Should Guns be Allowed on Planes?

[Luke T.]

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.

Yes. In the New South. But in the South of just a few short decades ago, shanek, a racist was quite popular. They even cheered him on as he stood on the schoolhouse steps and tried to prevent negroes from entering that school. 1963. George Wallace.

So it was beneficial to be a bigot to gain votes.

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

We are a democracy. So it certainly does matter what the majority think. You are banging your head against the wall, wasting your time, trying to convince them to allow their fellow passengers to carry guns.

 

[Luke T.]

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?

Why do we have any laws at all then, shanek? Because we don't live in a state of Nature, we have a social contract which means we willingly surrender some of the freedoms we had when we lived in a state of Nature.

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.

This is at an impasse.

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.

I was pretty clear in stating that racism is not exclusive to the South.

I don't know. Maybe there have been so many trolls here lately posting silly garbage that when I slip into a satirical mood, nobody can tell the difference. The satire about negro lynchings seems to have caused some people to miss my point.

 

[Luke T.]

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.

On the web site I linked where I got the lynching photos there are plenty of pics to back up this very assertion of yours.

"A confessed bigot." That's rich.

 

[Mr Manifesto]

While you're on, I'll let you have the 'guns won't solve everything' argument. So we'll just let those passengers on planes with bombs- or passengers who think they're on a plane with a bomb- crash and burn. The right to carry guns on planes is more important than their lives. We must sacrifice some fingers to save the hand, after all.

Now, what happens if a team of hijackers -fully armed- are aboard a plane? What then? Do the armed passengers just take them all out?

Still waiting, shanek.


He ducks! He dodges! He weaves! He dives! Will he answer the question? Hang on to your hats folks, 'cos this is coming to you LIVE!

 

[Suddenly]

"A confessed bigot." That's rich.

Don't worry. Manifesto and I are "lying bigots," so you are not alone. Although you at least apparently are not in denial, so you've got that going for you.

We will all get through this together. Perhaps we should form a support group.

 

[The Fool]

Don't worry. Manifesto and I are "lying bigots," so you are not alone. Although you at least apparently are not in denial, so you've got that going for you.

We will all get through this together. Perhaps we should form a support group.

I am a well known liar, but I could be lying about that too....

 

[CFLarsen]

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

I thought that was an anomaly? Surely, you are not going to focus on one year, and disregard a string of years as an anomaly? If you want to point to this "immediate rise" in 1968, why do you ignore the even more dramatic drop in 1974? That's why I am saying that you are selecting your data.

shanek, you're a demagogue, but fortunately one that is easy to show wrong. What you are doing is focus on one aspect, look for an explanation that fits your political views and ignore any other argument or fact.

You may be a bit young to remember, but you can look it up in the history books: 1968 was a very crucial year, in politics and social upheaval, not just in the US but in other parts of the world as well.

RFK assassinated? MLK assassinated? The riots after MLK was killed? Kent State? Democratic National Convention, Chicago? More than 500,000 US soldiers in Vietnam? The Tet Offensive? The 10,000th plane lost in Vietnam? Widespread demonstrations, rallies and occupation on campuses? Abbie Hoffmann and The Yippie Movement? Sorbonne, with nine million French on strike? The Prague Spring and the following invasion of Soviet troops? Tlatelolco Square in Mexico? Andy Warhol shot, for chrissakes?

Ring a bell? Does this strike you as a particularly peaceful time, shanek? Is it possible that an increase in hijackings, most of which are politically motivated, could have something to do with the general mood?

Read your history, shanek. And try to understand that you are wrong.

 

[Tesserat]

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.

I love how people with claim that positions are weak, and therefore anyone disagreeing with them should admit defeat. Have you met anybody over the age of 4 who actually thinks, Hmmm, he says that I should admit defeat. Ok.

