“We need the travel ban”

It isn’t yet clear who is responsible for tonight’s horrific events in London, but I’ll be enormously surprised if one or more of them weren’t terrorist attacks carried out by radicalized Muslims.

In response, Mr. Trump has said that “We need the travel ban.”

Well . . .

Perhaps it would be advisable on other grounds.

And perhaps the perpetrators of tonight’s outrages will turn out to be foreign-born.

But a British travel ban wouldn’t have stopped Salman Abedi, the perpetrator of the 22 May 2017 mass murder of little girls in Manchester, England.  Abedi was of Libyan descent, but he was born in Manchester.  Which also means that, as a native-born British subject, he would not have been covered by Mr. Trump’s proposed ban on travel from certain Islamic countries.

Nor would a British travel ban have stopped Khalid Masood, the perpetrator of the murderous 22 March 2017 attack on Westminster Bridge, in London.  Masood, whose original name was Adrian Russell Elms, was born in Kent and grew up in Sussex.  Thus, as a native-born British convert to Islam, he would also have been unaffected by Mr. Trump’s proposed ban on travel from certain Islamic countries.

Clear thinking is essential on such matters as this.