Terrorist plot foiled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. AP

The suspect, Samy Mohamed Hamzeh. Waukesha County Sheriffs Department

A terrorist plot targeting a Masonic temple in Milwaukee, Wisconsin was foiled after the suspect tried to buy fully automatic and suppressed weapons. AP. Federal prosecutors charged 23 year old Samy Mohamed Hamzeh with possession of a fully automatic firearm and receiving a weapon not registered to him. Hamzeh planned to attack a Masonic temple and kill at least 30 people so "nobody can play with Muslims". Two people would have gone inside of the temple with fully automatic firearms while a third would shoot anyone that fled the building. Hamzeh also hoped that the attack would inspire more mass shootings. Hamzeh's original plan was to travel to Israel and attack civilians there, but the plan fell apart due to the difficulty in traveling to Israel and a lack of funds. Hamzeh then decided to attack a US target but he confided in confidential informants. Those informants went with Hamzeh to a gun range and visited a Masonic temple as a scouting mission. When Hamzeh tried to purchase fully automatic weapons he was arrested.

My Comment:

I had to cover this story. I live in Wisconsin and though I don't visit Milwaukee all that often, I have been there before, and I know a lot of people that live there or visit. So this story strikes rather close to home. It makes you realize that there is the potential for terrorism pretty much everywhere. I'm not sure what Masonic temple Hamzeh was targeting but if he had pulled off this attack, it wouldn't be too surprising if I or someone I know would have been effected by this personally. I am very thankful that this attack did not come to pass. We had a mass shooting near where I grew up recently and it is never a good feeling when it happens...

It sounds like that Hamzeh made the critical mistake of trusting someone he shouldn't have trusted. Those informants are the ones that stopped this attack. Though I doubt Hamzeh would have been able to pull off such an ambitious attack on his own, the intervention of those informants prevented any attack from happening. If Hamzeh had kept his plans more secret he could have pulled off some kind of attack, even if it wasn't quite at the scale had he planned. He should have stayed a "lone wolf" instead of looking for help.

He also made a huge mistake by trying to purchase fully automatic and suppressed firearms. Contrary to popular belief, fully automatic machine guns are very difficult to obtain in the United States. Though the gun laws in Wisconsin are fairly loose, we still have Federal restrictions on machine guns which make them basically unobtainable. Had Hamzeh known this and just purchased normal firearms, legally or otherwise, he would have likely been able to pull off his attack. 

His ambition to buy fully automatic and suppressed weapons also shows me that he was not a sophisticated attacker. Fully automatic weapons are fairly stupid to use in a mass shooting situation because automatic fire is for suppression. Attacking a civilian building like a Masonic temple is a rather unlikely place to need suppression fire, unless someone was concealed carrying. Semi-automatic fire is a much better idea as it allows you to conserve ammo and greatly increases accuracy. And suppressors seem particularly useless. With a large military style rifle it doesn't do a whole lot to make the gun quieter. It does make it quiet enough that you can shoot without ear protection, but not enough to disguise the unmistakable sound of rifle fire. Here's an example video of the difference between suppressed and un-suppressed fire. The suppressed fire starts at about 6:40 in the video, and you can hear normal fire in the beginning:

Hickok45. He's awesome!

It's clear to me that Hamzeh was one of those lone wolf attackers, inspired by ISIS and other terrorist groups. He was not a professional. Far from it. Though the basics of his plan would have probably worked the fact that he didn't realize that he would have been a lot safer buying legal weapons and not talking to any probably informants means that he was basically an idiot. His plan to attack Israel was even more stupid and probably got him on the governments radar in the first place. Though the danger was real, I don't think he was all that likely to pull anything off. Just a dumb kid trying to make a name for himself. But he failed, because I don't think that anyone will care about him after this. He will just rot in Federal prison for a long time due to these gun crimes. 

I am kind of surprised that they didn't charge him with conspiracy to commit murder, since they did seem to know all of his plans. Perhaps they didn't have enough evidence? Though trying to purchase machine guns is a major crime, the sentence isn't all that long. Even if they charge him with two counts I don't know if he gets more then 20 years for this. Receiving the weapons could add a few more but the fact of the matter is that Hamzeh is probably going to get out of prison before he dies, assuming he gets convicted. 

I do have to wonder why on earth he wanted to target the Masons. In the past there has been some strong anti-Mason sentiment in the United States, but outside of a few conspiracy nuts, that has faded into nothingness. I know a few Masons and from what I understand it's just a club. I don't know if Islam has any specific problem with Masonry but it seems unlikely that the Masons are hated any more then any other western group. I would love to understand Hamzeh's reasoning here because I just don't get it. Perhaps it was just a target of convenience?

The bizarre nature of the target of this attack, and other attacks like the San Bernardino shooting or the Oklahoma City decapitation just goes to show that any place could be a target. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the choice of targets that these people are deciding on. Which is a very bad thing because at least in the old days you could know what the targets are. You can harden a target like Times Square, but you can't harden it when it's a community center or a Masonic Temple. I really do think that the answer to this threat is having concealed carry. With such diverse targets you can never really know where you are at risk. It might be worth it to be prepared all the time... 

I also want to point out that a lot seems to be missing from the reporting I have seen on this incident. Nobody I have seen is calling it a foiled terror plot (other then me), even though that's exactly what this is. And many outlets are calling it a "machine gun attack" using the language of gun control advocates, even though the choice of weapon isn't really all that improtant. I also haven't been able to figure out if Hamzeh is a natural born citizen, a convert to Islam (though he appears Middle Eastern) or if he is a more recent migrant. All of those things tell me that you can tell the truth in your reporting but still leave people with a very inaccurate idea of what is actually going on. This happens all the time of course, but it seems a bit more obvious in this case then it normally does. It serves as a good reminder not to trust everything you read on the internet. Not even me!