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At #CharlieHebdo, seconds counted but the police were minutes away, and unarmed

At #CharlieHebdo, seconds counted but the police were minutes away, and unarmed

Why weren’t First Responders to Charlie Hebdo massacre armed?

When Islamic radicals opened fire at the Paris office of Charlie Hebdo yesterday, a small group of French police officers rushed to the scene and then immediately fled—because they weren’t armed.

Awr Hawkins of Breitbart reported:

Unarmed Paris Police Officers Forced to Flee as Armed Terrorists Attack

During the January 7 terror attack on the Charlie Hebdo headquarters, several Paris police officers fled, unable to disarm the threat, because they themselves were unarmed and outgunned.

Breitbart News previously reported that “black-hooded-men” with Kalashnikovs entered the Charlie Hedbo headquarters and opened fire, killing 12 people–including those who were killed outside the building as the gunmen headed back to their car.

CBS News relayed reports from Britain’s Telegraph newspaper that the first two officers to arrive “were apparently unarmed” and “fled after seeing gunmen armed with automatic weapons and possibly a grenade launcher.”

This isn’t meant to be a jab at French police officers. They were simply operating within the confines of France’s law enforcement policies. In fact, two of them lost their lives in the attack.

Noah Rothman of Hot Air notes:

Unarmed French police literally retreated in the face of Islamist attackers

The two French police officers, who both lost their lives in the effort to prevent the Charlie Hebdo attackers from executing their grim mission, are heroes. Their sacrifice in defense of their fellow citizens is beyond noble, and their bravery will be remembered in the coming days.

It is not a knock on Parisian police but French domestic policy to note and criticize the fact that the first responders who arrived at the scene on bicycles and without defensive weaponry were entirely unprepared to face an ongoing attack by murderous, AK-47-wieldling Islamist gunmen. The first police to arrive at the scene of the attack were forced to withdraw in the face of superior firepower.

Think about what happened at Charlie Hebdo the next time there are calls to disarm not only the police, but also citizens.

In France, when seconds counted the police were minutes away, and unarmed.

Featured image via YouTube.

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Comments

It was a dark comedy, watching unarmed first responders “run away”.

It also provides an unassailable argument (IMNHO) for “militarized police”…or those up-armed and trained above regular cops.

A National Guard response would be laughably too late under our system.

    rokiloki in reply to Ragspierre. | January 8, 2015 at 6:21 pm

    It also is a strong case for armed citizens. If just one of those cartoonists had been armed and trained to use the weapon, they might have had a chance.

      Miles in reply to rokiloki. | January 8, 2015 at 10:37 pm

      Yes it is a very strong argument. Those people could have had a chance at defending themselves.

      There’s a photoshop going around the web of an AK instead of a smartphone looking down at two of the shooters. they had them dead to rights.

      But seeing as how the cartoonists were all unabashedly socialist left-wingers, I think they would’ve cringed at merely the thought of possessing a gun since, to many of them, guns are ‘icky’.

“We are aware that a French magazine published cartoons featuring a figure resembling the Prophet Muhammad,” then-White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said during the September 19, 2012 press briefing, “and obviously, we have questions about the judgment of publishing something like this.”

“In other words, we don’t question the right of something like this to be published; we just question the judgment behind the decision to publish it,” Carney continued.

Carney then went onto link the [Charlie] Hedbo cartoon to the same video the White House claims caused the attacks on the U.S. asset in Benghazi: “And I think that that’s our view about the [‘Innocence Of Muslims’] video that was produced in this country and has caused so much offense in the Muslim world.”

    Midwest Rhino in reply to Neo. | January 8, 2015 at 10:54 am

    I wonder how “The White House” feels about the judgement of calling cops racists that act stupidly, while identifying and sympathizing with druggie thugs like Trayvon and Brown.

I have no problem with the French police being unarmed, if that’s what the French people want, and they are willing to live with the consequences. C’est la vie.

See, now you right wingers have your proof that the 2d Amendment is unnecessary.

The police, and this Muslim attack on C.Hedbo is a perfect example, can always be counted on show up on time.

To draw the chalk lines.

In much smaller news, there was a gun scare at a school north of Seattle yesterday. A coworker whose kid was somewhat impacted (different location, but still on lockdown) lamented at guns being so freely available in this country.

I avoid talking politics at work and just smiled. Then it was realized that I’m on the other end of that spectrum. After that was verbalized I said exactly this. “Those victims in Paris could have used few guns so freely available in their office.”

Thugs and dictators prefer unarmed targets. Good men and good women must refuse to be soft targets.

