This video is a couple years old, but it’s pretty awesome. Watch this kid, reportedly twelve years old at the time, attack a would-be robber in a jewelry store. As soon as he saw the gun he went for it, without hesitation. How many of us would react that quickly in the same situation? . . .
A few days after Newtown, Templar Sports opened its doors in Los Gatos, CA (a suburb of San Jose). (Some) residents were aghast at the nerve of the shop daring to sell guns and other scary things so soon after such a horrible tragedy. The local pearl-clutchers loudly declared that “This aggression will not stand, man” and last week, the Town Council passed a new ordinance regarding gun shops. The Council deigns to let gun vendors in town, provided they get an annually renewing permit, and that they confine their places of operation to areas at least 250 feet away from youth-oriented businesses, schools, day care centers, government buildings, churches, parks and trails. That restriction means the Council will magnanimously permit gun vendors to operate at precisely three locations within the city limits, one of which is across the street from, but does not include, Templar Sports’ current location. The Council also showed generosity beyond the realm of comprehension by agreeing to give Templar four years to become compliant by either losing the guns or moving.
The Baltimore Sun notes, without hysterics, that even in Maryland, with gun laws much stricter than those of Virginia, Aaron Alexis would still have been able to get a shotgun cash-and-carry on the same day. The strict laws about background checks, waiting periods and purchase limits in Maryland do not apply to shotguns and “traditional rifles,” and neither does the one-gun-a-month limit. Even the sweeping new gun legislation set to go into effect October 1 would not have stopped Alexis’ gun purchase. Careful there, now. You’re coming perilously close to reporting that all these laws do very little to keep you safe.
Obama gloats as Kerry signs U.N. Arms Trade Treaty… bearingarms.com captioned this better than I ever could, and notes that “this treaty does not apparently include weapons provided by the Obama Adminstration to Mexican drug cartels, Libyan terrorists, or Syrian “freedom fighters” aligned with al Qaeda.”
Texas state law requires people to identify themselves to police only if they are legally arrested. But a new Fort Hood policy requires soldiers to show their ID to law enforcement whenever they are asked to do so by authorities. The policy comes after recent incidents in which soldiers openly carrying long guns were asked by police to show identification and they refused. The memo cites as the basis for the Fort Hood policy “a growing trend of soldiers assigned to Fort Hood openly carrying firearms in private business establishments in the greater local area in an attempt to publicly assert their Second Amendment right.” Because guns. [h/t: Mike R.]
For the second time in less than a week, TSA officials at BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport outside of Baltimore confiscated a stun gun from a passenger’s carry-on bag. The passenger was allowed to continue on with her flight after being issued a criminal citation. I guess it’s at least good that they’re not really hammering people for stuff like this anymore, but it’d be better if it’d all just go away.
And finally, I’m about over the whole Starbucks thing, but this was a little amusing.
That settles it. No more 12-year olds allowed in Starbucks anymore.
What parent gives a 12 year old coffee? They already have enough issues with growing and the whole puberty issue.
Once again folks, I dont care what you read in a newspaper. TSA does not CONFISCATE anything. You have the options of taking the prohibited item out to the public area and checking it, or mailing it, or leaving it in your vehicle, or having someone come pick it up from you, or throwing, or giving it away If these options are too inconvenient, you can surrender the item and TSA will use your tax dollars to pay a private company to come and dispose of it. That is why for the first several years TSA was arround, you could buy scissors by the pound on ebay. Even if you leave a loaded firearm in your carry on bag and bring it through the checkpoint, it does not magically stop being your property because TSA found it. TSA will contact the local law enforcement. Based on local laws you will either be patted on the back, issued a citation, or arrested. Either way the item in question is still yours. Even if its impounded as evidence durring your arrest. If youre not arrested, you are walked out of the checkpoint and given the opportunity to try again once you have made other arrangements for the weapon. TSA will do its own paperwork which includes taking a picture of the item (thats why they can post pictures of what they found online) and you will get a nasty gram and be assessed a civil penalty of up to 10,000 dollars. I dont even think TSA would know what to do with a firearm that was surrendered. Probably refuse it and refer you to the responding cops.
