The Corner

U.S.

Attacks That Don’t Occur

FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. (Mary F. Calvert/Reuters)

After the El Paso massacre at the beginning of this month, I made some notes, including this one:

The attack in El Paso had the flavor of a pogrom — the massacre of people for their race, ethnicity, or religion. I feel sure that American law enforcement can beat this kind of thing. They do impressive things, when it comes to keeping the population safe. And most of their work is unsung, of course.

I was interested and pleased to see this report from CNN today. It begins, “Authorities this weekend announced they had foiled three potential mass shootings after arresting three men in different states . . .” And how about this? “All three cases were brought to authorities’ attention thanks to tips from the public.”

You can’t stop them all. But I do believe that our law-enforcement people are capable of extraordinary things. Some of their work — whether we hear about it or not — is heroic. Think of the War on Terror (as we used to call it). A lot of us thought that 9/11 would be followed by other attacks of the same nature, for years to come. We were sort of braced. But . . .

Anyway, that which is unsung should occasionally get sung.

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