Convinced that they will go to heaven if they die killing infidels who Mohammed taught his followers to hate, some Muslims don’t bother joining al Qaeda or some other organized band of thugs. They get so filled with hatred from hearing Islamic sermons and visiting jihadi web sites that they decide to become freelance Jihadis.

The condition is recognizable and has been labeled Sudden Jihad Syndrome (SJS) — although some people are unable, or unwilling, to recognize SJS. Politically correct spokesmen for the FBI and other agencies seem to be under orders to issue a denial that a SJS-related murder could possibly have anything to do with Islam.

The rest of the population should come to grips with the fact that many in America are susceptible to SJS. The best antidote for many SJS-related acts of terrorism is a bullet fired from the gun of a prospective victim.

The following list is offered to show that SJS is a reality, and that rational Americans should be prepared to deliver the most effective known antidote – a bullet administered at the first sign of an outbreak of SJS.

• March 1994 – Rashid Baz, a Muslim from Lebanon, opened fire on a van containing members of the Lubavitch Hassids in Brooklyn. One was killed.
• February 1997 – Palestinian-born Ali Abu Kamal opened fire on the observation deck of the Empire State Building, killing a tourist and injuring six other people before committing suicide. His daughter, Linda Kamal, said in 2007 that the family is tired of lying and admitted that a letter had been found on her father’s body explaining his Muslim hatred for Israel and America.
• July 2002 – Egyptian-born Hesham Mohammed Hadayet walked into the Israeli Airlines El Al terminal at the Los Angeles airport and began shooting Jews. He killed two and injured another four. He was known to sympathize with al Qaeda.
• September 2002 – Patrick Gott killed one and wounded another in the New Orleans airport. He had entered the terminal with a shotgun and his Koran.
• October 2002 – John Mohammed and Lee Malvo killed 13 people in the Washington, DC area. Both were converts to Islam and had attended a jihad training camp in southwestern Virginia.
• August 2003 – Mohammed Ali Alayed almost totally decapitated his erstwhile Jewish friend, Ariel Sellouk, following Alayed’s getting serious about his Islamic faith. He went to a mosque after killing Sellouk.
• October 2005 – Joel Henry Hinrichs III, a convert to Islam, was an engineering student at Oklahoma University. His student career ended when a bomb he had strapped on himself went off prematurely outside a crowed stadium, killing only himself. Police subsequently cleared explosives from the apartment that Hinrichs had shared with Muslim students from Pakistan.
• April 2006 – Muslim Ayhan Surucu was so angry when his sister started to wear make-up and date men in Berlin, Germany, that he put a gun to her head at a bus stop and killed her. Boys at a nearby school, attended mainly by the children of immigrant Muslim families, cheered and applauded when news of the murder reached them.
• May 2006 – Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill student, rented an SUV and drove it through a crowded part of the campus— intentionally trying to hit people and wounding nine. In a series of letters to the student newspaper, he explained that he acted in obedience to Koranic dictates.
• June 2006 – Michael Ford, a Muslim convert, walked into work at a Safeway warehouse in Denver and opened fire on his coworkers, killing one and injuring five. Relatives explained that he was being teased at work because he’s a Muslim and he could not take it anymore.
• July 2006 – Naveed Alzal Haq, a Pakistani, walked into the Jewish Federation Center in downtown Seattle and shot six women— killing one, and wounding five( one of whom was pregnant). He stated matter-of-factly : « I am a Muslim American angry at Israel. »
• August 2006 – Omeed Aziz Popal, a Muslim Afghan refugee, used his SUV as a weapon and ran down at least 14 people and a bicyclist in the San Francisco Bay area. He was targeting Jewish neighborhoods to terrorize.
• January 2007 – A 22-year-old Muslim, Ismail Yassin Mohamed, stole a car in Minneapolis and rammed it into other cars before stealing a van and doing the same, injuring several drivers and pedestrians at crosswalks and on sidewalks before police caught up with him. Mohamed called himself a « terrorist. »
• February 2007 – Ibrihim Ahmed, a Nashville cab driver and Muslim, was enraged that two passengers did not agree with him about Islam. When they got out of the cab, he tried to run them down, striking one in a parking lot.
• February 2007 – Sulejman Talovic, a Bosnian Muslim immigrant, went to a Salt Lake City mosque on a Friday night. Then he went to one of only two malls in the state which prohibits civilian carrying of concealed weapons. He killed five before an off-duty cop (not subject to ban) used a concealed firearm stopped his murder spree.

The examples that I have found of Islam being the driving force for murder show that the prospect of Sudden Jihad Syndrome should be reason to loosen the country’s concealed carry laws. The Utah Jihadi did not have a concealed carry permit, but he carried his weapons to the scene of the crime concealed anyway. Why should the laws make it harder for the rest of us to counter what criminals are already doing ?

Put another way, our current restrictions on concealed carry on the books in most states facilitate murder by tying the hands of victims. The law should be on our side, not on the side of the bad guys.

Larry Pratt is Executive Director of Gun Owners of America, a National gun lobby with over 300,000 members located at 8001 Forbes Place, Springfield, VA 22151, (703) 321-8585. Opinions expressed in ’Perspectives’ columns published by OneNewsNow.com are the sole responsibility of the article’s author(s), or of the person(s) or organization(s) quoted therein, and do not necessarily represent those of the staff or management of, or advertisers who support the American Family News Network, OneNewsNow.com, our parent organization or its other affiliates. Correction : Fixes location of February 2007 incident involving a cab driver. - 3/9/2007