I remember I once accidentally attempted to bring a deadly can of shaving cream through the TSA checkpoint. They took it from me because it was probably some kind of dangerous object designed to kill everyone in the airport or the airplane and tossed it in the trash can behind them. I asked them, since my shaving cream was safe enough to put in their trashcan, could I just have it back? They didn’t see the inconsistency. They aren’t really that smart.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/federal-eye/2010/07/tsa_using_pizza_boxes_to_recru.html
The TSA has literally advertised job openings on pizza boxes. Did you expect that they’d be attracting the best and brightest?
At one point they posted a flyer at the airport, that listed the qualifications as a high school diploma, a GED, (OR) One years experience as a security officer. Its the OR part that is insulting. Many of the screeners are young people trying to work their way through college, or older people supplementing a retirement. Young people with attitudes, and old people set in their ways.
Yeah, I don’t think most even know how to read. I never imagined there could be creature lower on the totem pole than a DMV employee, but then I went to the airport.
I was impressed (But not in a good way) when they told me I couldn’t take a metal keychain onto a plan because it “resembles a martial arts item”. I asked the TSA staffer whether he seriously thought I posed an actual risk of hijacking or damaging an aircraft with my menacing keychain.
If he told you it “resembled” a martial arts device then believe it or not he was breaking the rules and doing you a favor. An actual “martial arts device” like a kuboton, or the cats face device that you use like brass knuckles, causes the LEO call and the paperwork that I mentioned earlier. The LEO usually doesn’t do anything about it, because its usually not illegal. At the end of which you were or should have been given the options I enumerated earlier.
The idea behind separating you from your liquid is to prevent you from taking an explosive on the plane. If your can of shaving cream had actually contained an explosive liquid, and we separate it from you the chances of that liquid detonating without the other components required to assemble the device are slim to none. If you assemble the entire device inside the shaving cream can the other components required will stand out in the x-ray image and the whole situation is handled differently. Either way the explosive didn’t get to the target, the plane. The screener either didn’t understand this, or didn’t want to take more time to explain it to another smartass passenger, again. The answers you get can be predicted and even in some ways controlled by the manner in which you ask the question. Nice begets nice. Nasty gets ignored.
“Nice begets nice. Nasty gets ignored.”
And stupid is as stupid does. The entire interaction (and the reasoning behind it) is pretty stupid. It’s a lot of hassle and inanity for an occurrence that has a statistical chance approaching zero.
So we shouldn’t screen at all? Is that your solution? I hear a lot of “This is stupid” “This is unreasonable” “This is inane”, “This is statistically unlikely” Well, stupid, reasonable, inane are relative to the circumstances, and its statistically unlikely that you will win a million dollars, but people still play the lottery, because you cant win if you don’t play. If you have a better idea, run for office. Ill vote for you.
I don’t know about “at all” but what we’re doing is theatre, and that is proven over and over by the stuff that does get through. What we have isn’t working, and it just gets bigger and bigger, and more and more money gets dumped in, because every time someone sees a hole, they add layers to fix it, but nobody every cleans out the shit that doesn’t work. Bigger and bigger and bigger.
It is ridiculous how much money gets poured into this, and to what benefit? I’ve yet to ever hear of the TSA apparatus preventing anything bad of import from happening. Are we “safer?” I don’t know, because you can’t tell me anything would have happened had the TSA not been in place, because they can’t show me anything bad that they’ve stopped. And no, I don’t consider the thousands of random idiots that forgot their gun was in their luggage to be “stopping anything of import.” That’s just noise, and I’ve yet to see any evidence of signal.
Matt, I do agree with you on many of those points. Its hard to prove a negative result. Lots of times it seems like we are putting layers of bandaids on top of bandaids, and the people making the rules dont have to deal with the end result of their desicions. I do know that the bad guys do dry runs “probing the system”. We have had suspicious occurences, but because they all stop short of an articulable threat, there isnt a whole lot we can do about it. People taking blocks of cheese or playdough, and wrapping wires around it or taping a kitchen timer to it to see what our reaction is. Some of it is people just being people and trying to prove a point or whatever, but every now and then you look at the circumstances and you know that your enemy just took your measure. I personally am certain that we have prevented things from happening, just by being there. You may not think much of security now, but how effective was it before? I appreciate the civil discourse by the way, too many times it degenerates into Im not stupid youre stupid.
If the person was given a criminal citation like the story says; you can bet your butt the stun gun was taken or confiscated or any word you want to use as “evidence.”
Do they confiscate your vehicle as evidence, when you’re cited for speeding? No the evidence is the picture that is taken of the item and your I.D. and boarding pass. The above is not a story, its a hypothetical cobbled together from dozens of different occurrences.
