By Sand: The Paranoid Lizard
It has happened again. After the appalling massacre in APS Peshawar in December 2014, the whole nation stands mourning and grief once more, with the terrorist attack at Bacha Khan University in Charsada. Even those living far south from Peshawar and Charsada can hear the sobbing and wailing of mothers who lost their children and children who lost their siblings. We can all feel the throbbing pain and anguish in our hearts and mind. It is not a few dozen families who have lost their loved ones. The blow has been dealth to the morale and pride of the whole nation.
Every journalist and scholar has written on these lines. There is no doubt that 2016 has started with a trail of innocent blood and that the loss of lives can never be redeemed, but is that all about it? Shall we repeat the process we are accustomed to, in these situations? As a nation, our National Action Plan on catestrophes like these goes as: sob in anguish, vow to drag the perpetrators in the court of justice, pledge to never let anything like that happen ever again, get distracted, forget the matter completely and finally to subconsciously wait for such a catestrophe again. We have been applying this glorious scheme to dull our pains and be oblivious to future threats. The question which must be raised right now and here is: are we going to rinse and repeat this process and subconsciously prepare ourselves for another major disaster like that again?
If the answer in your mind is yes, then kindly stop reading this article right now and return to your wishful emotionalism. But if the answer is no, and it must be no for every honorable, sensible citizen, then what do we need to do, to stop these tragedies once and forever? Who can stop such disasters from happening and how? Let us analyze both incidents (APS and BKU massacres) and the answers will become apparent by themselves.
2014 APS Peshawar Massacre
1- The assault began at around 10:30 a.m.
2- The attackers were 7 in number.
3- The attackers did not face any resistance from within the school at any time.
4- SSG commandos took 15 minutes to arrive at the scene.
5- The massacre left more or less 150 people dead.
Let us look at these facts in some detail. 10:30 is a time when security agencies are their stations and active. If (God forbid) the assault had taken place before this time, the casualties might have been much higher due to the time lost in confusion and assemblage of response team.
The attackers were 7 in number. Considering that they were all armed to their nails and mentally disturbed fanatics against peaceful, unarmed civilians, it is a large number. Once SSG commandos arrived, they took little time in neutralizing them.
The attackers did not face any resistance from within the school. Now this is the most important point of all. We are in a situation where 7 armed fanatics are at a freehand for gunning down (and even burning alive) everyone in their vicinity. And this is the main factor responsible for such a high number of casualties.
SSG commandos took 15 minutes to arrive at the scene. That is a very quick response by the security agencies, considering the time lost in travelling to the facility. But when there are 7 armed fanatics in the middle of nearly 1000 unarmed civilians, 15 minutes is a very long time. And this length of time led to the loss of nearly 150 lives.
BKU Charsada Massacre
1- Besides automatic rifles, the terrorists also used grenades.
2- Two of the faculty members were armed and shot back at the terrorists.
3- The assault left 23 civilians (faculty members and students) dead.
The terrorists used hand grenades besides using assault rifles in this scenario which, arguably speaking, should have increased the death toll. However in this case the death toll was limited to (considering the enormous number of APS casualties) 23. And one of the main factors for this low count was that two of the faculty members were armed and shot back at the assailants. Once again the fanatics were neutralized by security professionals, but eye witnesses and survivors report that shooting back at the terrorists not only allowed many students to escape to safety, but also contained the terrorists in their places for some (very crucial) minutes.
And now we return to the primary question again: who can stop such tragedies from happening again and how? The job of emergency response team begins only AFTER a tragedy has initiated. The fastest reponse time by the best and bravest is no less than 15 minutes. For a comparison, an automatic AK47 fires 600 bullets per minute and every shot landed above or around the chest region is potentially lethal. That, and a hand grenade has a kill radius of 5 meters (~16 feet). Last, but most importantly, time drags on extremely slowly when you are an unarmed civilian in an educational facility and have several armed fanatics around you.
The enemy’s child (whom we have affectionately vowed to educate in our popular post-APS song) has shown remarkable progress, entering a university merely 2 years after attending APS school in 2014 but our National Action Plan is oblivious to it. Our honorable civil government has shown a mysteriously grim and dire determination to ban all new registrations for firearms by law-abiding civilians while the enemy’s child is free to use any and all illegal weaponry he may find.
Each of our federal government’s policy makers is protected by a squad of elite force police units and private escorts, each carrying automatic rifles, while the common man is deprived from even keeping a 9mm handgun. Our federal government has determined to always welcome terrorists in any civilian instititue with open arms and not to show any bad manners in their hospitality by allowing civilians to carry licensed, legal firearms. In doing so, they are not responsible for negligence crime, but are actively supporting the terrorists and anti-state factors in achieving their goals.
The only person who can stop an armed villain is an armed law-abiding citizen. We have witnessed it in the stark difference between APS and BKU massacres. The only thing left to see is when the federal policy makers would realize this. For reasosn unknown and mysterious, NCC (National Cadet Corps) has been removed from education institutions since more than a decade ago and there is no interest shown by the federal government in enacting civil training courses either.
Is is time to re-enact NCC and enable law-abiding citizens to apply for registered, legal firearms once again. There is no second thought about this matter and there are no other options.
