Of course he said that after being criticized.
Its so clear now that he meant only the muslims involved in San Bernardino when he said
"those muslims"
What else could “those muslims” mean?
What else could “those Muslims” mean?
When I first saw it, I knew he was prompted to do so by the still-ongoing wall-to-wall coverage of San Bernardino. It was within 48 hours of us knowing enough to call it an act of terror with any degree of confidence, and further investigation was still ongoing. Of course it was about that, I thought this was blatantly obvious even without further context.
Even more specifically, he was talking about any Islamic extremist who might go to LU and kill Christians for reasons that are religious and ideological in nature, most likely a young person born in the US and radicalized by someone they probably haven’t met in person. This is the new threat that we now face, and to his credit, Liberty University is likely to be pretty high on the list of potential targets.
Still working to his credit for the moment- it’s a dry campus and there are various restrictions as to who can have a gun on campus, no one under the age of 21 for example, and there are some hoops to jump through in order to get permission from the school. You can’t just get your permit and then show up packing out of the blue. There are also certain parts of campus where you can’t bring your weapon, general rule of thumb is that if it’s a secured building where you need a card or a key to get in, you don’t bring your gun with you. Less secure parts that qualify as being very soft, they’re more likely to be in play. In other words, it’s not a complete free-for-all and some of the drawbacks that exist at party schools are not really a problem there.
Not so much to his credit though…this is something that can be worked around, and it would only stop a shooter who’s a non-sniper. Improvised explosives are still very much in play if anyone is so inclined. And in general, even when good guys with guns are present, it requires years of ongoing training in order for the good guy to be of any use in a surprise-be-a-hero situation. Too many people say the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, but that’s only true in 3% of the cases where a bad guy gets stopped. For the most part, it’s unarmed people who are able to put a stop to it, speaking for the moment exclusively about incidents that are resolved before the authorities are able to step in. And that’s not because very few people have guns- it’s because so few people with guns and concealed carry permits possess the training and experience to be of any use even when they have all the physical tools to be successful. And I guess it’s partly because premeditated killers have a well established habit of choosing targets where they know there will be no other guns and they avoid those risks as much as they possibly can.
Overall, it’s not likely to be a very effective strategy, although it probably will be enough to limit the terrorist playbook in terms of ways they’re most likely to attack if they ever do. I thought the context was fairly clear, he was talking about a potential act of terror on the campus of LU and that is not an entirely unreasonable thing for him to be worried about. It’s not the most effective solution, but that wasn’t what most people had a problem with.
I guess this is what I’m really saying. Although I’m certain that some mosques are within easy driving distance of LU, I do believe there is a zero percent probability that any LU students in the audience are going to be radicalized to the point where they will drive out to a mosque and kill innocent people. That is not going to happen.
I repeat. Not. Going. To Happen.
But there are literally thousands of imams in the world today who talk about various non-Muslims in ways that can and do incite religiously motivated acts of terror. That is what we should be worried about, and it is those very people that Falwell is trying to get his campus ready for, albeit not in the most effective way.
To answer your question, that is exactly what else “those Muslims” could possibly mean.