A gunman killed six people and wounded 15 more in the heart of Krakow on Saturday, an attack Poland's defense minister branded an "act of terror" — and another reminder that while Washington pledges security for allies abroad, it can't be bothered to lock the front door at home.
The stake for ordinary Americans is simple: every dollar and every ounce of attention spent policing the world is a dollar and a unit of focus not spent securing the southern border, where unknown millions walk in unchecked every year. Poland, a NATO member, will now invoke the solidarity of the Western alliance. American taxpayers will be expected to pay attention, and likely pay up. Meanwhile, who's watching our own perimeter?
The 24-year-old suspect drove a car onto Krakow's Main Square and opened fire, killing four women and two men, according to Krakow police. Two of the wounded were police officers who stopped the attacker — one remains in a coma, CBS News reported. The suspect is in critical condition after multiple surgeries.
Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński told reporters the suspect held "very radical" and "ultranationalistic" views. "Everything indicates that he was fascinated by far-right ideologies," Kierwiński said. Polish media identified him as Michal O., a licensed gun owner with no criminal record. Investigators recovered 11 firearms total — seven from the family home and four from the suspect or his vehicle — all matching permits held by the man and his father, spokesman Daniel Prokopowicz said.
Authorities also found three bodies at the family home in Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, about 93 miles northeast of Krakow: the suspect's 53-year-old father, 52-year-old mother, and 21-year-old sister, all with gunshot wounds.
Poland's National Prosecutor's Office opened a case covering six killings and attempted murder of numerous people, including police, with the act "constituting a terrorist offence." Two days of national mourning followed. European Commission flags flew at half-mast in Brussels.
CBS News leaned hard into the mourning angle — residents saying they were "absolutely devastated," a tourist calling it a "beautiful city," the pause of St. Mary's Trumpet Call for the first time since World War II. The Daily Caller kept to the facts: the attack, the investigation, the officer response. Neither outlet asked the question that matters most to Americans: what does this cost us, and what are we getting in return?
Poland is a NATO ally. That means a terror attack on Polish soil triggers alliance consultations and, potentially, American commitments. The same class of Washington thinkers who demand blank checks for Ukraine and Israel will now insist this attack proves we must spend more on European security. No one will mention that the suspect was a homegrown extremist with legally obtained firearms — or that Poland's gun laws already mirror the kind of restrictions American gun-control advocates champion.
The attack is real. The dead are real. The question is whether America's security class will use it to extract more money and more commitment from a public that hasn't been secured at home — or whether anyone in Washington will finally admit that a nation that can't control its own border has no business promising security to anyone else.