Most American police would also have been faced with superior firepower. In fact, we had a similar massacre at a military base. Even more ironic.

This is the PR wing of Islam.

    Ragspierre in reply to Petrushka. | January 8, 2015 at 11:57 am

    “Fire power” is not immaterial, but it can be vastly over-rated.

    If you can shoot a .22 well, putting rounds in a pirate’s eyes or ear-holes will settle the issue nicely. THEN you take their “fire power”, since they won’t be needing it further.

    In the case of both Ft. Hood and Charlie’s office, it wasn’t a case of fire-power, but no fire at all, and both according to really stupid policies.

    Radegunda in reply to Petrushka. | January 8, 2015 at 2:03 pm

    The massacre at the military base was possible because the service men and women were required to be unarmed on base. Do you think the jihadi would have been so confident if he could have expected any number of his prospective victims to be armed?

    I think US cops would be a step ahead. They are a little more conditioned to an armed attack potentially being the next minute of their day and the last minute of their life.

    Kind of like this, but w/ a thug being on the other end of the transaction.

    http://youtu.be/f3z_ene1G6c?t=1m47s

Henry Hawkins | January 8, 2015 at 11:17 am

How weak Muslims must consider their prophet to be if he requires defense from a cartoon.

Who then is the real blasphemer, the real disrespecter?

    Radegunda in reply to Henry Hawkins. | January 8, 2015 at 2:11 pm

    Muslims think their readiness to kill others to defend the so-called honor of their alleged prophet is proof that they are more pious than all those who do not kill others on “blasphemy” charges.

    I think it was Yusuf Qaradawi who recently said that Islam would not have survived without the death penalty for apostasy. In saying that, he seemed to be boasting about the willingness of Muslims to apply the death penalty. He certainly didn’t intend to admit that Islam must be a dreadful sort of “religion” if it couldn’t spread or even survive by the same means as other religions do.

Insufficiently Sensitive | January 8, 2015 at 11:19 am

We haven’t yet seen a word on the policeman who was assigned as bodyguard to the Editor of Charlie Hebdo, and died in the room with him.

Is it too gauche to ask, was HE armed, or not?

http://hotair.com/archives/2015/01/08/mark-steyn-charlie-hebdo-was-a-target-only-because-the-rest-of-the-media-wouldnt-share-the-risk/

Exactly. And it is glaringly obvious that even the protesting cartoonists are taking the coward’s way with the content of their work, along with the major newspapers.

The self-censorship is disgusting. Chickenshits.

“ISIS,” like all of its Islamist predecessors, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Taliban, and Al-Qaeda, has been murdering people in the name of Islam, Allah, and his Prophet. These organizations are also notorious for justifying any kind of sin, so long as it is done in the course of, or preparation for, their idea of “jihad.” These sins can be anything, up to and including rape of underage women and “anal jihad.”
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/07/11/Egyptian-Cleric-Muslim-Brotherhood-Sheiks-Issued-Fatwa-Permitting-Anal-Jihad

Charlie Hebdo has been publishing cartoon drawings of the sins of the Islamists, and adding the name Mohammed to these drawings, BECAUSE the Islamists all claim to be acting in the name of Mohammed, or Islam, or Allah.

If there is Muslim outrage over these cartoons, it should be directed at the Islamist criminals, because they are the ones insulting Islam, Allah, and Mohammed by their actions. The cartoonist has only said “We know what you are doing.”

    Radegunda in reply to Valerie. | January 8, 2015 at 2:33 pm

    The “Islamists” do not merely “claim to be acting in the name of Mohammed, or Islam, or Allah.” They are clearly following the example set by Mohammed himself, who is reported to have ordered the assassination of people who mocked him and his claim to prophethood, and to have launched an ongoing campaign of conquest and plunder that continues to this day.

    Violent attacks on non-Muslims to force them to submit to Islamic rules are not some new distortion of Islam, nor are they an “insult” to Islam. There are the essence of Islam, which enjoins all Muslims either to “fight” against “infidels” until they “feel themselves subdued,” or to support that fighting with a portion of their obligatory zakat.

    In orthodox Islam, every part of the world not controlled by the doctrines of Islam is considered to be, by definition, at war with Islam and therefore open to attack. In orthodox Islam, no other religion has any right to exist.

    The “Islamists” are not doing anything fundamentally new. They are acting as devout, orthodox Muslims.

