Home Forums Miscellaneous Topics Second Amendment Barak--Dang It!!

Hawkeye, thank you for your post. I will get back to you a little later, gotta get ready to shoot some groups for this afternoon! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Hawkeye...I got some time now.
Alright, about those airplanes. I have thought about what you said long and hard, passengers and guns and all. I still don't think you are correct. Let me give you a good example: El Al, the Israeli Airline. Those folks are obviously concerned about terrorism. They really clamped down on pre-flight security after a bunch of incidents in the late 70s (Don't quote me on the time frame). They do profiling. No guns on the plane. And guess what? They have been pretty successful at preventing aerial terrorism. Now obviously this does not prove that arming all the passengers wouldn't work, but it does prove that NOT doing so can work. Think about it.
And to carry your thought process about armed passengers on 9/11 flights a little further: If the passengers would have been armed with guns, then the terrorists would have been armed with guns as well. And all they need to do is take a few hostages, maybe shoot a couple. The passengers might fight back - but that is not guaranteed. It takes more than a gun to stand up to the vermin. It takes bravery and resolve, which can be easily broken with hostages.
Just think about it: What would have been so hard about stopping the terrorists that were on the flights? All they had was boxcutters (I am assuming that's all they had). Surely a bunch of determined passengers could have overpowered them, maybe a few had some small knifes on them. You know they could have beaten them. With determination. Giving them guns does not give them courage and determination.
Let's face it: The passengers did not fight back not because they did not have guns. Wouldn't have made a dang bit of difference. Giving them guns may make things more difficult and more dangerous. With guns comes responsibility, which is not very popular these days.
Here's a real situation I have come across: Somebody (a woman) went out shopping to the mall some evening. As she gets back to her car, in the dark, there is another woman sitting on the hood of her car and apparently has no intention of moving. The woman kindly asks her to get off her car. The other woman replies it is her car. This goes back and forth a couple of times. The woman fumbles in her purse for the can of pepperspray she carries with her. She timidly start threatening the person on her car with it. That woman snatches the can from her. Then she steals the purse and the car. A few days later the lady comes to you and asks you for advice on what type of gun to get. What would you recommend?
Here's what I'd recommend: Stay the hell away from guns until you muster up the balls to use it when you have to. She did not use the pepperspray, why would she use a gun? And if that other woman had snatched a gun instead of pepper spray, things could have gotten a whole lot worse in a hurry.

Personally, I might use a gun on a terrorist in an airplane. If that scumbag was holding somebody hostage, I would think twice. Now, if my life and that of everybody else was at stake, I would act. But you know it might mean killing the hostage. Be honest: Who could make that decision, to go ahead and take a life (or two) to save the plane?

I agree with the notion that more guns mean less crime. An armed society is a polite society, after all. I really do believe that. However, this notion holds true for conventional crime. You know, where the perpetrator values his own life.
This does NOT work with suicide bombers. It cannot work.
Again, take a look at Israel. I don't know the numbers, but a fair number of civilians carry sidearms. Plus, there's heavy police and military presence. How often does a civilian with a gun prevent a bombing? It happened a few times, admittedly. But not nearly as often as you would like me to believe.
I believe that the thorough logic and reasoning you are putting to this situation just doesn't apply to Muslim Extremist Terrorists.
And by the way, I believe that the terrorism is born out of envy and despise for our way of live, which is wholly incompatible with theirs.
How did we get in their bloody war business?
Let's see...OBL is mad we support Israel. To friggin bad, that's not his choosing. Personally I don't think we should be involved, but I don't see us as their ally anyway. I don't want to get into the Israel thing, but I believe that for moral reasons, it is not wrong for us to support the Jews.
OBL doesn't like our presense in Saudi Arabia. OBL doesn't like our trade sanctions against Iraq.
Well, let's go back a little ways....Saddam invades Kuwait. At this point, we could have chosen to do nothing. We decided to do something. We fought him back. He did not comply with cease fire agreements, no-fly zones, UN inspectors, etc. The trade sanctions are a DIRECT consequence of that. HE is responsible, NOT US.
Now, about our presence in Saudi Arabia: We are there to contain Saddam. You see, the liberals and the rest of the world, including little Hans Blix, prefer the "Containment Strategy". That's why we are in Saudi Arabia today. To contain Soddam Insane. That strategy did not work. We shoulda kicked his furry behind the first time around, then we would not be in Iraq today, and we would not be in Saudi Arabia today. We might not even be in Afghanistan today. International politics is a very complex and intricate game. Please don't try to tell me it's all our fault. I don't buy that apologetic behavior.

Your crucial error is your belief that suicide bombers do not value their own lives. It's just that they value their cause even more. Their lives are so valuable to them that they will not attempt to blow themselves up unless they are sure they can take out a big chunk of their enemies along with them. To the extent you can reduce their confidence in their ability to do this, to that extent you will deter them from these types of actions.

Remember the shoe bomber? Well, he very well might have succeeded. If he had just a few seconds more, he would have blown the plane up. If there were a couple of armed passengers, however, he would have had a huge chunk of time taken off his available time to light himself up. The passengers were just extremely lucky that time. Next time, they might not be so lucky. A man with a gun could have put his lights out in a split second. Is there a chance he could not? Of course, but we are talking abount improving our survivability, not guaranteeing it.

