Seven people injured in mass stabbing in Paris, France.

Police stand by an ambulance at the scene of the attack. NPR/AP.

Seven people were injured in a mass stabbing in Paris, France. NPR. The man was armed with a large knife and a metal bar and was attacking people randomly. Two British civilians were wounded in the attack after being stabbed. Local French civilians playing pétanque, a French bowling game, chased after the man and threw balls at him. Though he was hit several times in the head by the balls, he fled and was arrested by police. The suspects name, nationality and motive have not yet been released. 

My Comment:

Another day and another mass stabbing in Europe. This time it was in Paris and for once the suspect seemed a bit more smart about it. Instead of attacking a tourist area or other high security target he just randomly targeted people on the street. This delayed the police from responding long enough for him to injure seven people. 

But I think the attack could have been much worse. Some brave French civilians engaged the attacker and threw the pétanque balls at him. This probably didn't injure him but it did cause him to stop his attack and flee, allowing people to arrest him and preventing further harm. Very good work by those French civilians. I hope that the government of France recognizes their heroism. 

I have always said that resistance to these kinds of attacks is critical. The longer it goes before someone fights back the more people get hurt and killed. I usually advocate gun ownership for this but for those that are not willing and able to, either due to personal beliefs or their countries laws, sometimes you have to make due with what is at hand. And improvised weapon that you can throw at an attacker is about as good as it's going to get for someone that doesn't have a gun responding to one of these attacks. 

I'll give all my usual disclaimers about these kinds of knife attacks. It's a sad state of affairs but that's the world we live in these days. 

-The attacker was probably working alone and didn't have any direct links to terror groups. The fact that he wasn't able to get guns or explosives is a huge hint.  

-Despite that he probably was inspired by ISIS or al-Qaeda propaganda. 

-He has a decent chance of being mentally ill. This isn't an excuse for what he did but it's well known that terror groups purposely recruit them. 

All of these things are likely to be revealed true. Also likely is that the suspect will be of foreign background. Other sources are saying that the attacker was an Afghan man but I am not sure if that is correct or not. Either way these attacks are becoming way too common in Europe...