'Merica - Best "take" I've seen yet on the French Train incident.

We are a pack of wolves, not a herd of sheep. Courage is contagious when intended victims thwart would-be terrorists.

"Three Marines stop terrorist on French train" was the gist of the first headlines on this weekend’s counterterrorism story. But when the actual facts came out, the story got even better.
As it turns out, it wasn’t three Marines. It was two U.S. servicemembers — from the National Guard and the Air Force — and their civilian buddy from middle school. And they had the help of a traveling British businessman.

As Brad Todd wrote days after 9/11, it was the response of ordinary Americans on this flight that meant a repeat of the attacks was much less likely: “Just 109 minutes after a new form of terrorism — the most deadly yet invented — came into use, it was rendered, if not obsolete, at least decidedly less effective. ... United Flight 93 did not hit a building. It did not kill anyone on the ground. ... Why? Because it had informed Americans on board who'd had 109 minutes to come up with a counteraction. And the next time a hijacker full of hate pulls the same stunt with a single knife, he'll get the same treatment and meet the same result as those on United Flight 93. Dead, yes. Murderous, yes. But successful? No.”

Bureaucracies have their place, but they don’t deal well with diffuse threats such as terrorism. By the time “first responders” get there, it’s usually too late. But there’s one group of “responders” who don’t have to go anywhere, and that’s the group already on the scene. In conventional analysis, and in the terrorists’ hopes, those people are called “victims.” But as the three Americans on that French train demonstrated, victimhood isn’t the only response.

And there’s more. The purpose of terror is to terrorize. But responding appropriately has the opposite effect. The response of British businessman Chris Norman, who helped subdue the attacker, illustrates this: “Norman said his first reaction was to hide," The Fiscal Times reported. "But after he saw the Americans fighting the attacker, he said he went to help them.”

American citizens gathered information from national media and relayed that information to citizens aboard the flight, who organized themselves and effectively carried out a counterattack against the terrorists, foiling their plans. Armed with television and cellphones, quick-thinking, courageous citizens who were fed information by loved ones probably saved the White House or Congress from devastation.”

Snake Plissken wrote:I can't imagine something like 9/11 ever happening again on American soil. Nobody thought they would use the planes as weapons. Knowing that now I believe there's at least a small group on every plane, train, etc. that would do this exact same thing.

Snake Plissken wrote:I can't imagine something like 9/11 ever happening again on American soil. Nobody thought they would use the planes as weapons. Knowing that now I believe there's at least a small group on every plane, train, etc. that would do this exact same thing.

tGreenWay wrote:Huh.  Didn't those three guys take down the armed terrorist without any sidearms?  That can't be right. I've been indoctrinated to believe the only way to take out a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.  

LooseGoose wrote:

tGreenWay wrote:Huh.  Didn't those three guys take down the armed terrorist without any sidearms?  That can't be right. I've been indoctrinated to believe the only way to take out a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.  

They used his gun on him, improvisation since the French don't want 'Mericans carrying guns over there.

LooseGoose wrote:

tGreenWay wrote:Huh.  Didn't those three guys take down the armed terrorist without any sidearms?  That can't be right. I've been indoctrinated to believe the only way to take out a bad guy with a gun is with a good guy with a gun.  

They used his gun on him, improvisation since the French don't want 'Mericans carrying guns over there.

tGreenWay wrote:

LooseGoose wrote:
They used his gun on him, improvisation since the French don't want 'Mericans carrying guns over there.

So they did not have firearms on them when they overpowered the armed terrorist, correct?

LooseGoose wrote:

tGreenWay wrote:
So they did not have firearms on them when they overpowered the armed terrorist, correct?

Yes, they took his guns then overpowered him.  I'll bet they all own guns here, thus they weren't afraid of them.

Snake Plissken wrote:

LooseGoose wrote:
They used his gun on him, improvisation since the French don't want 'Mericans carrying guns over there.

Screw the French

Cym Jim wrote:

Snake Plissken wrote:Screw the French

If it wasn't for the French you'd all still be speaking English.

Cym Jim wrote:

Snake Plissken wrote:Screw the French

If it wasn't for the French you'd all still be speaking English.

Toe wrote:https://www.yahoo.com/movies/french-actor-caught-in-train-attack-accuses-127481831202.html

While Anglade thanked the men for their “heroic courage,” adding that “without them, we would all be dead,” he had less favorable things to say about the Thalys staff. Trapped with his family in the last car when the attack began, Anglade said that Thalys staff members came running past them down the aisle, opened a service door with a key and locked themselves inside.

Triple Sparty wrote:His AK jammed and he did not properly load the mag for his Luger so he only got off one shot.

UPDATE: I wish I’d know this before my column went to bed, but it certainly supports my thesis: American Professor Mark Moogalian ‘Rushed’ Train Gunman, Was Shot.

A French-American professor who was hailed by President Francois Hollande for his “courage” was shot while trying to to disarm a gunman wielding an AK-47 aboard a high-speed train, according to his wife.
Mark Moogalian, who is reportedly a 51-year-old academic originally from Midlothian, Virginia, spotted a suspicious passenger while traveling on the Amsterdam to Paris train Friday. “My husband told me that he had seen someone strange because he had entered the toilets with his suitcase and it lasted a long time,” Moogalian’s wife Isabelle told Europe1 radio Monday. “A little while later the guy came out and that’s when he saw that the guy was carrying a gun.”
Isabelle Moogalian, who was also aboard the train, said her husband spotted the gunman “being grabbed from behind by a different person” — thought to be a 29-year-old French banker who has chosen to stay anonymous. Mark Moogalian told his wife to “go” and then “rushed towards the gunman to remove … the Kalashnikov.”
She added: “I did not see my husband get shot, it happened too quickly and I was pretty much hiding behind seats. But I look at my husband through the seats at an angle and he looked straight at me and said, ‘I’m hit!’ … There was blood everywhere. I ran towards him and I could see that he a wound on his back, I then saw another wound by his neck.”

I hope he makes a full recovery.