On the one-year anniversary of the Bourbon Street attack, our hearts went out to the innocent victims and their families. They, like the victims in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, became the targets of a terrorist attack simply because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The Bourbon Street victims, no less than the 9/11 victims, should be compensated by our nation. I propose that a fund similar to the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund be created to compensate the Bourbon Street attack victims. Congress created the VCF shortly after 9/11 to compensate the 9/11 victims with federal monies with the quid pro quo they would not file lawsuits against the airline corporations involved.
Like 9/11, this was an act of terrorism against the United States. The perpetrator was a Houston resident who chose New Orleans as the locus of his attack only because it presented a soft target with large pedestrian crowds. In videos posted minutes before the attack, the terrorist pledged his allegiance to ISIS and stated that he wanted his act to highlight the “war between the believers and the disbelievers”…