“Back in Ramadi, with ISIS forces approaching, Enders did what he had never done before: He relented and, somewhat cheekily, asked for a gun. ‘That was being faced with the almost certain likelihood of a gruesome death my family would have to avoid on YouTube in perpetuity,’ Enders says. ‘At that point, issues of integrity are not your biggest concern.'” – Journalist David Enders in What Journalists Really Need is Guns [via ozy.com]
It’s just a convenient excuse to claim that carrying any gun in the field makes you a combatant. Yet anybody with a half-a-brain knows that a handgun is no match against an assault rifle in a war setting. It does, however, provide immediate personal protection when the proverbial sh*t hits the fan. And as the old saying goes “better to have and not need…” I’d rather die being outgunned then kidnapped, tortured, and beheaded because I wasn’t.
I don’t know how these journalists do it. And screw their employers. I never would go into a war zone without some means of immediate personal protection that does not require me to fight hand-to-hand against trained thugs. Let the CNN and NYT editors go in if they hold such an advanced view of “journalistic self-defense.”
This. Hang out in the gutters of the internet like reblop.com (VERY, VERY NSFW) and you see first hand what happens when you let them take you alive.
Word to the wise – Jihadis don’t return prisoners. EVER.
If they come to take you, know beyond a shadow of a doubt that YOU WILL NOT LEAVE THEIR CUSTODY ALIVE.
Respond accordingly.
Shoot, stab, kick, bite (and tear), scratch, run, and keep running. It is infinitely better to be gunned down in the street than to be tortured and killed in a propaganda video.
The Second protects the First, you say? Tell that to all those Trump voters who are going for him because he’s backed by NRA, and don’t care one bit about his take on the freedom of press (to the point where he threatened to pull CNN’s license if elected).
It was a nice theory, but practice has proven it to be wrong.
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