Tragically, over the Thanksgiving holiday, the world was reminded how evil and cruel people can be. According to emerging accounts of the events in India, about a dozen well-armed and devastatingly well-trained terrorists laid siege on the city of Mumbai, killing almost two hundred people, and terrorizing thousands.

Regardless of the reasons, the indiscriminate shooting on masses of unarmed and defenseless people is chilling and reprehensible. How were these terrorists able to continue so long, relatively unchallenged, killing so many?

Regardless of the reasons, the indiscriminate shooting on masses of unarmed and defenseless people is chilling and reprehensible. How were these terrorists able to continue so long, relatively unchallenged, killing so many?

India’s gun laws are her business, of course. However, once the shock of these events and the initial reaction of fear passes, Americans should take away a valuable lesson about real homeland security and gun control from this tragedy.

Gun control advocates tell us that removing guns from society makes us safer. If that were the case why do the worst shootings happen in gun free zones, like schools? And while accidents do happen, aggressive, terroristic shootings like this are unheard of at gun and knife shows, or military bases. It bears repeating that an armed society truly is a polite society.

The fact is that firearm technology exists. It cannot be uninvented. As long as there is metalworking and welding capability, it matters not what gun laws are imposed upon law-abiding people. Those that wish to have guns, and disregard the law, will have guns. Gun control makes violence safer and more effective for the aggressive, whether the aggressor is a terrorist or a government.

History shows us that another tragedy of gun laws is genocide. Hitler, for example, knew well that in order to enact his “final solution,” disarmament was a necessary precursor. While it is not always the case that an unarmed populace WILL be killed by their government, if a government is going to kill its own people, it MUST disarm them first so they cannot fight back. Disarmament must happen at a time when overall trust in government is high, and under the guise of safety for the people, or perhaps the children. Knowing that any government, no matter how idealistically started, can become despotic, the Founding Fathers enabled the future freedom of Americans by enacting the second amendment.

In our own country, we should be ever vigilant against any attempts to disarm the people, especially in this economic downturn. I expect violent crime to rise sharply in the coming days, and as states and municipalities are even more financially strained, the police will be even less able or willing to respond to crime. In many areas, local police could become more and more absorbed with revenue generating activities, like minor traffic violations and the asset forfeiture opportunities of non-violent drug offenses. Your safety has always, ultimately been your own responsibility, but never more so than now. People have a natural right to defend themselves. Governments that take that away from their people should be highly suspect.

The Group of Eight major industrial nations announced Wednesday they will hold a global summit – perhaps as early as November in New York – to forge common action to prevent another economic meltdown.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said all European Union nations backed radical restructuring of global institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. He called for a meeting “preferably in New York, where everything started” and said it should lead to “a new capitalism.”

Sarkozy said emerging economies such as China, India and others outside the G-8 should also participate because “no one should feel excluded from what we are recasting.”

EU leaders meeting in Brussels “all agreed that we don’t want the same causes to produce the same effects in future,” the French leader said. “We don’t want all this to start again; we want lessons to be learned.”

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the meeting would require vision similar to the creation of the United Nations and the Bretton Woods conference that laid out the post-World War II international financial and monetary system.

The G-8 leaders said in a joint statement released by the White House that they were united in their commitment to change the regulation of the world’s financial sector to restore confidence and “remedy deficiencies exposed by the current crisis.”

“We are confident that, working together, we will meet the present challenges and return our economies to stability and prosperity,” they said.

Brown, a longtime former Treasury chief widely seen as a leader in crafting policies to combat the financial crisis, said he wants a group of supervisors from major nations to monitor the world’s 30 largest financial institutions.

“I believe there is scope for agreement in the next few days that we will have an international meeting to take common action … for very large and very radical changes,” Brown told reporters before meeting for talks on the financial crisis with other EU leaders, who on Wednesday endorsed a $2.3 trillion continentwide emergency bailout for the banking sector.

By Nelson Banya

ZIMBABWE – President Robert Mugabe on Friday handed the country’s only Olympic medalist in Beijing a US$100,000 cash reward for her performance at the games.

Swimmer Kirsty Coventry smashed the world record to win gold in the women’s 200 meters backstroke. She also captured three silver medals.

Mugabe handed the U.S-based swimmer the cash at a ceremony in Harare carried live on state television.

“Our national spirit must exude joy and pleasure and say you have done well, daughter of Zimbabwe. We are proud of you, we wish you well. She’s our golden girl … take care of her,” he said at the ceremony.

The U.S. dollars, scarce in a country struggling with an economic crisis marked by a severe shortage of foreign currency, were carried in a briefcase by Zimbabwe’s central bank governor Gideon Gono.
Other members of Zimbabwe’s Olympic team received between US$2,000 and US$10,000 each.

The cash reward is double the US$50 000 “pocket money” Mugabe gave Coventry after the 2004 Athens Olympics where she won a gold, silver and bronze medals.