The thing that I really think is hilarious is that you're willing to let the airlines put people on the ground at risk, without their consent. And you think this is reasonable. Hey, I've got an idea. Let's lot the auto manufacturers decide if people who drive their cans can drive drunk. If the drunk driver kills somebody, less people will buy that car, and the problem will go away.

The planes often fly over cities on their approaches and takeoffs.
The skies don't belong to the airline companies, the just own the airplanes that fly through them. If they just have their planes sitting on the ground, and never going up in the air, I don't care if they issue uzis to each passenger.

 

[Leif Roar]

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

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.

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.

Sorry, Shanek, but the rise in the number of hijackings started before the gun control act of 1968 was enacted. The law was enacted on 22. October 1968, and of the 17 hijackings (by my count) that occured on flights departing from US airports in 1968, eight happened before this date.

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.

Fact: The increase in hijackings in the USA started before the gun-control act went into effect.
Fact: There was a sharp drop off in the number of hijackings in the USA when mandatory inspection of carry-on-baggage and scanning of all passengers were enforced from the start of 1973.

This is fully consistent with the view that prohibiting weapons aboard airplanes is the best security measure to prevent airplane hijackings, so how you feel that you've "rebutted" any claims is beyond me.

 

[Thanz]

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

Why are you so vehemently arguing that guns should be allowed on planes if it will never happen? Public commercial flights have a whole host of safety regulations attached to them, and no guns is just one of them. Are you suggesting that we get rid of all of them? Given your attitude on all things regulatory, I'd say probably yes.

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.

Psst - shanek - I know that this goes against everything that you stand for, but can you possibly accept that just because the government did that doesn't mean it is a "bad thing" and likewise, just because it is a result of the free market doesn't mean it is a "good thing"?

Have you stopped to consider that having one common, central security check for all airport passengers is the most efficient way to handle airport security? How much would it cost to overhaul every airport in the country to set up different security checkpoints for each airline? What would be the actual concrete benefits of such a system? There certainly would not be any efficiency gains.

(And we also seem to be ignoring the fact that the government has given itself a monopoly on public airports.)

It may be different in the USA, but in Canada at least that monopoly is authorized by the Constitution.

Because it's their property.

Not good enough. Laws affect private property all the time. You need to tell me why it would be a good thing.

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

And who "owns" the airspace? Certainly not the airlines. It is either the government or the property owners below.

 

[DanishDynamite]

Finally found a little time.

This thread has been great. I hope someone (Claus?) saves it for future reference.

BTW, I found an interesting link:

Preventing Crime on Transport

Some excerpts:

Skyjacking goes back to the early 1930s; however it was not until 1961 that it came to be perceived as a criminal act (Hawkins 1975). The pivotal incident was the first skyjacking of a United States airliner. ...

Following the 1961 skyjacking to Cuba, air piracy became punishable under American law with imprisonment for a maximum of 20 years or death (Chauncey 1975).

Hijacking an airplane wasn't even a crime in the US until 1961. So much for shanek's statistics going back to 1958.

Another excerpt:

From the early 1960s to the early 1970s three types or motives of skyjacking became apparent in the United States: escape; political terrorism; and extortion (Minor 1975). In the first stage, which peaked in 1968, most skyjackers attempted to get to Cuba; in that year, 18 of 22 attempts were successful. The following year, political terrorism was directed at the United States and Israel when members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) skyjacked an American aircraft to Syria. This wave of terrorism culminated in 1970 with the destruction of four jets. The third stage - extortion - began with its only successful attempt in 1971 when the skyjacker received $US200,000 from Northwestern Airlines, then parachuted.

Yet another:

The move to a prevention model was slow; early attempts were rejected by airlines, reluctant to alienate passengers (Minor 1975). For example, in 1961, pre-flight passenger searches, with consequent refusal to board anyone who refused, were raised by the Pilots Association but were not accepted by the airline industry. The first preventive strategy took place in the United States in 1964 when the FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) specified that cockpit doors must be locked during flights. Five years later, it authorised physical searches of passengers at the airlines' discretion. Weapon detection devices were used with travellers who conformed to the 'profile' of past perpetrators. These moves failed to affect the incidence of skyjacking significantly.

