4 ms·

Germany to tell people to stockpile food and water in case of attacks

39 points by randomname2 10y ago

cheerioty 10y ago
”Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda
- kordless 10y ago
  "What the devil is the point of surviving, going on living, when it's a drag? But you see, that's what people do." - Alan Watts
kordless 10y ago
There's an insane amount of shipping going on right now and I seriously can't imagine terrorists can disrupt those supply chains. We'll just reroute around them - there is plenty of duplicate shipping channels in the world. If terrorists can get us to slide to the assumption of attacks instead of realizing shit happens and we're trying to fix it...well, they've already won.
- 1_listerine_pls 10y ago
  Imagine what would happen if a major power plant stopped working.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  A dirty bomb or gas attack would make it very difficult to get supplies to the right place. If you are 'near' an attack zone, and stay inside your house, you may be able to safeguard yourself from most of the radiation or gas or whatever. But the area may be too unsafe for other people to regularly travel to, in which case water/food will be a problem. It may take a few days for the gov. to get people geared up to travel in 'somewhat dangerous zones' around the attack with food/water etc..
- smacktoward 10y ago
  > there is plenty of duplicate shipping channels in the world But there are choke points, too. For example, the Strait of Malacca (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Malacca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Malacca), the relatively narrow passage that connects the Indian Ocean to the Pacific. Something like 25% of the entire world's shipped goods pass through the Strait; and it's especially important for China, as nearly all of the imported oil that keeps her industrial machine running is shipped to them from the Middle East via that route. A terrorist attack on the Strait isn't inconceivable, either. Al Qaeda experimented with attacks on ships in the years before 9/11, culminating in the attacks on the USS Cole in 2000 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing) and the oil tanker MV Limburg in 2002 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_Jewel#Bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_Jewel#Bombing). This line of effort petered out following the capture of the "terrorist entrepreneur" who had driven it, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Rahim_al-Nashiri https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Rahim_al-Nashiri), but that doesn't mean some other ambitious fellow won't pick it up again in the future. None of which is to say that the sky is falling and people (in Germany or elsewhere) need to start stockpiling water and digging their Apocalypse Bunkers, of course. It's just worth noting that the space through which goods can be shipped is narrower than most people may realize.
detaro 10y ago
How to make a headline from boring stuff...: "oblige" and "required" are pretty strong words for what can't be more than a recommendation. ("Die Bevölkerung wird angehalten, einen individuellen Vorrat [...]" is the German quote, which I'd maybe translate as "the public is asked to") Also, as far as I can tell from the news reports, the report and it's recommendations are about general disaster preparedness, not terrorism or other attacks specifically. The stockpile recommendations also are nothing new, and I suspect they'll be ignored in the future just as much as they are now. People in areas with bad-ish infrastructure or regular emergencies (floodings, ...) will be prepared, others less so. I suspect civil defense authorities in most countries have similar recommendations. The headline as it stands is highly misleading.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  Those are indeed strong words. Governments in Europe have considerably more power than in the new world. They can do these things - they view statehood as literally the community. Sometimes that has advantages, sometimes not. Even scarier, is the fact that this is even being done. Since there are no external threats and 0 chance of environmental disaster (Germany doesn't get floods and hurricanes etc.) - it speaks to a terrorist threat. Over 1.5 million people flooded into Germany. 1 million official. Of those, only 1/4 were 'refugees' - i.e. displaced people from Syria and Iraq. The remainder were young men from Algeria, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia, Egypt seeking a better life. Of course, I don't blame anyone for seeking a better life, but arbitrary infusion of 100's of thousands of people into farily ethnically homogenous state that already has problems with integration re: Turks, who stand out strongly among other immigrants in terms of their non-integration - is crazy. 'Bleeding hearts' need to be met with 'responsible, pragmatic minds'. Yes - we need to help refugees. Of course. But we have to be responsible about it. Angela Merkels unilateral and now unpopular policy of just opening the doors is absurd. She later said she was 'surprised' that so many 'non refugees' would decide to come - which illustrates how astonishingly politicos are out of touch with human nature. The moment she opened the gates, I assumed the outcome - millions would try to come, by hook or by crook. Canada and USA are shielded by oceans - but they and the UK have the right approach - they take a specific number from UN camps - such refugees are well vetted, they are credibly refugees and not terrorists, families instead of just young men, and it happens at a controlled pace.
