Every so often, a teachable moment comes along. Most of them are under-appreciated for the lessons they could teach us, and the Dorner crime wave in the Los Angeles Basin will probably follow that pattern. My sense of doing good works requires me to rise to the duty of outlining this lesson, though, so here it is.
PawPaw did a good short blog on what happened, with good linkage, and I posted my take on this lesson over there as a comment, so go to his post and take a look at it (and my attached comment) from the point of view of two old cops with the experience and the writing ability to offer their own profession, then the entire Nation, a valuable lesson in self-reliance.
I haven't decided whether it's important to highlight Dorner's manifesto as to it's statements of political affiliation, because, after all, it could be disinformation, and a good analyst considers that. The statement of political affiliation does seem to check out with the guy's known personal history, though.
The politics can be set aside for the moment though, so as to consider the threat that Dorner's type of "asymetrical warfare" poses for all of us. It doesn't really make any difference if Dorner was coming from the Left, the Right or if he was a Jihadist, the threat is the same.
Consider my statement in my comment to PawPaw's blog: this guy's rampage has turned the second-biggest Metroplex in the USA absolutely on it's ear, and the reason Los Angeles and it's near-neighbors are functioning at all this morning is because martial law hasn't been declared (yet). Dorner's plan, in his terror rampage, was to cause a lot of disruption, but he seemed to forget the physics: no matter how tactically-proficient one terrorist is, there is a limit on how large of an area he may terrorize. Five Dorners at work on their terroristic tasks would have shut down the entire metroplex. Five such large metroplexes under seige in the country would shut down the entire country.
Think about that. This is the teachable moment. Just look how few determined and trained people it takes to disrupt our way of life.
Okay, has the lesson soaked in?
Good!
What do we do about it?
There is, people, only one answer: we have to re-assume the responsibility for our own protection that we gave up when this country became heavily urbanized five generations ago. Back then, had Dorner sprung forth, life would have gone on, but men would have been a little more wary as they went about their daily routine, perhaps keeping their rifles next to them instead of in the nearby closet. They would have paid attention to the latest dispatches received via telegraph, then passed by word of mouth around their towns and cities. At some point, the terrorist would be killed, and that would be the end of it. If the terrorist was captured, he would be unlikely to have been given the opportunity to spread his poison, and he would have been executed soon, anyway. That's what would have happened if this had occurred 100 years ago.
I'm sure, if I read the blogs deep enough, I would find some that are sympathetic to Dorner, that support his position on perceived racial injustice at the least, and perhaps even some that support his "asymetrical warfare" method of dealing with it personally.
The most immediate lesson for us with the Dorner Affair?
Don't be too damn fast to surrender an iota more of your self-reliance to the Government. Yes, people, you really do need to have those semi-auto rifles that can "shoot all day", and the training, the ammo, the extra magazines, etc to employ them properly in your own defense. There aren't a lot of wannabe Dorners out there, but if they all got mass hysteria and decided to have a "Dorner Apocalypse", you would need the protection of that military-style rifle.
Too bad that in such a "Dorner Apocalypse", you would stand a much greater chance of getting killed by your own police force than by a terrorist.
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