Should Guns be Allowed on Planes?

[CFLarsen]

Weak.......

Why?

 

[Earthborn]

On what grounds?

This rule:

2. The post is obscene
-Like the Supreme Court, we can't define it, but we know it when we see it. We want this to be a work-friendly website. We will allow links to sites but with a warning that the site could contain material considered objectionable. We do not want to be banned from libraries or schools because of sexual or violent content. At the same time, we do not want to censor discussion and dialogue. We also do not want to cause potential grantors to deny funding based on obscene or objectionable material.

I think if Luke is nice he should report these pictures to a moderater (preferably not Hal, as he's probably busy enough) to ask whether these pictures are acceptable or not. Any decision on whether they are explicit enough to be unacceptable or not is fine by me, but I think it is pretty clear they are of a violent nature.

He helped his argument quite a bit, I thought. Shanek appears to have made a statement that such things didn't happen.

Luke said 50s and 60s, the pictures are from before the 20s. I would not be surprised that such things were still happening 30 years later, but the pictures do not show that they did, so I consider them irrelevant to any discussion.

Feel free to visit the site I got the pictures from at:

http://www.musarium.com:16080/withoutsanctuary/

Thanks, Luke. Very interesting site.

 

[corplinx]

Why?

Because the probability of:

A. a gunfight breaking out on a plane even if passengers are allowed to carry

plus

B. the probability that said gunfight results in the plane crashing

plus

C. the probability of the plane damaging something on the ground of value versus hitting water/forest/etc

This hypothetical is so weak. I'd like to see you give any numbers at all that show this sort of event is likely. I can however point you to 3000 lives lost and massive property damage without the assistance of a firearm. Those planes had to be aimed at their target. The one that crashed of its own accord hit nothing.

Seriously, if thats the best arguement you can come up against the airlines deciding for themselves then its time to concede defeat.

 

[Valmorian]

This hypothetical is so weak. I'd like to see you give any numbers at all that show this sort of event is likely.

I agree, that hypothetical is indeed weak.

I can however point you to 3000 lives lost and massive property damage without the assistance of a firearm. Those planes had to be aimed at their target. The one that crashed of its own accord hit nothing.

What, exactly, makes you think that people being allowed to carry firearms aboard the plane would have changed this? I don't see how this hypothetical is any less weak.

 

[Luke T.]

This rule:I think if Luke is nice he should report these pictures to a moderater (preferably not Hal, as he's probably busy enough) to ask whether these pictures are acceptable or not.

Only because it is you, Earthborn, and I have always greatly admired your posts here, will I do that.

 

[Suddenly]

Seriously, if thats the best arguement you can come up against the airlines deciding for themselves then its time to concede defeat.

It isn't that weak. People not on the plane are at risk of harm if the plane is hijacked, thus the government has a legitimate interest in protecting both those people and it's own airspace.

Also, how about this one?

1) At common law property owners owned their land pretty much "all the way up and all the way down."

2) The government has modified property laws so that air travel is not actually trespassing. This is not considered a "taking" under the 5th amendment according to the courts, even though property rights were obviously restricted.

3) If airlines are going to accept the windfall in 2 above, they need to shut up and deal with it when the government makes restrictions on the use of that property for purposes of public safety.

 

[Girl 6]

I would like to report that Luke has sent me a PM about this asking for a ruling.

Unfortunately, I'm no longer a mod and can't "rule" on this, per se. But, I did offer him advice to provide the link with a warning so that people can exercise their choice to see it or not.

Also, as an aside, there is an entire book of these lynching postcards. Even though the thought of such a thing is rather replusive to me, I'm glad that there is historical evidence that such things did occur. That's because there are a lot of revisionists that would love to claim otherwise.

G6

 

[shanek]

No one's calling them a danger.

Yes, they are! People in this very thread, in fact, as I have quoted!

 

[shanek]

That you select your data twice to prove your point is one thing. But that you ignore an immediate drop in hijackings the moment guns are gone is only testament of your immense stupidity.

And yet, you ignoring an immediate rise in hijackings the moment guns are gone (1968) is not a testament of your immense stupidity?

 

[shanek]

Yeah, even in the 80s in Charleston, I saw some real eye-opening stuff. And don't even get me started on my battles in Mississippi in the late 80s.

You had said that someone doing so in the South would be very popular and win elections. I assure you, this is most definitely NOT the case. Not even when those photos were made; they were mostly circulated privately at first because they knew they would lose power and support if people knew what they were really up to. THAT is why your comment was bigoted against people from the South. Most of us are peaceful people who are NOT sanguine about torture and murder.

But you know what? I am better off. I wouldn't dream of going anywhere in a car with my kids without them strapped into a car seat.

You didn't need the government to give you a car seat. The free market made them.

Unfortunately, there are parents to this day who let their kids run around the back seat unbelted at highway speeds.

Regardless of the law.

The majority is never going to ever want to return to allowing every Tom, Dick and Dirty Harry to carry a gun on an airplane.

Argumentum ad populum. Doesn't matter what the majority think. The majority once approved of slavery.

 

[shanek]

My belief is that you can't tell the difference between a law abiding gun-toting passenger and a gun-toting hijacker at the ticket counter. So let's take away all their guns and everybody makes it home safely.

And so, again, we come back to the idea that we should punish EVERYBODY because of what somebody MIGHT do. And this is consistent with freedom, how?

The lack of information of events in the past forces us to make assumptions. Your assumption being that passengers were more peaceful and deterred hijackers because they had guns. My assumption being they probably were as surly as they are now and there were no hijackings because of the novelty of international airline flying.

