. However, several attacks occurred in the 10th district of the city.

    According to French media in a typical restaurant in the town, which at that time was crowded shortly after 2130 hours two armed assailants they entered and began firing.

    But according to journalist Armand Stroke of the Europe 1 radio station, who was in this restaurant, when the attack rose 3 people at a table, drew their weapons and brutally killed the two attackers.

    Immediately several elements of the French police could arrest these heroes who managed a possible slaughter by killing two members of the terrorist group ISIS.

    French police and reported that these unsung heroes are from Colombia and were identified as cartel operators in northern Colombia. So far their legal status is not known, but is expected to be extradited to his home country to be properly judged.

    The identity of these people has been kept under anonymity for security reasons, said the Paris police department.

  41. Dear The Truth About Guns team,

    I am a loyal reader and follower but today I am really disappointed after noticing that you decided to share with your audience, a gramatical error as noticeable as the one in this article. There is not such a country called Columbia. The country is called COLOMBIA, with an “O”.
    What worries me in not only the horrendous grammatical mistake but that you just copied and pasted the information as you found it, without doing any other research, which will lead you to realise, learn and understand that the word translated by google (as you commented), was wrongly translated.

    I hope you pay a little more attention in the future.

    Thank you.

    • Dear The Truth About Guns team,

      I am a loyal reader and follower insert comma here but today I am really disappointed after noticing that you decided to share with your audience, no comma necessary here a gramatical grammatical error as noticeable as the one in this article. There is not such a country called Columbia. The country is called COLOMBIA, with an “O”.
      What worries me in       is not only the horrendous grammatical mistake comma but that you just copied and pasted the information as you found it, without doing any other research, del comma which will would lead you to realise, learn and understand that the word translated by google Google (as you commented), del comma was wrongly translated.

      I hope you pay a little more attention in the future.

      Thank you.

      ———

      Dear The Truth About Guns team,

      I am a loyal reader and follower, but today I am really disappointed after noticing that you decided to share with your audience a grammatical error as noticeable as the one in this article. There is not such a country called Columbia. The country is called COLOMBIA, with an “O”.

      What worries me is not only the horrendous grammatical mistake, but that you just copied and pasted the information as you found it, without doing any other research which would lead you to realise, learn and understand that the word translated by Google (as you commented) was wrongly translated.

      I hope you pay a little more attention in the future.
      Thank you.

      Glass houses, etc…

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