If the horrendous November 13 attacks in Paris provide any lessons for policy makers in the United States, those lessons revolve around the dangers of open borders and the laws which make it difficult – if not impossible – for law-abiding citizens to be armed for self defence.

Average citizens in the United States watched from afar – yet watched with trepidation – as Syrian “refugees” were allowed to flood into Europe over the past weeks. While there is no doubt that some of those fleeing war-torn Syria were actually looking for peace and a new start, there is also no way to argue against the fact that the flood of refugees provides perfect cover for terrorists in need of a way to enter Western nations and strike when the opportunity arises.

A Syrian passport was found by the body of the one of the gunman in Paris. Although the Guardian and the Wall Street Journal have warned that the passport was fake, it does not change the fact that the very mention of the word “Syria” in conjunction with words like “ISIS” and phrases like “Paris terror attack” send chills down the spines of Europeans and the watching world.

It creates an existential moment where Westerners actually look at themselves and the policies that multiculturalists have relentlessly pushed upon them, only to mimic the scene portrayed in Edvard Munch’s The Scream and ask, “What have we done?”

Adding insult to injury, Europeans have been largely disarmed by their governments and have no recourse in a situation like we saw Friday, where gunmen open fire on soft targets full of people who are as defenceless as those we see sitting in infamous gun free zones in the United States. We saw this at the Charlie Hebdo offices on January  7, in Copenhagen on February 14, and on a much more heinous scale on November 13.

And it is interesting to note a truism that attends all such attacks in countries with restrictive gun controls – namely, outlawing guns leaves guns only in the hands of outlaws. Thus the attackers at Charlie Hebdo, Copenhagen, and Paris on Friday, were well-armed despite gun controls and all-out bans on certain categories of weapons.

CNN law enforcement analyst Tom Fuentes addressed this in the aftermath of the Paris attack, saying, “Many of the European countries have been in denial that their strict gun control laws are going to keep guns out of the hands of bad guys, and it just doesn’t.”

He added, “Gangsters and terrorists have no problem getting automatic weapons, grenades, and all kinds of other equipment to use in these attacks. And we’re seeing a lot of that more and more, where a lot of people didn’t believe that before.”

Even before the November 13 terror attacks Breitbart London reported that Europeans were scrambling to buy guns for self-defence in countries where shotguns and other rudimentary firearms are still legal to own. And a large portion of those seeking such guns were women, who suddenly felt at risk with hordes of Muslims pouring into their countries.

So Europe has demonstrated the dangers of open borders and the impotency of gun control; the failure of both has been dragged into the light for all the world to see. Yet Democrats in the United States are largely absorbed with pushing two things right now: 1. Porous borders. 2. Gun control. In fact, on November 17, GQ magazine released an interview with President Obama in which he assured readers that his last year in office will be one of “sustained attention” to gun control.

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.