You’re dancing in the street. The bass is thumping, glitter is catching the sunlight, and for a few hours, the world feels exactly as it should: open, visible, safe. Then, the sound of an engine revving out of control. A heavy, metallic thud. Screaming.
At the Berlin Pride event, a mundane object—a car—was transformed into a weapon of mass trauma. As one observer whose friends were at the event noted, they were physically fine but trapped in a surreal state of shock. That surrealism is the exact goal of this tactic. It weaponizes the very openness that marginalized communities fight so hard to claim.
When terror requires nothing more than a set of car keys, the only way to secure the streets is to permanently close them.
Everyone will rush to dissect the attacker’s manifesto or political affiliations. We’ll debate extremism on cable news. But we are missing the terrifying reality. The vehicle-as-weapon tactic democratizes terror. It requires zero specialized training, no bomb-making materials that can be flagged by intelligence agencies, and no network to infiltrate. It just requires a driver’s license and a willingness to cause harm.
You cannot build a wall high enough to stop a moving car without also building a cage around the people you are trying to protect.
Pride events are the ultimate symbol of visibility and liberation. They exist precisely because marginalized groups refused to stay hidden in the shadows. But this visibility makes them high-value targets. The tension is agonizing: to prevent the next Berlin, the next Nice, the next Waukesha, we are told we need more barricades, more armed guards, more bag checks. But doing so fundamentally alters the nature of the gathering.
We must stop pretending that heavier policing and security theater are the answers. If we turn every parade route into a militarized zone, the extremists have already won. They didn’t just inflict physical harm; they forced a community back into the margins, trading their public joy for a claustrophobic security perimeter.
We cannot armor our joy without suffocating it.
The Berlin attack isn’t an isolated anomaly. It’s a reflection of an era where low-tech, high-impact violence is the norm. We are left with a painful choice: accept the vulnerability of open streets, or surrender the public square entirely. But if history tells us anything, it’s that the community will march again. Bruised, terrified, but unbroken. Because the alternative is staying inside, and that was never an option.
FAQ
Q: Isn't focusing on the attacker's ideology important to prevent future attacks?
A: It helps understand the motive, but it distracts from the tactical reality. When the weapon is a standard car, motive matters less than the fact that anyone with a license can execute the attack with zero planning.
Q: What's the practical implication for event organizers?
A: They face an impossible trade-off. They must implement vehicle barriers and security checkpoints, which inherently limits the spontaneous, open-access nature of public protests and parades.
Q: What's the contrarian take?
A: The only way to truly stop vehicle attacks is to permanently pedestrianize city centers and ban cars from public gathering spaces. Security theater isn't enough; we need to redesign our cities.