I saw this morning that Donald Trump has lambasted the French for their strict gun control laws, stating that, “If the people so violently shot down in Paris had guns, at least they would have had a fighting chance.”

He’s right, to a point, but he doesn’t understand the basic fact that French citizens don’t want a fighting chance. That’s too much personal responsibility for them to bear.

For the French to have “a fighting chance,” Trump would first have to get it into the heads of French civilians that armed self-defense is something imperative to the security of both their nation, and imperative to the security  of their individual lives. As a culture, they refuse to consider that possibility, even as two different hostage situations are unfolding at the hands of three Islamic terrorists, all but bringing the nation to a standstill.

Experts on European views of gun control say that the series of Islamic terror attacks in Paris that are now entering their third day isn’t likely to change minds now. There simply is no “gun control debate” to be had in France, as the French have completely given up on the concept.

Gary Mauser, a professor at the Institute for Canadian Urban Research Studies at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, who has written extensively on European gun control, said any proposals to change France’s gun laws after the massacre probably wouldn’t get very far. “The Europeans are unlikely to change legislation in order to encourage civilians to arm themselves for protection,” he said. “The armed guards at Charlie Hebdo were professionals and they were killed by the terrorists — and without wounding their attackers.”

Mark Barnes, director of the International Association for the Protection of Civil Arms Rights in Washington, D.C., said the gun-control debate is long over for Europe. “It’s certainly a logical question to ask, because it is so engrained in Europe that the state is responsible for protecting its citizens,” said Barnes. “What you have to recognize is that the right to self-defense is shaped much differently in Europe …  It will be interesting to see if this does lead to a legitimate discussion.”

Put bluntly, Europeans don’t think that they are responsible for their own safety, and have long ago ceded their lives to the whims of the state, and the French are a particularly craven bunch, even within the European Union.

Even if a right to bear arms was declared overnight as as result of Islamic terror attacks now running into their third day, it is unlikely that very many French citizens would take advantage of such a right. In their dependent socialist culture, it is their firm belief that the government is responsible for the safety of the citizenry. The basic human right to armed self-defense that was a core fundamental belief in western thought is dead in France, as it is in most of Europe.

The radically left-wing cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo enjoyed pushing the limits of free speech in a society that finds even that right to be uncomfortable, but they would not have defended themselves with arms. Like invertebrate American progressives so eager to give away their freedoms here to avoid the responsibility that comes with freedom, it is a certainty that Charlie Hebdo was a gun-free zone by choice, not just by law.

The French are happy to live the lives of Hazel and George Bergeron, with their blinders and masks firmly in place as their society collapses under its own inept stupidity.

As older Germans can tell you, the French make great subjects.

They just make lousy freemen.