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This video above, French police eliminate the terrorist behind the wheel of the truck that he used to claim some 84 innocent lives, and injure dozens more. Needless to say, the police are using guns. The Nice attack is a case of good guys with guns stopping a bad guy with a truck.

From reuters.com:

The paper published a photograph of a damaged, long-distance delivery truck, which it said was riddled with bullets and images of emergency services treating the injured. Social media carried images of those hit lying apparently lifeless in pools of blood, prompting police to ask people to stop such posts.

The driver was shot and killed by police. Presumably, every bullet fired at the jihadi came from les flics; it’s nearly impossible for ordinary people to legally carry defensive firearms in France.

The driver apparently had a gun of his own.

The man had opened fire on the crowd, local government chief Christian Estrosi told BFM TV, and weapons and grenades were found inside the truck after he was killed.

From the view of terrorists, this was a very effective and cheaply produced attack. It only required one jihadi and the ability to steal, buy, or rent a truck. I expect copycat attacks in other locales, including the United States. I hope armed Americans are on the scene — before the police arrive.

©2016 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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52 COMMENTS

  1. It’s one thing to shoot through glass on the doors/sides, another entirely to shoot through a windshield. What rounds hold together well enough to get through a windshield but still expand reliably when striking their target? I’d hope that the defender can get in a better angle, but sometimes that’s not an option.

      • Range (can) matters alot. However, I do not just want to be able to shoot and hit the driver. It would be nice to have someone on the ground armed w/ something powerful enough to get into the block and/or possibly take out an entire wheel assembly. But yeah, this is arm-chair quarterbacking at its finest.

    • Yankee Marshal did a video on this recently. According to his testing, 40 S&W performed better than 9mm in terms of not deflecting after penetrating the windshield.

      • I saw a super-slow-motion video comparing various caliber bullets hitting a windshield at oblique angles. The heavier the bullet, the less deflection. In the final analysis, the two semi-auto caliber/weight combinations that proved to pass through without noticeable deflection were .40 S&W (180 grain) and .45 ACP (230 grain).

        It is precisely for that reason (in case I ever have to shoot through a windshield to stop an attacker, spree killer, or terrorist) that I carry .40 S&W with 180 grain Ranger hollowpoints. I have almost the same capacity as 9 mm with superior barrier penetration. And I have more capacity than .45 ACP. Also, my .40 S&W fully loaded 15-round magazines weigh less than .45 ACP fully loaded magazines. To me, it is the “optimum” configuration (highest round count, least weight) that still supports zero-deflection (or close enough to zero-deflection) barrier penetration.

        For reference:
        A full-size handgun in 9mm typically has 17 round magazines and a full-size handgun in .40 S&W typically has 15 round magazines. The .45 ACP full-size handgun with the largest magazine of which I am aware is a Glock with a 13 round magazine.

    • Hornady Critical Duty are designed to do exactly this. Unfortunately, they require full sized service pistols to be 100% effective. I carry mine in either a full sized P220 or a P229.

      The video tests of the .45ACP +P versions of this round are nothing short of awe inspiring. It’s a very very nasty round that’s going to put down most two and four legged animals in North America.

      • And that is why a carry 17+1 of it in 9mm. Because when shit happens, it could be small shit or really really deep shit.

        • Yeah, the main reason the P220 rides on my hip at all is because 8+1 big bullets seems sufficient for lounging around my home. The P229 is for outside social work, it’s also the sidearm I run in 3gun

        • What do you do in the warmer months? OC?
          I can conceal a 15+1 P320 Compact in Fall and Winter, but the longer grip prints way too much under a tshirt.
          I switch to the subcompact frame (holds 12+1).

        • I find that the length of the grip is not as much of an issue as the thickness. Especially with a good IWB holster. In summer months, a nice single stack .45 gives you nearly as much firepower as a 9mm double stack (in terms of lead down the pipe) and is far easier to conceal.

          You might want to try carrying in the 4:30-5:00 position. The but of the gun should end right around the edge of your spine. In that position, the shape tends to be obscured by your back. (The only problem is that shirts tend to get caught and ride up above the holster.)

    • Our range instructor school starts with an open challenge – see if your load does better through automotive glass than the 180 grain Winchester Ranger .40 Smith JHP load. Most don’t.

      With that said, I still usually carry 9mm HST 124 grain +P because it has more capacity and I can rapid – fire it more accurately. It also has slightly more energy than the .40 Smith Ranger load at 1218 FPS through my Glock 23 with 4″ conversion barrel. The Ranger does right around 1,000 FPS through the same barrel length and a bit faster through my Glock 35.

      Really, my first choice would be a Mk19 with 40mm HEDP, followed by a M2, followed by an M134. Realistically, I would choose a 12 gauge semi-auto loaded with 00, an AR-10, or a .50 Beowulf AR-15. On duty it would be an 870 loaded with Federal 00 at a rated 1325 FPS, the 64 grain Speer Gold Dot .223 out of a Sig M400, or the aforementioned .40 Ranger out of a Smith 4006 TSW.

