Mumbai--coming to a 'gun-free zone' near you?

As I contemplated yesterday, I'm experimenting with a somewhat changed format. What I'm looking at doing is having one of my typical long, rambling, conciseness-challenged posts, for the continued "enjoyment" of the gluttons for punishment--probably posted in the morning, and followed throughout the day by shorter posts dealing with other things that I come across and think are worth commenting on.

This post will be the first of that kind, although I can already tell that it's going to run longer than I'd planned.

It seems that the Mumbai attacks have caught the attention of the Department of Homeland Security (I would certainly hope so), with the idea that it could happen here.

U.S. cities are vulnerable to an attack like the gun-and-grenade assault that terrorized Mumbai for three days and killed 179 people, the White House homeland security adviser said on Wednesday.

Ken Wainstein told a Washington think tank the Mumbai attacks in November showed the effectiveness of a low-technology coordinated assault on an open city.

"You can envision that happening in any American city, and it's chilling when you think about it," Wainstein told policy-makers and others in a speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "That's the kind of thing that is all too realistic anywhere in the world."

Hmm . . . what could be done to reduce the danger of that kind of attack in the U.S.? As it turns out, Ron Paul has some thoughts about that.

India’s gun laws are her business, of course. However, once the shock of these events and the initial reaction of fear passes, Americans should take away a valuable lesson about real homeland security and gun control from this tragedy.

Gun control advocates tell us that removing guns from society makes us safer. If that were the case why do the worst shootings happen in gun free zones, like schools? And while accidents do happen, aggressive, terroristic shootings like this are unheard of at gun and knife shows, or military bases. It bears repeating that an armed society truly is a polite society.

I'm glad that at least elements within the Bush administration are giving some thought to the possibility of a small-arms massacre type attack on a soft target on U.S. soil, by terrorists. I would have been considerably more glad, though, if some thought had been given to this before . . . oh, I don't know--appointing "Maximum Mike" Sullivan to run the BATFE, or using the Solicitor General to try to sabotage a Supreme Court affirmation of the individual nature of the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment.

In fairness, of course, I'll have to acknowledge that I can only see things getting dramatically worse on that front in the days ahead.

I'll end with one more observation: if I were planning such an attack, Illinois (Chicago, specifically) would sure look like a nice, juicy, softest of soft targets.