    On internet comment boards, you can see remarks by Muslims who might purport to be opposed to the slaughter at Charlie Hebdo, but they still insist that no one, anywhere in the world, as any right to ridicule their alleged “prophet.” That is the reaction of average Muslims, not some fringe group of “Islamists”: they are more offended by an “insult” to their “prophet” than they are by the wanton slaughter of people who do not share their beliefs. That is the Islamic value system on display.

      Southwest Chuck in reply to Radegunda. | January 8, 2015 at 4:12 pm

      Completely agree. People who do not understand this just confound me. Have your own opinion people, but at least acknowledge the facts.

      rokiloki in reply to Radegunda. | January 8, 2015 at 6:14 pm

      Well said, Radegunda.

      To Valerie: “rape of underage women” is not a sin in Islam. Verse 33:21 in the koran says Mohammed’s example is a “beautiful pattern of conduct” which gets praise from allah.

      Mohammed married a six year old and raped her when she was only nine. She had not reached maturity, physically, mentally, or emotionally. We know this because hadiths say she was playing with dolls the day Mohammed took her away and consummated the marriage. Mature girls were not allowed to play with dolls because it was considered idolatry. So, the fact she was allowed to play with dolls is evidence she was not mature.

      Their book also instructs them to lie if they find it necessary in the course of their efforts to turn the entire world into one giant Caliphate.

        Radegunda in reply to Paul. | January 8, 2015 at 8:42 pm

        — which may explain why, long before 9/11, I heard a Muslim professor lie to a class about how Islam spread so quickly (he said it was through “trade,” and he got flustered when a graduate assistant challenged the statement); and why a Muslim called the police on a friend of mine and falsely (and absurdly) claimed that my friend had threatened him, when he (the Muslim) was actually enraged by a statement he considered “blasphemous.”

Thanks to progressives and PC bull, the day is not far when extremists like those in France will feel comfortable enough here in America too.

Then we will also face the choice: “Die standing or live on your knees.”

    rokiloki in reply to Exiliado. | January 8, 2015 at 6:18 pm

    Nadil Hasan?

    It has happened in America, but the left worked overtime to downplay the Islamic motivation and turn it in to workplace violence instead.

    Paul in reply to Exiliado. | January 8, 2015 at 6:33 pm

    Our Progressive Overlords work furiously to justify the actions of the various Muslims who have already attacked us here, while at the same time never ceasing in their efforts to disarm us. How fucking stupid are they?

      Gremlin1974 in reply to Paul. | January 8, 2015 at 7:44 pm

      They aren’t “stupid”. Its about power, they don’t want the people to have the power to oppose them, which is what the 2nd amendment is really about. It was put there so that the government would always have and armed populace to fear.

        You are correct and my statement was unclear. I should have said “How fucking stupid are they, to think that we will ever let them disarm us? Do they think we are ignorant of history and human nature?”

In the US the call would be to disarm the common citizen while increasing militarization of the police.

    Paul in reply to randian. | January 9, 2015 at 1:49 pm

    And my response would be to tell them to go piss up a rope.

      randian in reply to Paul. | January 9, 2015 at 5:34 pm

      That would work in a free state. In a non-free state like CA or NY self-defense for the common citizen is of no importance.

        Paul in reply to randian. | January 9, 2015 at 6:22 pm

        I was born in the corrupt, union-infested, progressive shit hole of Illinois. I moved to Texas at the age of 18 and wouldn’t go back for a million dollars.

This is why our second amendment rights are so important. These worthless pieces of human filth are really cowards at heart. They are all brave and arrogant while they know they are the only one’s with the guns. However, as the comically swift surrender of the one captured terrorist filth proves they wet their panties when a gun is pointed back at them.

They would never have the courage to do something like this in a place where they know someone might be armed and able to fight back. And I know all of the arguments that there “is not proof that an armed citizen would have made a difference”, but it is just as true that there “is no proof that an armed citizen wouldn’t have made a difference”. I can tell you though only one of those cases has even the potential of making a difference and that is the one where a citizen is armed.

    Radegunda in reply to Gremlin1974. | January 8, 2015 at 8:46 pm

    An unarmed citizenry in Norway allowed one person to take down 77 others, confident that none of them could fire back. One person could not have wreaked such carnage if a small handful of others — perhaps only one other person — had been armed.

It’s telling, that this never could have gone down like this in a major American city.. New York, LA, Chicago.. Sure the first 5 minutes may have gone down about the same.. but first responders would have been there, barricaded behind their cruisers with their patrol rifles, if not charging right in after the jihadists, and they certainly wouldn’t have escaped in a jacked car to the muslim ghetto to regroup and strike a second time.