    • Since the 1986 Miami shootout, Law enforcement ammo has been specifically designed and tested to perform after passing through windshield glass.

  2. The futility of regulating arms against CEK (Cost Effective Kill).

    9/11about $66 per kill. Nice about $34.

    The economics of slaughter just got better.

    • Good points.

      Is it even that much? How’d you calculate it? He rented the truck right?

      Haji can get a Home Depot rented truck for $29 for the day and do the same thing. 30 cents/kill?

      • Unlikely that the 3/4 ton pickups the home centers rent could do nearly as much damage. A large truck loaded with something to add mass is going to make a very powerful kinetic weapon that can cut through a lot of people as well as cars and other smaller obstructions before coming to a stop.

        • If the only obstructions in the way are of the flesh and blood variety it really doesn’t matter what kind of truck it is. Even a small S-10 or Dakota sized pickup could mow down this many without stopping.

        • Hard to say. A smaller vehicle would also be more maneuverable, with better acceleration, making it harder for people to get out of the way.

          When you get hit by a vehicle, it doesn’t really matter if the mass ratio is 20:1 or 80:1.

          One thing is for sure: The jihadis will always be more creative in using ordinary objects to kill with, than the liberals will be in their attempts to regulate such objects.

        • Smaller vehicles are deadly, but they suffer from impacts more than larger vehicles. An s-10 would become undriveable a long time before you killed 80+ and wounded many more.

          I’ve seen vehicles that have hit deer, horses, people. Mass really counts if you’re going for a high death count.

        • Jim, a quick perusal of your local UHaul, Hertz, Enterprise, whatever should illuminate how easy it is to rent a 26-28 foot straight truck. It is also a 10 minute task with a skidsteer to load it up with 10K# of whatever is handy.

          I’ve rented hundreds of those trucks over the years. Fill out a form, sign on the line, DL and a credit card.

        • It’s obvious that one should have to undergo a background check before being able to rent any sort of high capacity assault truck.

  3. It should be obvious now to everyone all over the world , we need to ban big trucks and probably all trucks and probably cars too and motorcycles and planes and all these tools of mass destruction .
    I can assume that there are some pissed off terrorist who lost their truck and a lot of fire power in the back when one of their own went rouge and used their truck to commit hari-kari . The rear of the truck was reportedly full of guns , hand grenades and ammo .

      • Then that would explain why the guy went crazy , exposed to all those authentic looking , scary tools of mass destruction . Apparently just being around these type of things can cause insanity , particularly if exposed as a child . It’s easier for a child to get a gun than a book in America , according to the Barry in chief . Maybe where he grew up ?
        I don’t think old Barry can figure his way out of a paper bag .

    • Those are early reports. I am skeptical of them. I predict that we will find the jihadi had a shotgun and perhaps, a pistol.

      We should know in a few days. The French government seems a be willing to be less politically correct than the Obama administration.

        • No! Actually it was the truck…It was smuggled out of the USA…Because a terrorist overseas saw the movie “Fast and the Furious…!” You know how easy it is to get a motor vehicle, or truck in the USA. No license, No background checks, No waiting periods, etc…We need to get some meaningful legislation to ban, and restrict access immediately!

      • The French government colluded with Obama and Merkel to hide the fact that victims at the Bataclan were tortured and sexually mutilated.

        They get political like anyone else. It’s just different politics.

    • The real problem is the roof spoiler thingy that goes up. That’s what changes it from a mild-mannered straight-truck, to an assault truck.

      Oh, and Harry Caray was a STL-born sports announcer, essentially banished to Chicago by the team (and brewery) owner for certain indiscretions – with said owner’s wife.

      Hara Kiri is more properly Seppuku

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku

      Sorry, but that one drives me nuts.

      • Will Farrel doing Harry Carey on SNL is hysterical. I refuse to watch new SNL as they have become a full on tool for the Dems, but look it up online.

      • Holy Cow! Harry would go nuts if he was around for this years Cubs! I agree-I favor 40 for penetration. Not that I plan on shooting through glass or truck doors. Accur81 has some experience in reality.

      • …………………. but hari-kari is when a Mooslem guy drives a big truck into a crowd of Frenchies drinking wine and watching fireworks on they same day they celebrate one of the darkest days in world history , for the storming of the Bastille was only the beginning of a decade of debauchery and anarchy that would claim the lives of as many and much more innocents as the the American revolutions combatants , on all sides . Rape and pillaging in the ugliest of ways marked the French revolution from the highest to the lowest and by the urging of the Encyclopedist like Rousseau and Sade , our modern day Progressives , God was declared dead on the alters of the churches in blood and sadism and as Dostoyevsky declared ‘ if there is no God then everything is O.K. ‘ it rang true then and does today in the echo’s of France’s celebrations of independence , not from monarchy but from God .

