ases, it is for their own personal gain. “Doug, 16, wasn’t nervous when he finally got his gun. Just awfully self-conscious and giddy. In the parking lot of a McDonald’s in Omaha, Nebraska, Doug paid $25 for a used semiautomatic 12-gauge shotgun. “If you have a gun, you have power,” he says. “Guns are just a part of growing up these days.” (“Kids with Guns”, TIME Annual 1993 The Year in Review 117) According to the National Education Association, 100,000 students carry a gun to school. “Bullets kill nearly 4,220 teenagers in 1990, up from 2,500 in 1985. Gunshots now cause 1 out of every 4 deaths among American teenagers.” (“Kids with Guns”) How can terrorism be stopped? Until people around the world are as submissive as the people of the book 1984 are, terrorism will never be eradicated from the face of the earth. “Nations and their people must believe in total pacifism. All sorts of weapons must be destroyed and never to be made again.” (TV Anime Series Gundam Wing Channel 32) “Faced with this scenario of future terrorism, what are the prospects of European states achieving radical improvements in their measures to combat terrorism up to 2010 and beyond? The true litmus test will be the Western states' consistency and courage in maintaining a firm and effective policy against terrorism in all its forms. They must abhor the idea that terrorism can be tolerated as long as it is only affecting someone else's democratic rights and rule of law. They must adopt the clear principle that one democracy's terrorist is another democracy's terrorist. The general principles which have the best track record in reducing terrorism are as follows: No surrender to the terrorists, and an absolute determination to defeat terrorism within the framework of the rule of law and the democratic process; No deals and no concessions, even in the face...
