Dave Kopel has an excellent article in National Review Online, concerning 'weapons-effect' paralysis tests, which are basically studies to determine if there is any measurable difference in a test subject's behavior, if a weapon is present or not.

The following snippet is slightly off-topic, but profound:

"Early discussions after Sept. 11 about how best to deal with terrorists in the air focused on whether to allow armed pilots in the cockpit. There was hardly a thought about allowing off-duty cops, and civilians with concealed-carry licenses, as armed passengers aboard airliners. But the idea of armed pilots now appears officially off the table, with Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta's statement on March 4, "I don't feel we should have lethal weapons in the cockpit."

"What has been [u]utterly[/u] [u]incomprehensible[/u] is that the federal government considers destroying a hijacked airliner, and thereby killing every single passenger, more palatable than allowing the arming of pilots or passengers.

"Why does the slim possibility of a bad outcome from firearms onboard a plane (e.g. an innocent passenger shot by mistake) provoke so much more fear than does the death of all those aboard the plane? What about the likelihood of additional ground casualties resulting from a plane being blasted out of the skies?"

See remainder of article at:[url]http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel041702.asp[/url]

Eric The(Profound)Hun[>]:)]

Good point, and thanx for bringing this article, Eric.


QUESTION:



ANSWER:

Cuz only the gub'ment be qualified to go 'round killin' folk.




Oh, so let's see.

Its OK for their to be lethal airplanes flying around the country that can kill 3,000 and endanger 100,000, but its NOT OK for their to be firearms in the cockpits of those flying bombs that could kill 20 and endanger 100????

Bush's "bipartisanship" in appointing the Dumpocrap Mineta may turn out to be a TRULY fatal decision. Bipartisanship be damned. Its time to do RIGHT.

But 'Normal' Norman Mineta had his baseball bat taken away from him by an Army MP, as he boarded the train with his parents headed for the relocation camp at Manzanar!

'You won't need that bat where you're going, kid', is the MP's barked explanation that is forever echoing in Mineta's mind!

So we cannot have 'racial profiling' at US airports, simply because of a rude incident that happened sixty years ago!

That Army MP should have a letter of reprimand put in his permanent file for this!

Eric The(WhatWasHeThinking?)Hun[>]:)]

Mineta is ex-military????

Then he SHOULD know that a firearm is the #1 effective way to get bad people to stop doing bad things.

He musta been in the post-Vietnam, pre-Reagan flower power, keep-the-white-flag-handy, make love not war, a doobie a day version of the military.

What was Bush thinkin'???

From his official biography on USgov.org:

"Mineta and his family were among the 120,000 Americans of Japanese ancestry forced from their homes and into internment camps during World War II. After graduating from the University of California at Berkeley, Mineta joined the Army in 1953 and served as an intelligence officer in Japan and Korea. He joined his father in the Mineta Insurance Agency before entering politics in San Jose, serving as a member of its City Council from 1967 to 1971 and mayor from 1971 to 1974, becoming the first Asian Pacific American mayor of a major U.S. city. As mayor, he favored greater control of transportation decisions by local government, a position he later championed in ISTEA."

BTW, he served as Sec. of Commerce in Clinton's 2nd term, IIRC.

Eric The('Normal'Norman,Indeed)Hun[>]:)]

"What has been utterly incomprehensible is that the federal government considers destroying a hijacked airliner, and thereby killing every single passenger, more palatable than allowing the arming of pilots or passengers."

The more I think of it that way, the more outraged I am. I will not fly again unless I absolutely have to.

If the pilots or the passengers were armed on 9/11...
There would be a few ragheads with holes in them...
There would be four more jetliners on the runway...
There would be two more towers standing in NYC....
There wouldnt be a hole in the Pentagon....

There would be 4,000 or more people STILL alive today...
There would be more jobs, because he airline industry would be much better off than it is today...

It just amazes me how these shitbags in airline security think that groping old ladies and treating every citizen as a terrorist is going to stop these bastrads. These people are too chickenshit to allow armed citizens to take care of themselves.

You would think that Norm the Nazi Mineta would allow a PILOT of all people to carry a damn gun on the plane. I mean come on, if the pilot wanted too he could fly the damn plane into the ground.

I think it will continue so long as we listen to, or put up with, the insanity that exists in otherwise rationale people when it comes to their beliefs on the subject of guns in the hands of private citizens.

To place weapons in the hands of airline pilots would be, to them, an admission that the mere presence of guns might be a deterrant to crime. That is simply a possibility that their mindset cannot easily admit!

The further possibility that armed pilots might actually act to prevent the hostile takeover of a civilian airliner one day, is even more horrible in their reckoning than the results of Sept 11.

Can there be any other answer to this?

I don't mind folks who are scared of guns. I appreciate their fear of something that they don't understand. They [u]should[/u] stay away from something that affects them so emotionally.

What I do mind is those folks who are scared of their fellow citizens being in possession of guns.

[u]That[/u] affects me emotionally!

Eric The(AndItAffectsAllOfUsLegislatively!)Hun[>]:)]

Mintea's not the only fool:

[i]Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge said yesterday if pilots were permitted to be armed,the trend would likely spread to other sectors of the travel industry – something he didn't seem prepared to sanction. "I don't think we want to equip our pilots with firearms," Ridge said. "That doesn't make a lot of sense to me." Asked why, Ridge replied, "Where would it end?" — as reported by Associated Press writer Jonathan D. Salant, March 5, 2002.[/i]

This is one of the few areas of the "war on terrorism" that the Bush administration is dead wrong on — and outrageously so. The first time the military is forced to shoot down a civillian plane, GW will have to answer for it.

Skibane--what do you mean "the first time". It already happened once!

They're afraid that the government's role as protector of all the people will be less important and therefore government power will diminish as a result.  It is fine to blow away Flight 93 with a sidewinder, but it's not okay to let the people take care of themselves.

The faulty logic that has brought us to this place is the death of American--no nation can survive this big a lack of basic, common sense and logic in civil affairs.  America only awaits a final coup de grace and it will be finished as a nation.  It's sad, but I am looking forward to at least not living in the Twilight Zone.  I just hope it isn't a nuclear catastrophe.  

Anyone notice the bs at the INS?  Here is an agency that has been exposed to be totally incompetent and what do they do?  They give them a bigger budget and increase the number of people working there.  That's never going to work--it isn't working for the Post Office, nor Amtrak, nor the CIA.  Not one single bit of good comes from increasing the budgets of failed bureaucracies.  Only one thing is going to fix America--tear it the fuck down and start up again.

[b]Quoted:

After graduating from the University of     California at Berkeley,[/b]

Um, Eric, I think that pretty much answers your question. [:D]

Mineta and Ridge both aggrevate the shit out of me.  It is just another example of how hesitant government BeauracRATS are to give any authority to "Civilians"

It will happen though, with the persistance of concerned passengers and the pilots unions.