  4. Ok so this is kind of funny. Our local news was reporting all morning that there was a truck attack in Paris. Very scary.

    I was confused by this knowing that trucks aren’t known to attack people by themselves, so I went ahead and called in their news tip line to ask about this and in the Mark Dice manner went on to ask her to clarify this for me because I was really confused and getting scared of all the trucks around our roads.

    me: ‘So I am really confused, are these trucks starting to attack people, really?’
    them: ‘No, the truck was driven by a person, they are starting to think this was terrorism, but nothing has been confirmed yet’.
    me: ‘Oh really? That’s good I was getting really worried, so it was a person attack, not a truck attack’
    them: ‘yes’

    Honest to god, I played this along for a bit to see how far this person would allow me to go. Total cluelessness, she was actually trying to comfort me and assure me that the trucks around our city were not going to become self-aware and just start attacking me. The fact that this person completely missed it when I asked her about the danger of us having so many trucks that could just start attacking any minute is kind of scary.

    I suppose we are good as there are a lot more trucks than there are Muslims, right? We are in fact safe from trucks.

    Just in case you were wondering, that is all.

      • Not sure if this is what you mean, but this person was sincere.

        Have you ever seen Mark Dice vids? Same thing.

        “What year was the Declaration of Independence signed by the founding fathers, you know, Jesse Ventura and Jack Lemmon?”

        whoosh

  5. Brave cops, as I watched that I was just thinking this truck is probably loaded with an IED and I would not want to get close.

    • Perhaps this was only “Proof of concept”. They will watch all the Internet videos to see what worked and what didn’t and next time they will have a time-delayed explosive in the back to take care of the First Responders.

  6. I feel like this attack has been long predicted. Every time someone whines about how guns make it too easy to kill I point out the use of cars, which is hamstrung by their lack of body count. Now I think the argument may have a little more bite. I honestly wish this attack had never happened, though. So so sad.

    I too wonder how long this style attack will take to reach us? I also worry about mall and school takeovers. I feel like it’s almost purely a matter of time. It scares me.

    • School and mall takeovers still seem unlikely to me. They are such obvious targets, and they have not occurred.

      We seem to be pretty good at preventing the sort of coordination between several individuals that is needed for those type of attacks. That could change with the importation of tens of thousands of potential recruits.

      The truck attack is more troubling because it serves as an excellent example of a cheap, easy, hard to prevent attack.

      It is perfectly suited for “Sudden Jihad Syndrome”.

    • This was already done – 2006, Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar attacked people with his SUV. Must not have been as determined as this guy in Nice as he didn’t kill anyone. Nonetheless, terrifying.

      A passenger jet ramming into WTC or the Pentagon is frankly, the very same attack, just on a larger scale.

      This isn’t groundbreaking, and doesn’t take a rocket scientist to come up with.

      In fact let’s hope these people don’t start to get really organized and devious, because there are any number of ways they could amplify the effects of what they are trying to pull off.

      One has to wonder if they aren’t holding back on attacks pending the election as they know any attack here will support Trump more than HRC and Trump might not work in favor of future mozzie plans.

  7. A word of tactical advice from a long-time truck driver:

    Should you be at the scene of such an event and you have no clear shot at the driver, focus ALL of your attention on the front tires. Large trucks such as the one used in this attack or the semis you see every day on the roads of America are essentially impossible to drive if either of the steer tires goes flat. On the other hand the sets of drive tires or trailer tires are redundant, often in sets of eight, and the truck can go a long time with even two or more tires shot flat.

    • Thank you for that information. It is that kind of expertise that adds much to TTAG. It should be briefed to all Police and Sheriffs as well. I would love to see a Youtube video demonstrating it.

    • Wait until they figure out what they can do with a properly vaporized cup of gasoline and a spark.

  8. This goes to show that you don’t need an evil, black “assault rifle” to kill 80 people. Same type of rifle was critical tool used by police to stop the rampage. What else could have stopped him besides a handgun or rifle. Guns are tools for protection, they can be dangerous and misused, but still tools.

  9. The debate over controlling weapons that the ruling class allow the common people to have access to has been going on for centuries. History has proven repeatedly that restricting good people from having the means to defend themselves has never and will never prevent evil people from doing evil.

    THIS is the hole in any gun-control argument big enough to drive a truck through.

  10. The man who plowed a box truck into a crowd gathered to celebrate Bastille Day in Nice on Thursday night has been identified as Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, a 31-year-old Tunisian who had been living legally in the city.

    Bouhlel had worked as a delivery driver and had three children with his ex-wife. He was known to local police for several misdemeanour convictions for crimes of theft and violence, but had no known ties to terrorist groups and was not known to hold radical views, security sources said. He was not on the French intelligence watch list.

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