Detroit Police Chief: Terrorists ‘Want Unarmed Citizens,’ We Won’t Give Them That

Detroit Police Chief James Craig says terrorists “want unarmed citizens” and he thinks the growing number of citizens armed for self-defense could dissuade terrorists from targeting the Motor City the way they targeted Paris.

Craig began urging Detroiters to get their CPLs (concealed pistol licenses) and arm themselves to “drive the crime rate down” in 2013. And on January 2, 2014, Craig said, “Good community members who have concealed [licenses]” deter crime and save lives.

He is now expressing his belief that an armed citizenry can be effective against terrorism as well.

According to The Detroit News,  Craig said, “A lot of Detroiters have CPLs, and the same rules apply to terrorists as they do to some gun-toting thug. If you’re a terrorist, or a carjacker, you want unarmed citizens.” He suggested the knowledge that citizens  “would shoot back” probably makes “extremists…reluctant to target Detroit.”

Craig’s sentiment was echoed by Oakland University criminal justice professor Daniel Kennedy, who said:

We don’t have laboratories where we can test these theories, but there is something to the argument that terrorists want a high body count — and if they can only shoot a few people before they’re taken out themselves, it wouldn’t have the kind of impact they want. An armed citizen won’t give them a high body count. Look at the theater in Paris, if some of those people had been armed, it would’ve been a much different story.

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