DasIch 10y ago
The German government has recommended this for decades already. What's new is that someone important with nothing else to do probably stumbled over this topic and decided it should be taken more seriously.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- mxfh 10y ago
  This is pretty much the equivalent to the random reading of TOS or the DoS Travel Security Advice [1]: It's always there in that pretty same wording, yet is only read or of general interest when it's changed. [1] https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/country/germany.html https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/country/german...
insulanian 10y ago
There's a joke in my country (from which many people emigrated to Germany): - What would you do if tomorrow is the Judgement day? - I'd pack my family and go straight to Germany. I guess not anymore...
eknkc 10y ago
I never thought about it before but now I wonder if I should have a small stock just in case. Nothing serious, maybe 2 weeks worth of stuff to live on. That I can have and forget, not maintain indefinately. Anyone have something like that? Any tips?
- curiousgal 10y ago
  Most Americans who lived through the Cold War probably have some advices to give.
- tonyonodi 10y ago
  > Anyone have something like that? Yep https://www.reddit.com/r/prepping/ https://www.reddit.com/r/prepping/
- zyxley 10y ago
  Well, food is easy enough - canned food doesn't take up much space and is easy to keep stocked, assuming you regularly rotate through it so that it doesn't expire. The harder part is water, as just a few days worth of drinking water for one person can take up a huge amount of space.
  - hga 10y ago
    The harder part is water, as just a few days worth of drinking water for one person can take up a huge amount of space. Eh??? A generally "comfortable" minimal budget for water is 1 gallon per day (3.8 liters, call it 4), although you might need more on hot summer days. A 5 gallon container is, with all the plastic and features for stack-ability, going to take up less than a cubic foot (19,000 cc). It's not compact like food, but it's pretty easy to store enough so that you can ride out a short disaster and pick your time to get more for a longer one.
    - EGreg 10y ago
      You can get a portable desalinator! Why not?
toomanybeersies 10y ago
I'd imagine that most people would have enough food to last for 10 days in their pantry, fridge, and freezer. Obviously, the water part is a bit different, most people won't have 15-odd litres of water just sitting around. I'm fairly sure that most countries advise residents to keep 3 days supply of food and water stockpiled, or maybe it's just the countries that are disaster-prone. More interesting than the food stockpile though: > and pressed for plans for the military to train more closely with police in preparing for potential large-scale militant attacks. Isn't the military constitutionally barred from operating domestically in Germany?
- curiousgal 10y ago
  >I'm fairly sure that most countries advise residents to keep 3 days supply of food and water stockpiled, or maybe it's just the countries that are disaster-prone. The developed ones of course.
- mschuster91 10y ago
  > Isn't the military constitutionally barred from operating domestically in Germany? It is, except for disaster relief (e.g. major floods). During the Munich nazi amok run, the Feldjäger (military police) were alerted, though, and politicians are widely talking about increased cooperation and joint exercises between police and military.
mschuster91 10y ago
German speaking here. It's important to know that there are regional (Landtag) elections coming up, and the right-wing AfD tries to paint current politicians as a bunch of incompetent people incapable of providing security for the German people - and the established politicians react with populist stuff like this and the idea of forbidding double citizenship and Niqabs. Everything that sounds like populist bullsh*t coming from Germany should be regarded with the elections in mind.
- jomamaxx 10y ago
  By 'populism' you mean 'people speaking their minds'? And that they should be ignored? By 'populism' do you mean the vast majority of Europeans and clear majority of Germans who are not supportive of the 'open doors' immigration policy? Especially those made by diktat - without popular consultation, without legal consideration, without a vote in parliament - which affects the entirety of Europe? Maybe Germans can have their 'leaders' stop forcing policy on the rest of Europe? And by the way - your argument does not work in your favour: it is not the AfD telling people to prepare - it's the actual government wherein there is no AfD people to make such claims. The very fact that the government - weary of people acting out against Muslims - is willing to make this statement says a lot about the actual threat environment.
  - mschuster91 10y ago