Consequently in 1970, armed sky-marshals were introduced in the United States and were given a widely-publicised mandate to shoot to kill. 1972 witnessed more stringent screening of passengers and their baggage. The following year, airlines in America were required to inspect all hand luggage and to screen all passengers with metal detectors. These strict preventive tactics were apparently the result of a continuing high rate of skyjacking and the reluctance of some airlines to implement screening procedures without legislative pressure. These controls appeared to be successful and in 1973 and 1974 there were no successful hijackings of United States air carriers.

Incidentally, the claim of no succesful hijacks in 1973 and 1974 made me check shanek's graph. In this graph, there are 3 hijacks for 1973. According to shanek's own source, there was only one hijack (unsuccesful, BTW) of a plane in the States that year. It appears that shanek is not only cherry-picking data but falsifying as well. A woo-woo would shout "BLATANT LIAR!"

 

[Thanz]

Great post Danish Dynamite! I hope you don't mind if I steal some.

In answer to the question as to why we should not leave security up to the airlines, I point you to the last two quote paragraphs in DD's post. The airlines demonstrated a lack of ability to adequately get the job done, and were then required to screen everyone. After this measure was adopted, hijacking plummeted.

Face it shanek, the most reasonable explanation is that the required screening of all passengers, which had to be forced after the "free market" failed, was a dramatic success in preventing hijacking. Yes, the gov't program actually worked.

But, I fully expect you to keep thrashing and insisting that you are correct, despite all of the evidence against your position. You could teach a mule things about stubbornness.

 

[ceptimus]

Some people are unable to admit when they are wrong. It's a fairly common failing; we should, perhaps, feel sorry for those so afflicted.

 

[shanek]

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.

Now, you didn't accept that reason when I explained to you about the database lookups from the airline safety site; why should we accept it from you?

 

[shanek]

Yes. In the New South. But in the South of just a few short decades ago, shanek, a racist was quite popular. They even cheered him on as he stood on the schoolhouse steps and tried to prevent negroes from entering that school. 1963. George Wallace.

Walace had already been elected by the time his racist policies came about. His campaign was nothing like that. He was already a popular politician, and so his followers stayed devoted to him despite what he did...pretty much like today, everywhere.

We are a democracy. So it certainly does matter what the majority think.

You're acting as if people are actually elected by a majority. They aren't.

 

[shanek]

Why do we have any laws at all then, shanek? Because we don't live in a state of Nature, we have a social contract which means we willingly surrender some of the freedoms we had when we lived in a state of Nature.

Don't you even realize how disingenuous you're being? There are PLENTY of laws that only punish people who are causing the problems! When was the last time you had to defend yourself against murder? I never have. I have had to endure police state tactics and a direct violation of my Fourth Amendment rights every time I condescend to travel by plane. In the event I decide I want to drive (which isn't always feasible), I still have to put up with government bureaucrats stopping me and telling me I have to show them my papers.

I don't know. Maybe there have been so many trolls here lately posting silly garbage that when I slip into a satirical mood, nobody can tell the difference. The satire about negro lynchings seems to have caused some people to miss my point.

If it were satire, then it was completely lost on me. Of course, my experiences in this area have probably taken away my sense of humor about the subject...

 

[shanek]

"A confessed bigot." That's rich.

You did admit to be bigoted against the South in another post in this thread.

 

[shanek]

I thought that was an anomaly?

Not according to you. Or are you saying that the rise was an anomoly but the drop wasn't?

Surely, you are not going to focus on one year, and disregard a string of years as an anomaly?

Funny; I thought that's what YOU were doing...

If you want to point to this "immediate rise" in 1968, why do you ignore the even more dramatic drop in 1974?

I said PLAINLY AND DIRECTLY that I WASN'T pointing to the rise in 1968 to support my means! But you can't see that; you don't want to understand, you don't want to think, you just want to bash, bash, bash!

