ISIS has claimed responsibility for the horrific truck attack in Berlin Monday that left 12 people dead and in short order, the European Union passed stricter gun laws.
It is worth noting that the legislation was proposed in 2015 after radical Islamist terrorists attacked Paris twice that year, using assault rifles in both instances. In the case of Monday’s terrorist attack in Berlin, the body of the Polish truck driver who was murdered for his vehicle, showed gunshot and knife wounds.
While there is no denying that guns were used in recent terrorist acts in Europe and the United States, implementing slightly stricter gun laws on some firearms does not address the root cause behind these terrorist attacks: radical Islam.
Putting more legislation on the books when it comes to gun control only puts the vast majority of the European Union’s law-abiding citizens and residents at an unfair disadvantage. Deranged individuals looking to commit harm on innocent people will never be deterred by the rule of law.
Before Monday’s terrorist attack, the last notable act of terrorism involving a truck as a weapon was on Bastille Day in Nice, France. The Nice truck attack was also linked to ISIS, but the truck driver did not have to shoot anyone to use the truck which he rented and then used as a battering ram. Over 86 people were killed in that attack.
Gun violence is a serious problem, but it is separate from terrorism based on religious fundamentalism. Radical Islamist terrorists have demonstrated time and time again that they are ready and willing to die for their demented cause. Terrorists have also clearly shown that they do not need guns to cause wide-scale death and destruction. After all, the most infamous terrorist attacks of the 21st century, the September 11th, 2001 attacks, were carried out with utility knives and flight lessons.
Rather than misidentifying the cause of its current terrorist woes, Europe should unite by engaging in better intelligence-sharing and developing a coherent and uniform system for vetting refugees. It is unknown if the terrorist in the Berlin attack was a refugee, but two of the assailants involved in the Paris terror attacks in November 2015 are known to have likely posed as Syrian refugees to enter Europe.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has overseen the admittance of 890,000 asylum seekers into her country in 2015. For the sake of its own citizens and law-abiding residents, Germany should consider revising its migration policy. Besides German immigration policies, other policies that must be reconsidered are the Schengen Agreement that applies to several European countries that are both in and outside of the European Union.
The Schengen Agreement has allowed individuals traveling within the Schengen area since 1995 to freely cross the borders of signatory states without any border control procedures. It is because of the lax nature of the Schengen Agreement that terrorists involved in the November 2015 Paris attacks were able to cross the French border into Belgium and subsequently hide out in Brussels.
The European Union Parliament and Council have agreed on December 5th to stricter checks on people entering and leaving the Schengen area, but this does not affect travel within the area of signatory countries. Ultimately, European countries must rethink how to protect their citizens best without sacrificing their values of openness and inclusion, which is no easy feat.
To take away people’s rights to purchasing certain high-caliber weapons will not eliminate the threat of radical Islamic terrorism, but instead, it will lull people into a false sense of security. No one can or should doubt the good intentions of Europe’s leaders behind these latest gun laws as an attempt to protect their people. However, no one should doubt the murderous nature of radical Islamic terrorism.
