NYC synagogue bomb plot: interesting choice of weapons

    Oleg Volk photo

I suspect most, if not all, readers have heard about the alarming plot to bomb two synagogues in New York City and shoot down Air National Guard aircraft.

The men were arrested in an elaborate sting operation at around 9 p.m. on Wednesday after planting what they believed to be bombs in cars outside the Riverdale Temple, a Reform synagogue, and the nearby Riverdale Jewish Center, an Orthodox synagogue. Once the explosives were planted, the men planned to drive to the National Guard base to shoot down military aircraft with a Stinger surface-to-air missile while detonating the bombs with a remote device.

When reading about this terrorist plot, what struck me right away was the would-be jihadists' choice of weapons.  For the attacks on the synagogues, they eschewed so-called "assault weapons," despite the Brady Campaign's strident labeling of such firearms as "mass produced mayhem" (pdf file), "designed to slaughter people."  Sounds like just the ticket for aspiring jihadists who believe that their status in the next life is enhanced by killing as many Jews as possible.

New York, of course, has an "assault weapons" ban similar to the expired federal ban, but apparently, that doesn't matter.  We have been told for years, after all, that the reason New York City Mayor Bloomberg has crusaded for stricter federal gun laws, has spent his own money campaigning for stricter state gun laws in Virginia, and has even initiated "sting" operations (to the annoyance of even the BATFE) designed to entrap gun dealers in states hundreds of miles away from New York--is that "weak gun laws" in other states were supposedly undermining New York's "strong" (a polite way of saying tyrannical) ones, and flooding New York with guns.

In short, if we are to believe the Brady Campaign, so called "assault weapons" would have been an extremely appealing choice for aspiring terrorists, and if we are to believe Bloomberg and his "Mayors Against Illegal Guns," they could have gotten such firearms easily, despite New York's laws.

Instead, though, they tried to obtain plastic explosive--a much trickier proposition.  Their supposed supplier of the ordnance, in fact, turned out to be an FBI informant.  They were, in other words, undone by their attempts to acquire something more deadly than so-called "assault weapons."

Doesn't seem to fit with what we've been told about "mass produced mayhem," does it?

Similarly, for their planned attacks against aircraft, these gentlemen sought not .50 caliber rifles--supposedly "ideal tools for terrorists" (pdf file), in large part because of their supposed utility against aircraft (pdf file)--but Stinger shoulder fired surface-to-air guided missiles.  While .50 caliber rifles are "less regulated than .22 handguns," according to the Violence Policy Center (pdf file) Stinger missiles are outright banned for private possession (and cost tens of thousands of dollars per shot, even for the government, I believe--$38,000 according to Wikipedia), but they passed on the .50 cal, and tried to get the Stinger (which like the plastic explosive, would be supplied by the man who turned out to be an FBI informant).

I guess the terrorists hadn't heard about how effective .50 caliber rifles would be against aircraft.

Oh--one more thing--isn't it the "right-wing extremists" who pose the terrorist threat we're supposed to be worried about?