It is not at all clear today, for instance, that passengers could overpower armed terrorists as was done in the flight intended to be crashed into the Whitehouse. Passengers are now less well equipped to do so, thanks to the new laws (thanks to government). I used to routinely take a knife on board (as I take one everywhere else I go), but now I cannot. Are you more or less safe now that I am not allowed to have my knife on board with me? Or are you going to tell me that you are afraid I might slit your throat with it while you're sleeping in the seat in front of me, and cannot therefore be trusted?

Tsk, tsk, tsk....what about the other three flights? The passengers did not fight back then. And all they had against them were boxcutters. What makes you think the sheople would raise their gun against a terrorist with a gun? Like I said, giving them guns doesn't give them the guts to use them. Nor the brains to use them properly.

And what about Israel? Tons of armed civilians, but apparently no deterrent to suicide bombers.

Sorry, but if you really want to fight a terrorist on a plane, it is entirely feasible to do so. Assuming neither one of you has a gun, it should actually be easier, as other passengers won't be peeing their pants because they are afraid to get hit.
Do you think that my points have at least a little bit validity?

About the shoe bomber: No No No. How would two passengers with guns have taken a chunk out of his time to light up?
Think about it. You're on a friggin airplane. You gotta be real close to shoot. By the time you're close enough to shoot, you might as well wrestle with the idiot. You have to be that close just to see what the heck he is doing. I sure hope nobody would waste time pulling out a gun. I sure hope somebody would IMMEDIATELY knock his block off.
Think about this again: You gotta be real close just to see what he's up to. You gotta be really really close to shoot. Guns in close quarters? Bad juju. Who else will you hit?
Just knock him out, for crying out loud.
But you gotta have the courage and resolve to do so. If you don't have that with your bare hands, why would you have it with a gun in your hand? Remember, a gun is a tool, not the solution. The solution is a very good pre-flight security, racial profiling, and aware, educated, and brave passengers.

What was the difference? The passengers in this flight knew that the hijackers intended to kill everyone on board. Nothing to lose. Might as well fight then. They knew what they were planning because they were on cell phones. The rules have changed now. Everyone now knows that the alternative to fighting is guaranteed death at the hands of the terrorists. If you want to make fighting much less likely to be successful, then just outlaw the carrying of weapons by ordinary folks on the flights. Make sure they can't even bring a pair of scissors on board. That will make it almost impossible for anyone to resist deadly force. By the way, these laws only apply to non-terrorist. The terrorist will have edged weapons, at the very least. I don't care how careful security is.

The man was huge. Tell me how a 5'6" grandfather is going to knock this guy out faster with his bare hands than with a .38 or a razor sharp blade to the throat.

Naturally, just like it would be in any other environment, you are held accountable under the law. That is to say, you must be correct (or at least reasonable by an objective standard) in your assessment of the deadly threat, or you are in a world of hurt, legally speaking. But that's the way it is anywhere.

Giving a mouse a gun (or a knife) will not turn him into a man.

No, but it will make him a mouse that is infinately more defendable than a mouse w/o a weapon

RAM...I would refer you to what I posted farther up, about the lady with the pepper spray. What good is the armed mouse if he (the mouse) isn't going to use it. And the cat knows that.
Don't get me wrong. I am all for armed citizens. But all these "Metrosexuals" and whatnot are mice.

Let me clarify that...I believe that most of the populus is incapable of pointing a gun at somebody and shooting.
There is no use in carrying a gun for people like that.
What would that solve in a hypothetical airplane terrorist scenario? The terrorist has a gun, and he sure as hell is gonna use it.
Most of the passengers, however....

Matthias some thoughts on some of your statements: There are not many air marshalls on a plane. 1 or 2 terrorists out of several start something the air marshalls reveal themselves than the rest of the terrorists take out the air marshalls and the terrorists now have their weapons also. About people carrying on planes: If you have 200 people on a flight and lets say 90 are carrying than if anybody tried anything they would be surrounded. Now all of these people may not use their guns but the terroists do not know who these people are and because their are so many they can't watch them all, so unless they are armed with a bomb they will surrender or be taken out by those willing to use their guns. Even with a bomb they could kill this person if he/she slips up because there will be so many eyes and guns on this person. To use your example of the woman with the pepper spray. Alone the person on her car took the chance to take it away but if that woman had walked up to the car with several friends all with pepper spray she would most likely have gotten up off the car and left. As the saying goes there is safety in numbers. The terroists may take hostages but there will be armed people to the front, back and sides of them so they can still be taken out even while holding hostages. Also if neccesary it would still be better to lose a few people than to lose hundreds or thousands as we did on 9/11. As others stated earlier about the actions on the last flight it is because they knew they were on a suicidal flight, the earlier flights did not know this. I do have concerns about some people carrying but they also have concerns because if they try something they know that they will come up against a superior force where others are armed and therefore are much less likely to try something. That is why most if not all shootings occur where guns are not present or allowed.

Welcome to the CampFire! I'll need some time to ponder your remarks....you do have some valid points.