9/11 was the seminal moment of our lifetimes. Black Sabbath,
the Oct. 7 attack in Israel, was, statistically speaking, hugely worse.
Public domain.
Disclaimer: The views that follow are my own …
2,977 Americans died on 9/11. There are 332 million people in America. On that one horrible day, one in every 111,522 of our countrymen perished. 9/11 changed everything about our world.
The Israelis call Oct. 7, 2023, Black Sabbath. On that one day, Hamas terrorists murdered roughly 1,400 people. They further took 240 hostages. The population of the modern state of Israel is 9.3 million. Israel lost one in every 5,670 citizens … in a single day.
Relativity
Let’s put that in perspective. Scaled for our population, Black Sabbath was the equivalent of having Mexican drug cartels come across the southern border and murder or kidnap 58,546 Americans. That’s more people than we lost in 10 years of combat in Vietnam. How do you think Uncle Sam would have responded to that?
I’ll answer that question for you. We would have laid waste to everything those drug cartels held dear. We would have killed them until there were no more left to kill. As it is, we spent two decades after 9/11 at war in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. The Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs estimates that up to 4.5 million people died in the Global War on Terror. A great many of those were civilians. We have little moral impetus to be preaching to the Israelis about how they prosecute their fight in Gaza.
As I type these words, the death toll in Gaza has surpassed 10,000 people. If these sources are to be believed, thousands of those dead were children. That is objectively horrible. For any thinking, rational, compassionate person, those numbers are viscerally repugnant. However, let’s get one thing straight. That’s not the fault of the Israelis. Hamas bears sole responsibility for that carnage. Had Hamas not murdered 1,400 Israelis on Oct. 7, Gaza would still be intact, and every one of those Palestinian kids would still be alive.
Dead Palestinian children was their goal from the very outset. These animals are waging an intentional war for our heartstrings. They are playing us all, and they are very, very good at it. If Hamas released the hostages, acknowledged Israel’s right to exist, and swore off terrorism, this war would be over tomorrow.
The Israelis make superb weapons. They have to.
A Most Remarkable Double Standard
We cannot view Hamas and radical Islam through the same lens as we see ourselves. These nutjobs absolutely worship death. Their sordid lot is so awful that their thought leaders convince them that paradise after a glorious martyr’s death is the only thing that makes life worth living.
In the West, we are conditioned to cherish human life. To feel otherwise is considered psychotic. That’s not the way these people are wired.
Children in that world are indoctrinated from birth to die for their religion. While we are teaching our kids to mind their manners and be nice to people, they are training their children to hate Israelis and shoot guns. It’s not terribly uncommon to see grade schoolers clutching assault rifles taking part in violent demonstrations. They are not like we are. They never will be. How can we ever hope to successfully combat fanaticism on such a breathtaking scale?
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Astra 400, 9mm Largo shooting
Comments during Ammo Inc.’s Nov. 9 earnings conference call indicate enthusiasts can expect cartridge prices to increase for the rest of the year and continue to do so through 2024. Officials from the firm base that prediction on demand for its Streak Visual Ammunition, Jagemann Munition Components, /stelTH/ Subsonic Ammunition and Ammo Incorporated Signature lines. Sell through on Gunbroker, which it also owns, supports that conclusion.
One caller asked if the recent increase in ammunition sales reflected a seasonal trend, rather than an unexpected market shift. Ammo Inc. CEO Jared Smith answered, “So we would expect anywhere between a 5- to 6-percent increase and a gentle trend coming from September into October. This was a pretty sharp trend in that 14.7 percent. And that’s really because these events happened in the second half of October, it was really sharp incline after the events in Israel and Hamas that we saw the uptick.”
Retail prices haven’t—so far—reached Covid-19’s painful level, although “…we’re seeing wholesale pricing increase slightly,” Smith said. “And we continue to see opportunistic buys out there that says that price continues to escalate. So, do we think it will—that this is a long-term hold? We think there is a strategic repricing that’s happening going into the 2024 year.”
He said the increase in demand, according to results on Gunbroker, includes firearms as well. As for cartridges most in demand, Smith said, “…the stuff that everybody’s running for is 5.56 NATO and .223 Rem., 7.62×39 mm, all your larger rifle calibers, anything related to military calibers, because of the news between Israel and Hamas.”
The company reported a decline in total revenue for the quarter, however, attributed to a decline in its ammunition segment. That loss, according to officials, was largely due to a new, high-volume brass press that preforms cartridge casings. It was idled due to mechanical issues and—coupled with OEM-quality replacement parts still scarce after Covid-19—only recently repaired, tested and expected to go back online soon.