    > By 'populism' you mean 'people speaking their minds'? And that they should be ignored? AfD is openly cooperating with organized neo-nazis (e.g. PEGIDA). > By 'populism' do you mean the vast majority of Europeans and clear majority of Germans who are not supportive of the 'open doors' immigration policy? "clear majority of Germans"? Oh no. AfD and friends are a tiny, but vocal and hateful group. Just like Trump. > And by the way - your argument does not work in your favour: it is not the AfD telling people to prepare - it's the actual government wherein there is no AfD people to make such claims. The ones responsible for the fear-mongering are the conservative parties in the government (CDU, CSU). They desperately want to prevent more success for the AfD by copying the fear-mongering strategy of the AfD. Needless to say that the "appeasement" policy both fuels the AfD and moves the direction of the government more and more to the right end. > The very fact that the government - weary of people acting out against Muslims - is willing to make this statement says a lot about the actual threat environment. The threat is not Islamist terrorism. The threat is a massive explosion of right-extremist violence - in 2015 alone, over a thousand attacks on refugee camps/homes occurred, 92 of those arsons, the rest open violence, Hakenkreuz graffitis etc; just recently neo-Nazis stabbed a young member of Die LINKE party, a pro-Refugee mayor (Henriette Reker of Cologne) got stabbed, neo-Nazis rioted in Heidenau exactly one year ago.
cocotino 10y ago
I feel sick when I read this. This is just horror that we are willingly bringing upon ourselves. It's simply sickening. So many bad things in history we couldn't prevent, we couldn't foresee. We already know how this will end. And nobody will stop it, it seems.
jwildeboer 10y ago
But only for those who can afford to stockpile.
jcfrei 10y ago
I really despise this new news cycle, where random conspiracy blogs stumble upon a rudimentary and minor policy change, take it out of context, put their alarmist, sensationalist spin on it, spread it through their blog networks and facebook groups and make it appear like legitimate news. Always under the pretense that they want to educate citizens when all they really care about is advertising money. And 24 hours later the whole ruckus is forgotten and a new piece of information is taken out of context. Most people develop good filters with regard to such news while others don't and then feel like the world might come to an end any second.
allendoerfer 10y ago
There are elections in two states and federal elections coming up in 2017. Security and refugees are the main topics. The governing parties are trying to sound hard to stop the rise of the populist AFD by adjusting to the right. Especially the CSU, which since the beginning of time governs Bavaria (where the attacks happended) and traditionally was the rightmost not yet extremist party, tries to compete with populism. Claims to forbid burkas and stuff like that have been made. When the Munich shooting happened the whole city was locked down, the minister of defence unilaterally set military troops on call who for obvious historic reasons are only allowed to act inside Germany if the alternative would literally be "no Germany left", so she got bashed for that, police forces from neighbouring German states were called to Munich, the federal special unit GSG9 came, and even Austrian Cobra forces came to help. As bad as this sounds: This was only a mass shooting from a crazy person and while there was misinformation and panic spreading, after the initial catastrophe the situation was immediately under control. The shooter is dead, the guy who sold him the weapon got caught. There is really no reason to panic here, to bully muslims or let alone allow the military to act inside the borders. Not having soldiers on the streets (or police who act like soldiers for that matter) is a privilege we should not give up so easily. And I don't think it is reasonable to expect any terrorist group to be able to keep me locked inside my home for 5 days, when authorities here are already calling foreign forces and keep the military on call, as soon as a teenager with a Glock goes crazy.
- randomname2 10y ago
  Just to underscore that, the leader of the Alternative for Germany party (Frauke Petry) only yesterday spoke out in favor of people arming themselves with guns and self-defense devices after all the violent attacks last month: "German right-wing leader backs citizens' right to arm themselves" - http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAKCN10V0A5 http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAKCN10V0A5
  - allendoerfer 10y ago
    I think with a population of 80 million, you cannot entirely avoid shootings. 9 people died in Munich and this is horrible. And while each one on there is terrible, the Wikipedia category for German shootings [0] is small. The obvious comparison with the US shows that arming the population would be very counterproductive. So when I read stuff like that, I am asking myself whether she actually is that stupid or whether she knows exactly what she says and just tries to manipulate the people and what would be worse. The only positive thing to note about the latest rise of the far-right parties in Europe is that it nicely debunked the morale high ground of women in politics. They can be just as evil/corrupt/populist/human, the liberal ones were just the first who showed up. [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategorie:Amoklauf_in_Deutschland https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategorie:Amoklauf_in_Deutschl...
johnloeber 10y ago
How is this in any way noteworthy? Lots of governments recommend a small personal stockpile. The Swiss government recommends that every resident stockpiles at least six weeks'[0] worth of food. Making an issue of such a policy in light of recent attacks is nothing but fear-mongering. [0] It may have been six months' worth. I forget, and don't have the source on me right now.

