{"id":2586,"date":"2015-08-22T08:26:43","date_gmt":"2015-08-22T14:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=2586"},"modified":"2015-08-22T14:12:03","modified_gmt":"2015-08-22T20:12:03","slug":"terror-attack-on-the-train-americans-rescue-the-french-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2015\/08\/terror-attack-on-the-train-americans-rescue-the-french-again.html","title":{"rendered":"Terror attack on the train: Americans rescue the French, again"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

You\u2019ve likely seen this in the news: \u00a0a Moroccan armed with an AK-47, a pistol, and a boxcutter on a train crossing from Belgium to France was stopped by vacationing American soldiers, before he could begin shooting.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a link to<\/p>\n

the New York Times<\/a>:\u00a0\u201d The two American service members who tackled a suspected terrorist on a high-speed train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris rushed him even though he was fully armed, then grabbed him by the neck and beat him over the head with his own automatic rifle until he was unconscious\u201d), and<\/p>\n

CNN<\/a>, in which the role of a Frenchman, who unsuccessfully rushed the gunman before the Americans, is featured in the headline \u2014 \u201cAmericans, French national tackle, overpower suspected Islamist gunman on train.\u201d \u00a0Per the text,<\/p>\n

A \u201cFrench passenger tried courageously to overpower him before the suspect fired several shots, then two American passengers intervened and managed to overpower the shooter, immobilized him on the ground and put aside his weaponry,\u201d [French Interior Minister Bernard] Cazeneuve said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Later text describes the details. \u00a0Three American friends were travelling together when they saw people running, then the gunman.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy friend Alek Skarlatos yells, \u2018Get him!,\u2019 so my friend Spencer Stone immediately gets up to charge the guy, followed by Alek, then myself,\u201d said Anthony Sadler, the civilian among the three. Stone is an Air Force member while Skarlatos is in the National Guard.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe three of us beat up the guy,\u201d Sadler said. \u201cIn the process, Spencer gets slashed multiple times by the box cutter, and Alek takes the AK away.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The New York Times reports that the men heard the gun being loaded in the bathroom and decided to take action, but this seems to have been incorrect \u2014 and it seems to me that I also read that they saw the gunman in Belgium and thought he was suspicious so followed him, but the article I thought I read that in, at the Daily Mail<\/a>, doesn\u2019t say so and perhaps has removed these statements since I originally read this last night.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s Le Monde<\/a>, which tells pretty much the same story.<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s Ann Althouse<\/a>, who reads the comments at the Times, and observes that the second-most-liked comment claims that because these unarmed Americans were able to subdue the gunman, it\u2019s proof that we don\u2019t need\u00a0to allow civilians to bear arms for safety.<\/p>\n

(One further item that I\u2019m not sure of: \u00a0I\u2019ve read several reports now, and others last night, and there\u2019s mention that the AK-47 wasn\u2019t functional, but I can\u2019t find any statements to that effect any longer, so perhaps that was additional false, early information.)<\/p>\n

So:<\/p>\n

This is an extraordinary story. \u00a0It\u2019s hard to fathom just how deadly this could have otherwise been \u2014 a shooter with a kalishnikov and 9 magazines shooting up train cars. \u00a0The heroic actions of the Americans (and the unsuccessful but equally heroic Frenchman) aside, Europe is at risk for terrorist attacks even more than the U.S., and we can\u2019t dismiss them as \u201clone wolves.\u201d \u00a0The shooter had been identified by the French and the Spanish as terrorist-linked, though there\u2019s no additional information yet on his background; he\u2019s identified as Moroccan (or, according to Le Monde, \u201cof Moroccan origin\u201d) but with no further information on for how long he\u2019s lived in Europe, or where.<\/p>\n

And: \u00a0of the actors involved (and I don\u2019t mean the French actor mildly injured), the three who saved the day were Americans. \u00a0In fact, the Daily Mail reports a passenger claim that \u201cthe staff hurried towards their own car on the train and opened it \u2018with a special key\u2019 before they locked themselves inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

My first reaction is just \u201cwow.\u201d \u00a0Was it the military training of two that let them to act so quickly and do the seemingly-insane? \u00a0Is there something about the American culture in general, that means that we\u2019re more likely to act? \u00a0(But then: \u00a0there are plenty of counter-examples, of shooters where everyone runs and hides.) \u00a0We worry about our young men, and the fact that their testosterone seems out of place in the year 2015, and yet \u2014<\/p>\n

How many similar stories will we be reading in the future, vs. stories without the happy ending? \u00a0This isn\u2019t going to go away, either in Europe or in the U.S., either in the form of Islamic terrorism, or the \u201ccrazed shooter\u201d version.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: \u00a0Ann Althouse features a comment that says, \u201csee, we don\u2019t need guns to stop bad guys.\u201d \u00a0Now this seems to be a thing, as my facebook news feed now has several people saying things like \u201cThe only thing to stop a bad guy with a gun is. . . . guys without guns\u201d and \u201d But they took down the gunman WITHOUT having any weapons themselves, and no one died.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ve likely seen this in the news: \u00a0a Moroccan armed with an AK-47, a pistol, and a boxcutter on a train crossing from Belgium to France was stopped by vacationing American soldiers, before he could begin shooting. Here\u2019s a link to the New York Times:\u00a0\u201d The two American service members who tackled a suspected terrorist […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTerror attack on the train: Americans rescue the French, again<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"You've likely seen this in the news: \u00a0a Moroccan armed with an AK-47, a pistol, and a boxcutter on a train crossing from Belgium to France was stopped by\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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