Preventing Truck Terror Attacks Starts With You – And Me.
Ever since 2001’s horrible terror attacks on 9-11, we’ve all been conditioned to think of terrorists as Middle Easterners who hate America for various reasons. But it’s important to note that there are a lot of home-grown terrorists out there today – Americans who, for one reason or another, have a beef with our government or our society – and feel they have to act in order to either stop whatever troubles them, or inspire an uprising of some sort. Studies commissioned by various law enforcement agencies over the past few years have concluded that inside the United States today, we are actually far more likely to experience attacks from home-grown terrorists than extremists from the Middle East or Asia.
Regardless of where they’re from or whatever motivates them, it’s crucial to remember that terrorists are opportunists by necessity. They may fantasize about getting their hands on weapons of mass destruction or armies of like-minded fanatics rising up after being inspired by their actions, but in most cases they’re social-awkward losers without the financial support to carry out their schemes the way they want to. They have to use whatever weapons they can find – often going down to Plan C or even Plan D before they hit on something they can use to attack innocent people. And in many cases, the tool or method they choose to use in their attacks is an object most of us don’t even view as a “weapon.” Pretty much anything can be a weapon. Remember the guy trying to kill 007 with some poison in a thread back when we were kids? (I think that was in “You Only Live Twice,” but I could be wrong.)
Which brings us to the Transportation Safety Administration’s recent warning regarding the use of trucks as a …Read the rest of this story