39 points by randomname2 10y ago

cheerioty 10y ago

”Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda

kordless 10y ago
"What the devil is the point of surviving, going on living, when it's a drag? But you see, that's what people do." - Alan Watts

kordless 10y ago

There's an insane amount of shipping going on right now and I seriously can't imagine terrorists can disrupt those supply chains. We'll just reroute around them - there is plenty of duplicate shipping channels in the world. If terrorists can get us to slide to the assumption of attacks instead of realizing shit happens and we're trying to fix it...well, they've already won.

1_listerine_pls 10y ago
Imagine what would happen if a major power plant stopped working.
jomamaxx 10y ago
A dirty bomb or gas attack would make it very difficult to get supplies to the right place. If you are 'near' an attack zone, and stay inside your house, you may be able to safeguard yourself from most of the radiation or gas or whatever. But the area may be too unsafe for other people to regularly travel to, in which case water/food will be a problem. It may take a few days for the gov. to get people geared up to travel in 'somewhat dangerous zones' around the attack with food/water etc..
smacktoward 10y ago
> there is plenty of duplicate shipping channels in the world But there are choke points, too. For example, the Strait of Malacca (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Malacca https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strait_of_Malacca), the relatively narrow passage that connects the Indian Ocean to the Pacific. Something like 25% of the entire world's shipped goods pass through the Strait; and it's especially important for China, as nearly all of the imported oil that keeps her industrial machine running is shipped to them from the Middle East via that route. A terrorist attack on the Strait isn't inconceivable, either. Al Qaeda experimented with attacks on ships in the years before 9/11, culminating in the attacks on the USS Cole in 2000 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing) and the oil tanker MV Limburg in 2002 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_Jewel#Bombing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maritime_Jewel#Bombing). This line of effort petered out following the capture of the "terrorist entrepreneur" who had driven it, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Rahim_al-Nashiri https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_al-Rahim_al-Nashiri), but that doesn't mean some other ambitious fellow won't pick it up again in the future. None of which is to say that the sky is falling and people (in Germany or elsewhere) need to start stockpiling water and digging their Apocalypse Bunkers, of course. It's just worth noting that the space through which goods can be shipped is narrower than most people may realize.

detaro 10y ago

How to make a headline from boring stuff...: "oblige" and "required" are pretty strong words for what can't be more than a recommendation. ("Die Bevölkerung wird angehalten, einen individuellen Vorrat [...]" is the German quote, which I'd maybe translate as "the public is asked to") Also, as far as I can tell from the news reports, the report and it's recommendations are about general disaster preparedness, not terrorism or other attacks specifically. The stockpile recommendations also are nothing new, and I suspect they'll be ignored in the future just as much as they are now. People in areas with bad-ish infrastructure or regular emergencies (floodings, ...) will be prepared, others less so. I suspect civil defense authorities in most countries have similar recommendations. The headline as it stands is highly misleading.

jomamaxx 10y ago
Those are indeed strong words. Governments in Europe have considerably more power than in the new world. They can do these things - they view statehood as literally the community. Sometimes that has advantages, sometimes not. Even scarier, is the fact that this is even being done. Since there are no external threats and 0 chance of environmental disaster (Germany doesn't get floods and hurricanes etc.) - it speaks to a terrorist threat. Over 1.5 million people flooded into Germany. 1 million official. Of those, only 1/4 were 'refugees' - i.e. displaced people from Syria and Iraq. The remainder were young men from Algeria, Morocco, Pakistan, Tunisia, Egypt seeking a better life. Of course, I don't blame anyone for seeking a better life, but arbitrary infusion of 100's of thousands of people into farily ethnically homogenous state that already has problems with integration re: Turks, who stand out strongly among other immigrants in terms of their non-integration - is crazy. 'Bleeding hearts' need to be met with 'responsible, pragmatic minds'. Yes - we need to help refugees. Of course. But we have to be responsible about it. Angela Merkels unilateral and now unpopular policy of just opening the doors is absurd. She later said she was 'surprised' that so many 'non refugees' would decide to come - which illustrates how astonishingly politicos are out of touch with human nature. The moment she opened the gates, I assumed the outcome - millions would try to come, by hook or by crook. Canada and USA are shielded by oceans - but they and the UK have the right approach - they take a specific number from UN camps - such refugees are well vetted, they are credibly refugees and not terrorists, families instead of just young men, and it happens at a controlled pace.

