The increasingly essential Liel Leibovitz:
The Bataclan isn’t an enormous venue, and chaos makes for terrific cover. You might have waited for the next time the terrorists ran out of bullets in their magazines—according to reports, they reloaded their rifles three or four times—and then charged and took a shot. You might’ve missed. You might’ve spooked the killers, causing them to detonate their explosive vests. You might’ve accidentally hit innocent bystanders. But it’s also entirely possible that you could’ve shot one of those evil ISIS creeps in the head. There were three terrorists at the Bataclan on Friday night; if you happened to be there with nine other friends, all armed, the odds of the siege ending much sooner and with far fewer killed are not bad.
What we’ve seen in Paris this weekend is not an attack, or an incident, or a tragedy. It’s war, and war, like it or not, is fought with guns. Because terrorism works precisely by striking at random, it’s silly to expect the police to be able to protect everyone at all times. When there are men out there teaming up to kill you, the rational and prudent thing to do is to at least make sure you have a chance to fight back.
