The tragic events yesterday in California’s Inland Empire deserve attention. I’ll just stick to the facts:
- The primary shooter, Sayeed Rizwan Farook, age 28, was American-born to parents who were from Karachi, Pakistan, and was described as “a very devout Muslim”.
- He recently traveled to Saudi Arabia.
- According to The Daily Mail, “Farook graduated from California State University, San Bernardino with a degree in environmental health in 2009.”
- The second shooter killed in the shootout was Farook’s wife Tashfeen Malik, a pharmacist, age 27, born in Pakistan but more recently a resident of Saudi Arabia, who had married Farook two years ago.
- The long guns used in the attack are banned in California, by their configuration. (They had the “bullet button” magazine release replaced, and they had 20-round magazines.) Farook most certainly did not just walk into a California gun shop or a gun show and buy them in that configuration. ALL long guns less than 50 years old are banned from private party sales in California (unless transferred with paperwork through an FFL), and to legally possess a banned-configuration “grandfathered” semi-auto rifle in California, it would have had to have been registered to Farook on or before December 31, 1999. But he was 13 years old in 1999, so that is impossible.
- The attack clearly took considerable planning and logistical preparation. It is highly unlikely that the “three crudely made bombs packed with black powder and rigged to a remote-controlled toy car” were assembled in the brief span just before the attack. It also indicates that there might have been a wider conspiracy.
- To call this event simply “workplace violence” would be absurd. People do not drive home, methodically don multiple magazine pouches and gather up guns and pipe bombs, in a simple fit of rage.
- They dropped off their six month old baby daughter with a grandmother, before the attack. That is another sign that this was a premeditated attack.
These facts speak for themselves.
Calling for additional “gun control ” laws in the wake of this attack is ludicrous. California’s existing gun and explosives laws were clearly flouted so passing any more laws would be useless. We have the right to arm ourselves in defense against similar terror attacks! – JWR