DasIch 10y ago

The German government has recommended this for decades already. What's new is that someone important with nothing else to do probably stumbled over this topic and decided it should be taken more seriously.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
mxfh 10y ago
This is pretty much the equivalent to the random reading of TOS or the DoS Travel Security Advice [1]: It's always there in that pretty same wording, yet is only read or of general interest when it's changed. [1] https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/country/germany.html https://travel.state.gov/content/passports/en/country/german...

insulanian 10y ago

There's a joke in my country (from which many people emigrated to Germany): - What would you do if tomorrow is the Judgement day? - I'd pack my family and go straight to Germany. I guess not anymore...

eknkc 10y ago

I never thought about it before but now I wonder if I should have a small stock just in case. Nothing serious, maybe 2 weeks worth of stuff to live on. That I can have and forget, not maintain indefinately. Anyone have something like that? Any tips?

curiousgal 10y ago
Most Americans who lived through the Cold War probably have some advices to give.
tonyonodi 10y ago
> Anyone have something like that? Yep https://www.reddit.com/r/prepping/ https://www.reddit.com/r/prepping/
zyxley 10y ago
Well, food is easy enough - canned food doesn't take up much space and is easy to keep stocked, assuming you regularly rotate through it so that it doesn't expire. The harder part is water, as just a few days worth of drinking water for one person can take up a huge amount of space.
- hga 10y ago
  The harder part is water, as just a few days worth of drinking water for one person can take up a huge amount of space. Eh??? A generally "comfortable" minimal budget for water is 1 gallon per day (3.8 liters, call it 4), although you might need more on hot summer days. A 5 gallon container is, with all the plastic and features for stack-ability, going to take up less than a cubic foot (19,000 cc). It's not compact like food, but it's pretty easy to store enough so that you can ride out a short disaster and pick your time to get more for a longer one.
  - EGreg 10y ago
    You can get a portable desalinator! Why not?

toomanybeersies 10y ago

I'd imagine that most people would have enough food to last for 10 days in their pantry, fridge, and freezer. Obviously, the water part is a bit different, most people won't have 15-odd litres of water just sitting around. I'm fairly sure that most countries advise residents to keep 3 days supply of food and water stockpiled, or maybe it's just the countries that are disaster-prone. More interesting than the food stockpile though: > and pressed for plans for the military to train more closely with police in preparing for potential large-scale militant attacks. Isn't the military constitutionally barred from operating domestically in Germany?

curiousgal 10y ago
>I'm fairly sure that most countries advise residents to keep 3 days supply of food and water stockpiled, or maybe it's just the countries that are disaster-prone. The developed ones of course.
mschuster91 10y ago
> Isn't the military constitutionally barred from operating domestically in Germany? It is, except for disaster relief (e.g. major floods). During the Munich nazi amok run, the Feldjäger (military police) were alerted, though, and politicians are widely talking about increased cooperation and joint exercises between police and military.

mschuster91 10y ago

German speaking here. It's important to know that there are regional (Landtag) elections coming up, and the right-wing AfD tries to paint current politicians as a bunch of incompetent people incapable of providing security for the German people - and the established politicians react with populist stuff like this and the idea of forbidding double citizenship and Niqabs. Everything that sounds like populist bullsh*t coming from Germany should be regarded with the elections in mind.

jomamaxx 10y ago
By 'populism' you mean 'people speaking their minds'? And that they should be ignored? By 'populism' do you mean the vast majority of Europeans and clear majority of Germans who are not supportive of the 'open doors' immigration policy? Especially those made by diktat - without popular consultation, without legal consideration, without a vote in parliament - which affects the entirety of Europe? Maybe Germans can have their 'leaders' stop forcing policy on the rest of Europe? And by the way - your argument does not work in your favour: it is not the AfD telling people to prepare - it's the actual government wherein there is no AfD people to make such claims. The very fact that the government - weary of people acting out against Muslims - is willing to make this statement says a lot about the actual threat environment.
- mschuster91 10y ago
  > By 'populism' you mean 'people speaking their minds'? And that they should be ignored? AfD is openly cooperating with organized neo-nazis (e.g. PEGIDA). > By 'populism' do you mean the vast majority of Europeans and clear majority of Germans who are not supportive of the 'open doors' immigration policy? "clear majority of Germans"? Oh no. AfD and friends are a tiny, but vocal and hateful group. Just like Trump. > And by the way - your argument does not work in your favour: it is not the AfD telling people to prepare - it's the actual government wherein there is no AfD people to make such claims. The ones responsible for the fear-mongering are the conservative parties in the government (CDU, CSU). They desperately want to prevent more success for the AfD by copying the fear-mongering strategy of the AfD. Needless to say that the "appeasement" policy both fuels the AfD and moves the direction of the government more and more to the right end. > The very fact that the government - weary of people acting out against Muslims - is willing to make this statement says a lot about the actual threat environment. The threat is not Islamist terrorism. The threat is a massive explosion of right-extremist violence - in 2015 alone, over a thousand attacks on refugee camps/homes occurred, 92 of those arsons, the rest open violence, Hakenkreuz graffitis etc; just recently neo-Nazis stabbed a young member of Die LINKE party, a pro-Refugee mayor (Henriette Reker of Cologne) got stabbed, neo-Nazis rioted in Heidenau exactly one year ago.

