Jihad is an Arabic word, but "holy war" is not limited to Islam. The Christianization of Europe, for example, featured both voluntary conversion and forced conversion at the point of a sword. Charlemagne alone exterminated whole tribes that resisted. The Thirty Years Wars in seventeenth century Europe pitted Catholic jihadists against Protestant jihadists. In all these cases, extremists justified the death of civilians in religious terms.
The world right now is suffering an Islamic jihad by extremists who do the same thing: they justify the death of civilians in religious terms. Even the United States, far from the main theaters of war, has suffered almost four thousand civilian deaths on our soil. And the most recent case -- in San Bernardino -- has intersected with another jihad on our soil: the justification of civilian deaths by extremists who believe that owning guns is a religious right.
All jihadists have their sacred texts. The American gun jihadists have a simple one: the Second Amendment of the U. S. Constitution. There is a big debate between moderate Muslims and Islamic jihadists about whether or not their sacred texts justify the murder of civilians. There is no debate among American gun jihadists: their reading of the Second Amendment justifies civilian deaths, period.
The religious fervor of the gun jihadists gives them an answer to all objections to their interpretation of the Second Amendment. In San Bernardino, Islamic jihadists killed civilians. Any American gun jihadist will tell you what the innocent civilians in San Bernardino should have done: become gun jihadists. If every civilian in San Bernardino had a gun, they could have killed the Islamic jihadists.
The American gun jihad has killed far more American civilians than the Islamic jihad. And it will continue to do so, week after week after week. Moderate Americans are a majority, and they want to end the gun jihad. But gun jihadists, though fewer in number, have religious fervor on their side.
Who will win?