What might have deterred the Tsarnaevs?

Ross Kaminsky writes today in The American Spectator about the murders in Boston, what effect they might have on policy debates, and what might have deterred them from their murderous spree.

And then there’s cultural decline. Judging from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s Twitter page, he was — outside of his willingness to kill for some combination of his religion and his brother — what seems to pass in 2013 for an ordinary urban teenager. Which is to say that his biggest troubles were finding the TV remote control and trying to figure out how to sound clever to online “friends.”

[There were, in retrospect, some possible clues as to Tsarnaev’s true potential for violence sprinkled in among hundreds of mind-numbingly banal “tweets.” An example from February 1 of this year: “Do I look like that much of a softy I got these frail ass kids tryin to come at my neck, little do these dogs know they’re barking at a lion.” And then there’s this: “when we consider prophet Muhammad (s.a.a.w) as our role model that’s when we achieve true success & a path to Jannah.” (Jannah is the Muslim conception of paradise in which males — though emphasis among Islamic radicals is on martyrs — will receive 72 virgins.)]

But the idea that the Boston bombings are a major wakeup call for cultural decline ignores the depressingly common claxons of the coarsening of American society (which may itself be overstated, as most generations probably have the same complaint: “Kids these days…” Rap music denigrates women and policemen while glorifying violent crime. Magazines at every supermarket checkout stand wonder breathlessly whether one of the Kardashian sisters got paid to get fat. Schools emphasize self-esteem and political correctness over excellence and playing cops-and-robbers. In other words, for at least a generation, little has changed except for the names of the famous-for-being-famous. If last week’s events woke you up to cultural decline, you were in a deep slumber indeed.

THERE IS ONE AREA, however, where the issues raised are not grossly overstated: The one truly new and interesting debate to come out of the terrorist attack at the Boston marathon surrounds the imposition of what, especially in Watertown, must be called martial law. Eyewitness accounts and photographs show the police forcing citizens out of homes, hands raised, at gunpoint.

This is not just about “I’m not afraid” chest-thumping or the overused maxim “if we act this way, then the terrorists have won.” Lockdowns and martial law have real consequences ranging from economic impact to changing the perceived, and perhaps the real, relationship between citizens and government.

While I disagree with those who say that the Boston events represent the coming imposition of martial law across the country anytime there is an even vaguely similar situation, the images of empty Boston streets and SWAT teams in battle gear in Watertown pose serious questions. Among them: Would a better-armed citizenry have been much less afraid, and would knowledge of a better-armed citizenry have deterred the Islamists from any of their heinous, murderous actions?

Read the whole essay here