cocotino 10y ago

I feel sick when I read this. This is just horror that we are willingly bringing upon ourselves. It's simply sickening. So many bad things in history we couldn't prevent, we couldn't foresee. We already know how this will end. And nobody will stop it, it seems.

jwildeboer 10y ago

But only for those who can afford to stockpile.

jcfrei 10y ago

I really despise this new news cycle, where random conspiracy blogs stumble upon a rudimentary and minor policy change, take it out of context, put their alarmist, sensationalist spin on it, spread it through their blog networks and facebook groups and make it appear like legitimate news. Always under the pretense that they want to educate citizens when all they really care about is advertising money. And 24 hours later the whole ruckus is forgotten and a new piece of information is taken out of context. Most people develop good filters with regard to such news while others don't and then feel like the world might come to an end any second.

allendoerfer 10y ago

There are elections in two states and federal elections coming up in 2017. Security and refugees are the main topics. The governing parties are trying to sound hard to stop the rise of the populist AFD by adjusting to the right. Especially the CSU, which since the beginning of time governs Bavaria (where the attacks happended) and traditionally was the rightmost not yet extremist party, tries to compete with populism. Claims to forbid burkas and stuff like that have been made. When the Munich shooting happened the whole city was locked down, the minister of defence unilaterally set military troops on call who for obvious historic reasons are only allowed to act inside Germany if the alternative would literally be "no Germany left", so she got bashed for that, police forces from neighbouring German states were called to Munich, the federal special unit GSG9 came, and even Austrian Cobra forces came to help. As bad as this sounds: This was only a mass shooting from a crazy person and while there was misinformation and panic spreading, after the initial catastrophe the situation was immediately under control. The shooter is dead, the guy who sold him the weapon got caught. There is really no reason to panic here, to bully muslims or let alone allow the military to act inside the borders. Not having soldiers on the streets (or police who act like soldiers for that matter) is a privilege we should not give up so easily. And I don't think it is reasonable to expect any terrorist group to be able to keep me locked inside my home for 5 days, when authorities here are already calling foreign forces and keep the military on call, as soon as a teenager with a Glock goes crazy.

randomname2 10y ago
Just to underscore that, the leader of the Alternative for Germany party (Frauke Petry) only yesterday spoke out in favor of people arming themselves with guns and self-defense devices after all the violent attacks last month: "German right-wing leader backs citizens' right to arm themselves" - http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAKCN10V0A5 http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAKCN10V0A5
- allendoerfer 10y ago
  I think with a population of 80 million, you cannot entirely avoid shootings. 9 people died in Munich and this is horrible. And while each one on there is terrible, the Wikipedia category for German shootings [0] is small. The obvious comparison with the US shows that arming the population would be very counterproductive. So when I read stuff like that, I am asking myself whether she actually is that stupid or whether she knows exactly what she says and just tries to manipulate the people and what would be worse. The only positive thing to note about the latest rise of the far-right parties in Europe is that it nicely debunked the morale high ground of women in politics. They can be just as evil/corrupt/populist/human, the liberal ones were just the first who showed up. [0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategorie:Amoklauf_in_Deutschland https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kategorie:Amoklauf_in_Deutschl...

johnloeber 10y ago

How is this in any way noteworthy? Lots of governments recommend a small personal stockpile. The Swiss government recommends that every resident stockpiles at least six weeks'[0] worth of food. Making an issue of such a policy in light of recent attacks is nothing but fear-mongering. [0] It may have been six months' worth. I forget, and don't have the source on me right now.