Excuse Me: I Believe I Have Fallen Into A Parallel Universe

Two big city police chiefs arguing that the right response to terrorists is shoot back.  From Dec. 1, 2015 Detroit News:

The city’s police chief said he believes violent extremists would be reluctant to target Detroit, as they had Paris last month, for fear armed citizens would shoot back.

“A lot of Detroiters have CPLs (concealed pistol licenses), and the same rules apply to terrorists as they do to some gun-toting thug,” Chief James Craig said. “If you’re a terrorist, or a carjacker, you want unarmed citizens.”

Oakland University criminal justice professor Daniel Kennedy agreed that terrorists would be reluctant to attack armed citizens.

“We don’t have laboratories where we can test these theories, but there is something to the argument that terrorists want a high body count — and if they can only shoot a few people before they’re taken out themselves, it wouldn’t have the kind of impact they want.

“An armed citizen won’t give them a high body count. Look at the theater in Paris,” the Bataclan Café, where four men with AK-47 assault rifles killed 89 people during a rock concert. “If some of those people had been armed, it would’ve been a much different story.”...

Craig, who made national headlines after he told The Detroit News in 2013 that he thought more armed citizens would help drive down the crime rate, said some gun control advocates are softening their stances amid the concerns about terrorism.

Craig pointed to comments Washington, D.C., Police Chief Cathy Lanier made last week during a “60 Minutes” segment about active shooting situations, in which she said citizens should “take the gunman out” if faced with a threat.