That's why I am saying that you are selecting your data.

I'm not selecting anything. YOU are. And I have stated so direcly several times. I am saying, and have been saying, that NEITHER the RISE in 1968 nor the FALL in 1973 can be attributed to gun legislation one way or another. And now, here you are pretending otherwise.

You may be a bit young to remember, but you can look it up in the history books: 1968 was a very crucial year, in politics and social upheaval, not just in the US but in other parts of the world as well.

Which is why we can't attribute the 1968 rise to the gun restrictions. Likewise, a LOT changed in 1973; I've already mentioned several things that ALL of the gun control people on this thread have ignored. Neither the rise nor the drop can be attributed to gun legislation. IT IS AN ANOMALY.

[irrelevant blathering deleted]

 

[shanek]

Why are you so vehemently arguing that guns should be allowed on planes if it will never happen?

Again, it's this concept that you keep avoiding that I keep trying to drill into your head: FREEDOM. The airlines have the right to restrict guns or smoking or whatever on their flights because it's THEIR PLANE. Why don't you get that?

Do you really not understand why I'm such an outspoken supporter of the Second Amendment even though I don't own any guns and probably never will? Or why I'm for the complete legalization of all drugs even though I'm a 100% teetotaller? Does the entire concept of PRINCIPLES mean nothing to you?

Have you stopped to consider that having one common, central security check for all airport passengers is the most efficient way to handle airport security?

If it is, then the airlines would naturally gravitate to it. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and say that very little about the flying experience would change except for the ridiculously inefficient, unnecessary, and time-consuming "security" check which does nothing but attempt to make people feel good and safe while not actually doing anything to make them safe.

How much would it cost to overhaul every airport in the country to set up different security checkpoints for each airline?[/qoute]

Dunno. But if the airlines feel the cost is worth the benefits, they'll do it; if not, then they won't. Why do you have such a problem with this?

What would be the actual concrete benefits of such a system? There certainly would not be any efficiency gains.

Actually, there could very easily be efficiency gains if the airlines wanted varying security policies and thought the extra costs justified them.

It may be different in the USA, but in Canada at least that monopoly is authorized by the Constitution.

It's not in the USA. In fact, the 10th Amendment forbids the Federal government from doing anything not specifically authorized by the Constitution, and there's nothing in the Constitution authorizing them to give themselves a monopoly on airports.

 

[shanek]

Finally found a little time.

To posit a bunch of blatant strawmen.

Some excerpts:
Hijacking an airplane wasn't even a crime in the US until 1961. So much for shanek's statistics going back to 1958.

The statistics from that site go all the way back to 1943. Just because it wasn't a Federal crime doesn't mean it didn't happen.

Yet another: Incidentally, the claim of no succesful hijacks in 1973 and 1974 made me check shanek's graph. In this graph, there are 3 hijacks for 1973. According to shanek's own source, there was only one hijack (unsuccesful, BTW) of a plane in the States that year. It appears that shanek is not only cherry-picking data but falsifying as well. A woo-woo would shout "BLATANT LIAR!"

You ARE a blatant liar! Check the corrected graph. The last year with zero hijackings was 1967, and the only year since then with one hijacking was 1976 (of the years covered in the graph, before any of you gun control nuts try and slough in with your irrelevant attacks). NOTHING has been falsified. I acknowledged the mistakes with the first graph AS SOON as it was properly pointed out to me by the ONLY person who did any kind of real skeptical examination of it (while the others whined that I didn't give them a source...well, ONE of you didn't have any trouble finding it!), I bent over backwards to provide corrected figures. I have NEVER seen even ONE gun control person in my entire tenure on this forum come anywhere near to that level of reexamination that I did. No, you people still say I'm incapable of admitting when I'm wrong.

Screw you all. You're just going to see what you want to see and no amount of skeptical examination and logic will sway you even a notch.