Over at Blackfive the team took a look at:
It’s worth thinking through the problem this author raises: how would the U.S. handle a Mumbai-like terror attack?
It’s an interesting post on how different the US is regionally, and why. There is a great discussion in the comments there as well.
Where it can get really scary though is, what happens when a swarm attack like Mumbai is executed in the US, and as the attack winds through multiple populous targets to conclude with the attackers in a single location…. that location winds up being an elementary or middle school instead of a hotel. Now you have combined Mumbai with Beslan and things are going to be really unpleasant.
The reality though is that in the majority of US states and cities, there are enough armed citizens that there is a force multiplier for law enforcement that would come into play in this extreme scenario. There will be a lot of breakage but I hope that it is less than what the would occur in a country with population that is unarmed, and less morally sure than we are.