Reports on the terrorist attack on the "Draw Muhammed" art competition in Garland, Texas indicate that the two jihadis, armed with "assault rifles" and wearing "protective gear," were very quickly neutralized (within seconds of initiating their attack) by a Garland traffic cop armed with only a handgun.

The bad guys rolled up at the site, exited their vehicle, and immediately opened fire on a police car at the entrance.  They were able only to wound an unarmed security officer before the traffic officer engaged them and terminated the threat (and, in the process, their worthless lives).

People competent with firearms know that, despite what we see in the movies and on TV, a man with a handgun is usually no match for a man with a rifle, let alone two men with rifles.  But this traffic officer must have been "channeling" Sgt. Alvin C. York, because he obviously is more of a pistolero than his adversaries were riflemen.  And the pistolero prevailed.

The local SWAT team was nearby, but they got involved only after the attackers were dead or dying.  Like the Texas Ranger tradition of  “One riot, one Ranger,” one good man with a gun restored peace.  The as yet unidentified traffic cop didn’t write them a ticket; he punched their tickets!

I don't know exactly what sort of handgun that traffic officer was armed with, but he obviously is its master.  “Beware of the man who owns only one gun; he knows how to use it.”

Somewhere in the great beyond, Col. Jeff Cooper (the father of modern pistolcraft) is smiling.  And a lot of his students and disciples are smiling at the notion of a couple of rifle-wielding cowards having their best-laid scheme gang agley and getting far more than they bargained for (but everything they so richly deserved).

It’s just too bad we can’t see a video of that last look on the terrorists’ faces as the traffic cop’s well-aimed rounds found their marks.  I’ll bet such a video would be just as popular here as videos of innocent folks being beheaded are in the Islamic world.

And if Marty Robbins were still around, he could be singing,

To the town of Garland, Texas drove two terrorists one fine day…

…Oh they might have gone on livin', but they made one fatal slip, when they fired on a traffic cop with a big iron on his hip.

(Listen to the original, one of the great gunfighter ballads, here.)

Am I gloating just a bit over the very American, very Texan way these two terrorists got their comeuppance?  Well, as Col. Cooper is reputed to have replied to a woman who saw the big old Colt cocked ’n’ locked in his holster and inquired, “Isn’t that dangerous?,” “You damn betcha!”