Just because the item isn’t “confiscated”, doesn’t mean it isn’t confiscated. When your options are leave it in your vehicle (I didn’t drive), check it (already checked a bag, so I’d have to buy a bag and then check it for $50), give it to a friend (I came alone) or mail it (service not offered), particularly when you have a tight schedule, it’s still pretty much a fuck you. Kind of like having the right to refuse a breathalyser test; if you do, you still get arrested for refusal to submit.
The word confiscated has a very specific definition. Either it is or it isn’t. The only thing that limits your options is time and reality. Is it worth it to you to keep the item and take a later flight, or check another bag, or mail it? The prohibited items list is not a secret, and has not had a significant modification in 7 years since the liquid ban. A lack of adequate planning on your part. Leaving something in your bag that you should know cant go as a carry on item, is your problem. Its your property. TSA is required to make you aware of the options to make arrangements for it. TSA is not required or allowed to make those arrangements for you, or required to ensure that those arrangements meet your need for instant gratification. Everyone knows the rules, but everyone expects to be exempted from them because “I’m not a terrorist!”
It is true that the items are not confiscated; you are free to go anywhere with them except to the secure wing of the airport. And I can appreciate that it is not the personnel with boots on the ground who are to blame for poor policy.
It is the policy itself, however, coupled with reality, which puts many people in the position of being forced to give up their possessions or face more severe consequences (such as missing a flight). Just like NYC doesn’t ban handguns, it just makes it prohibitively expensive and difficult for as many people as possible. The decision not to allow pocket knives on a plane, and other such demonstrably ineffective screening, is a much less severe but still infringing policy. It puts honest, law abiding, sometimes forgetful or busy people in a position they shouldn’t have to deal with in the first place.
Can someone tell me how Aaron Alexis purchased a shotgun in Virginia since he just moved from Texas and was living in a hotel? My FFL makes me bring IDs and an electric bill to prove that I am a resident – and he knows me. Has this been discussed?
I have been informed that Virginia has the same regulations on long gun sales as we do here in PA. As long as you have 2 valid forms of ID, out of state residents are allowed to purchase long guns from a dealer.
Yes what Hobbez says has been the rule of law for a very longtime in Virgina and other states. Aaron could of just got on armslist and got any type of firearm he wanted avoiding a ffl all together. Not trying to rant against armslist because 90% of my firearms go and come from there, I’m just saying. If I was a criminal and wanted to build up a arsenal over a few months armlists would provide me with the contacts to do just that quite easily. And I’m glad it’s that way because most of us are not criminals but still want the right to private sales avoiding the intrusive and IMO illegal federal background check system which records and stores every transaction forever. I say we get rid of ffl’s. lol
Children have a far less paralyzing fear of dying than adults do. It’s why the best soldiers in all the wars have have always been 16-19 year old males. It’s built into the dna.
Many liberal educators will tell you this is a chauvinistic trait that must be halted. Another reason for the continued neutering of the male as a whole, and the chemical brainwashing by “psychologists” done on young men with “ADD.”
The action the kid took mostly gets people killed, hopefully he knows how dumb that was and how lucky he is to be alive. Desperate criminals rarely hold back shots for any reason. Either the gun jammed or he had no ammo or he wasn’t committed. I can show you more videos of someone reaching for a criminals gun and getting themselves killed than the happier outcome. Quick but dumb reflex. It’s not the child’s job it’s the father’s.
I disagree; That kid started the rush while the criminal was still MID-DRAW, before the weapon was brought to bear. Most importantly, he was close enough that it was a valid option. If the guy was on the other side of the room when he was drawing, or already had the weapon aimed at his target, it would have been a bad idea. This goes back to tactical awareness and knowing what your options are. That kid reacted perfectly. In this situation I hope we would all react as quickly and well as he did.
I respectfully disagree as well. In a perfect situation, where the kid knew exactly what to do because he was following the script of the action movie he was in, maybe there would have been a better choice. However, this was real, and this young man at least didn’t choose the most dangerous option: freezing in place. He reacted with violent, forceful action, and that often wins the day. In the military, if you’re caught in an ambush, you’re taught to charge the attackers if there isn’t any good cover close at hand. This young man chose to act; maybe it wasn’t the most perfect choice tactically, perhaps it was. Whatever. He acted instead of freezing, and he prevailed. I call it a win.
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