The next hours will haunt me for the rest of my life to some degree or another, much like many others.

Since then, steps have been taken to try and prevent another such attack. Whether they’re the reason we haven’t seen one or not remains to be seen, but steps have been taken.

However, those steps aren’t likely to end terrorism. After all, hijacking planes has only ever been one weapon in the terrorist arsenal.

Lately, terrorists have seemingly preferred mass shootings. From Mumbai attack in 2008 to the Charlie Hebdo shooting and other attacks in Paris in November, 2015 all the way to San Bernardino and the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, terrorists like to shoot a lot of people.

In truth, such schemes are far easier to plan. As we’ve seen, pretty much anyone can plan such a shooting. All they need are firearms and they’re set. There’s little defense the government has to try and stop these attacks.

Yet, at least one attempted terrorist attack was thwarted.

See, terrorists didn’t like an art show in Garland, Texas. They show was to draw the prophet Mohammed. To do so is an unforgiveable sin in Islam, so these Muslim extremists decided to show the good people of Texas what happens if you try that sort of thing. The never made it out of the parking lot.

See, from San Bernardino to Mumbai, these attacks happen in places with tougher gun laws than most of the United States. For the most part, I believe this is by design.

You try to recreate the November, 2015 Paris attacks in a city like Atlanta or Miami and you’re likely to have a very bad time. Oh, many of the people in these cities wouldn’t own a gun if their life depended on it, but enough do that it wouldn’t be hard to imagine some jihadi screaming “ALLAH ACKBAR!” and whipping out a short-barreled AK only to be met with gunfire from a lawfully-armed citizen.

You see, we can’t have counterterrorism agents everywhere. We can’t have police everywhere. We can’t anything everywhere. Resources will always be scarce. That’s why so much of fighting terrorism is focused on prevention and not response.

However, not everything can be prevented. That means someone has to respond.

Like with any crime, that takes time, but an armed citizen on the spot can put an end to the threat the moment it appears. It can end the problem before there is much of a problem.

And let’s be clear, it’s not just international terrorism we’re talking about here.

Kyle Rittenhouse may stand accused of murder, but for anyone willing to see, it’s clear he acted in self-defense against a mob that was rampaging and trying to commit terroristic violence.

Meanwhile, Aaron “Jay” Danielson was gunned down in Portland in an act of domestic terrorism. Some in academia are even trying to justify the shooting. This brand of domestic terrorism, coupled with the near constant riots–arguably terrorism itself–has created an environment rife for the potential for still more such attacks.

That doesn’t even touch on the anti-Semitic violence we’ve seen places like at the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh or Chabad of Poway shooting. These are indisputably terrorism and could have been stopped with just one armed citizen in the right place at the right time, such as what we saw happen in White Settlement, TX.

It’s not difficult to see that terrorism will remain in our future. Even a fully-armed populace can’t actually stop that from happening since shootings are only one tactic terrorists favor, but it can minimize much of the risk from terrorism on our shores.

Unfortunately, there are too many people who are willfully blind to that fact.