Except that there weren't "no hijackings." There were hijackings, and yes, hijackings of international airlines. They were just few and far between; but despite your assertion, it had already been "proven" to be effective.

I don't even bother to defend myself against claims I am a bigot any more.

Then stop posting your bigoted and slanderous pictures and presenting them as if they are indicative of the South. I can show you pictures from New York, Chicago, and LA that are just as gruesome if not moreso—both from that same time and more recent times.

 

[shanek]

Yes, but that doesn't mean you can ignore it.

I'm not ignoring it! I'm accounting for it, and providing reasons why it is there and reasons why we cannot tie it one way or the other to gun legislation!

Furthermore, it is not at all unexpected that you'd find such a spike just prior to the imposement of strict gun-restrictions

Except that it wasn't prior to the restrictions. It coincided with them.

- these restrictions were imposed because hijackings had become a problem.

That doesn't mean that the solution of a complete gun ban was valid. As I pointed out, there are all sorts of other reasons for the levels dropping again that happened around that same time.

In other words, there is a suggested explanation for the rise prior to the restrictions.

Except that, as I keep pointing out, the rise wasn't prior to the resrictions. It coincided with the 1968 law which made it a felony to carry concealed weapons on airplanes. It didn't occur before.

Unless you have an alternative suggestion to explain the abrupt drop in hijackings

I've already presented several.

The rest of your post is just bogus, as it's a shifting of the burden. The point of the graph is to rebut the claims of the gun control advocates, and it does so very nicely. Everything else is just hand-waving and ignoring the issue.

 

[shanek]

He helped his argument quite a bit, I thought. Shanek appears to have made a statement that such things didn't happen.

No, I made a statement that such things didn't make you popular with a majority of the people. And again, I can produce such photos from places in the north and the west coast. They're nothing more than an attempt by a confessed bigot to slam people from the South.

 

[shanek]

When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in my white suburban neighborhood library. One day, I opened up a Life magazine and there was a picture of a dead black man tied to a tree with barbed wire. He was facing the tree and was leaning backward. That photo scarred me for life with a burning hatred. That was the 1970s.

Try having the black family two apartments down from you murdered and racial epithets scrawled over their walls with their own blood. That was the 1980s.

You don't have a monopoly on hate for these people. But you are letting it cloud your better judgement.

 

[shanek]

The lynching of Dick Robinson and a man named Thompson. October 6, 1906, Pritchard Station, Alabama.

What you're failing to mention is that the victims were criminals who were already in custody of the police; the mob forced them from the police, killing one of the officers, and then lynched them. As far as the law was concerned, they were men with rights. It was a small mob who overpowered the police and took them away. I think that puts it into its proper perspective.

Charred corpse of Jesse Washington suspended from utility pole.

Actually a very similar situation. Washington had just been found guilty of rape and murder, but as they were taking him from the courtroom again a mob overpowered them and burned and lynched him. The foreman of the jury that convicted Washington spoke out very loudly against the mob's actions, and a large number of the town got together to have a resolution passed denouncing the mob's actions. Again, the historical perspective paints a different picture than Luke does.

The lynching of nineteen-year-old Elias Clayton, nineteen-year-old Elmer Jackson, and twenty-year-old Isaac McGhie.

Three passing circus performers accused of rape (the story had turned out to be a hoax, which was revealed right before he mob started). Again, a mob overpowered the police, broke into their cell, and took them away and lynched them. The militia, made up of many of the able-bodied men of the town, was called forth to stop the mob, but unfortunately they were too late to stop it.

These were NOT events that gave the perputrators any kind of popularity, least of all with a majority of the people.

 

[shanek]

Amazon.com

Two white men does not a majority make.

 

[shanek]

Why do you think it is appropriate to ignore 121 (1968 - 1972) of the 127 hijackings (assuming your figures for pre 68 are accurate) before 1973 in calculating the base position against which to compare the post 1973 position?

[sigh] Asked and answered, several times.

 

[shanek]

First of all, no airline would allow guns

So why are the gun control people so vehemently opposed to giving them control over their own property?

Second, airport screening and security is done for everyone at the airport at once,

Again, it doesn't have to be that way. That system came about because the government was already interfering. It's not a function of the free market. (And we also seem to be ignoring the fact that the government has given itself a monopoly on public airports.)

Lastly, WHY do you think it should be up to the airlines?

Because it's their property.

Is it up to the drivers or the car manufacturers to set the rules of the road?

No; it's up to whomever owns the road. Property rights. Common Law. A man's property is his kingdom and all that.

 

[shanek]

It isn't that weak. People not on the plane are at risk of harm if the plane is hijacked, thus the government has a legitimate interest in protecting both those people and it's own airspace.

Then perhaps you can provide statistics on how many people on the ground, who aren't at an airport or thr ground crew or anything like that—people who are in their homes or businesses and completely unrelated to airplane flights, have been killed as a result of hijackings ending p with a crashed plane. With all of the dozens and dozens of hijackings there have been, surely you can present some examples?

 

[Luke T.]

I would like to report that Luke has sent me a PM about this asking for a ruling.

Unfortunately, I'm no longer a mod and can't "rule" on this, per se. But, I did offer him advice to provide the link with a warning so that people can exercise their choice to see it or not.

Also, as an aside, there is an entire book of these lynching postcards. Even though the thought of such a thing is rather replusive to me, I'm glad that there is historical evidence that such things did occur. That's because there are a lot of revisionists that would love to claim otherwise.

G6

I did not know Girl6 was no longer a moderator.

As for a link to each picture, that is not possible. The photos came from the kind of web photo gallery where the address doesn't change for each photo.