"Unprecedented threat" of terrorism in France. Yahoo/AFP

French troops patrol in a shopping center. Yahoo/AFP.

The risk of a jihadi terrorist attack in France has reached unprecedented levels, according to French officials. Yahoo/AP. Counter-terrorist officials claim that they find new threats daily, with cells trying to recruit fighters for Iraq and Syria. As many as 4000 people in France are being targeted as potential or actual jihadists. The level of skill with these groups has increased as well. Trying to evade electronic surveillance, the suspects swap SIM cards for cell phones while others avoid using phones at all. French officials consider fighters returning from Iraq or Syria to be the biggest threat, with as many as 200 fighters having returned. There is also concern of an escalating war between ISIS and Al-Qaeda with each group competing with each other in terms of terror attacks. Both groups are trying to outdo each other. Thousands of police and soldiers have been deployed in France while new surveillance laws are being put into place. 

My Comment:

I wonder how much of this threat is legitimate. No doubt there are active terror cells in France, as well as the rest of Europe for that matter. But the last part of the article that says France is introducing new surveillance laws makes me extremely uncomfortable. While the NSA scandal has faded a bit from public consciousness, it is still fresh in my mind at least. My guess is that the threat is real but the new laws put into place to ostensibly fight terrorism will just serve to further erode the rights of French citizens. 

That being said, I am struck at the pictures I am seeing coming out of Europe lately. Armed guards everywhere, soldiers on the streets and cops out in force. That's something I have only seen in America once, right after the 9/11 attacks. Though the article concerned France, the new security situation isn't unique to them. Indeed, almost every European country with a large Muslim population has to be taking the threat of a Chalrie Hebdo/Bardo Museum style attack seriously. 

I've been talking a lot lately about how effective these kinds of mass shooting terror attacks have been. They are cheap, safe and incredibly effective in multiple different ways. I haven't really talked about how they are amazingly effective at provoking a disproportionate response. Over all these attacks won't kill all that many people, but the amount of fear they create is massive. Quite frankly, people won't tolerate it if these kinds of attacks become common place, even if they statistically have little chance of dying to one. I think people generally realize that it is much easier to grab a couple of people with rifles and have them go on a killing spree then it is to organize a bombing or hijacking.

So how do you fight this? The obvious, and unacceptable, solution is to either eject Muslims from Europe or at the very least treat all of them like terrorists in terms of surveillance and law enforcement. This won't work for both ethical and pragmatic reasons. Obviously blaming an entire group for the actions of a minority in that groups isn't fair and can't be considered ethical. Plus there is no political will to do so and even if there was it probably isn't possible at this point anyways. Setting up some restrictions for immigration and bringing back internal borders within the EU might mitigate the problem though. Even that would face incredible opposition... 

My solution is probably much more effective and not nearly as unethical as that though. Just let civilians carry guns again. The European Jewish community, who are understandably paranoid about being targeted, has floated this idea but it seems to have gotten little traction. Quite frankly Europeans hate guns in the hands of civilians. I actually think the "eject all the Muslims from Europe" solution would happen much sooner then even a slight expansion of gun rights in Europe. For most of Europe hating Muslims is more politically correct then respecting the right to bear arms and it is in no way politically correct to hate Muslims in Europe. 

It's a damn shame too because gun rights would help. Mass shootings tend to end in one way or the other when people start shooting back. It also makes taking hostages more risky if the terrorists have to worry about one of the hostages packing heat. It wouldn't stop these attacks but it could lower their impact and could force these terror groups to eventually abandon the tactic. It would also have the added benefit of reducing the impact of heavy police and military patrols. Too bad it will never happen...