Two US Marines Foil Terrorist Attack On Train In France 468
hcs_$reboot writes: A heavily armed gunman opened fire aboard a packed high-speed train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris late Friday afternoon, wounding several passengers before he was tackled and subdued by two Americans Marines. The assault was described as a terrorist attack. President Barack Obama has expressed his gratitude for the "courage and quick thinking" of the passengers on a high-speed train in France, including U.S. service members, who overpowered the gunman. Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, paid tribute to the Marines as he arrived at the scene, and said "Thanks to them we have averted a drama. The Americans were particularly courageous and showed extreme bravery in extremely difficult circumstances."
they weren't marines: one USAF, one Oregon NG (Score:5, Informative)
No idea where the marine story everyone is printing came from. US Govt identified them only as service members, but Oregon newspaper figured out who they were:
http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2015/08/oregon_national_guard_member_h.html
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Whoever they are I hope they get the highest metal available. It sounds like they stopped what could have been an extremely bad attack.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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As Etherwalk suggests, read the history and criteria of the Medal of Honor in the link he provided.
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nerd news? (Score:2, Insightful)
How is this related to slashdot's supposed themes, this is just general news
Re:nerd news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:nerd news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering the deleterious impact that acts of terrorism have had on civil liberties
The greatest impact on civil liberties came from from the gross hysterical, overreaction to 'terrorism'.
Re:nerd news? (Score:4, Insightful)
Like this:
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And my first though when I read the headline is if this happens much more then the gov'ts will want to pay their crony friends billions to install a few millions worth of metal detectors and xray scanners and we will all end up queuing for half an hour resulting in wasting a total of trillions of man hours because some c**t decided to get on a train and shoot people.
I'd rather take the risk of being shot thank you.
Your idea: armed guards - how many? 2 at the end of
Re:nerd news? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't necessarily agree, but some would argue that this is "Stuff That Matters". If the tagline was "High Tech News / Stuff That Matters" you would have a point. You'd do better to ask how which finger you press the "6" key with [slashdot.org] is in keeping with the supposed theme. (It is neither news, nor does it matter)
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General news it is.
Nevertheless it's nice to get such good news for a change.
True American heros.
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How is this related to slashdot's supposed themes, this is just general news
It seems like a good thing for whiny neckbeards to bicker about...
Re: Statist/leftist news (Score:2)
Are you saying we don't need a police force or the military?
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I would argue against that.
People that fight for freedom have a tendency to die young, and depending on the circumstances, having their families killed in retaliation by the powers that be.
The cowards that don't fight for freedom live longer and keep their families safer, thus their genes are more likely to survive.
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it was France and the guys were off duty. No guns for them, nor will there ever be guns for guys in their situation. Not remotely relevant to issue of gun ownership in America. We already own guns in America and can carry them.
Way to go, guys! (Score:2)
It's awesome that these guys (the two marines and a civilian, from what I read) had the courage and presence of mind in a highly stressful and unexpected situation to charge in and ultimately save a lot of people's lives. Their actions do them a hell of a lot of credit.
I hope that in addition to whatever medals or awards they're presented with, they at least get something practical out of this, like some fine wine and/or champagne on the house.
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Latest news is they were not US Marines but one US Air Force and one Oregon National Guard plus the civilian. But you're right, their actions are all to their credit.
Re:Way to go, guys! (Score:5, Interesting)
Good to know. I bet the Marines wish they could claim these guys. Reading more, they apparently spotted the guy acting suspiciously as he went to the bathroom, then heard the sounds of the clips being loaded. Amazingly heads-up. The perp apparently had 300 rounds in total. This could have been a major bloodbath.
Error in title and summary (Score:4, Informative)
The shooting did not happen in France. It was on a train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris. The events happenend in Belgium.
Not marines, just passengers (Score:5, Informative)
I woke up this morning to all the news stories about the terrorist in the train who was taken down by three passengers. It’s a great story, but I wish the news services would stop referring to “American marines”. First, as far as I can tell, the three central figures were: one guy in the Air Force, one guy in the Oregon national guard, and a Brit who wasn’t a soldier at all. Plus other passengers who were involved, also not soldiers.
Second – more importantly – we need to encourage any bystanders to take down attackers. If you have a train full of hundreds of people, the only right answer is to swarm the lone gunman. If you’re close to him, you’re gonna get shot anyway, so you’d just as well make it count for something. Easy to say from my armchair, of course, but I’d like to think I would react that way in reality as well.
Of course, the SJW press is busily trying to not call him a terrorist, despite the plain evidence that he was, and was even known for his previous involvement with jihadists.
**including** U.S. service members? (Score:2)
Looking at the dailymail account, this spencer airforce guy charged the moroccan, tacked him and while other passengers helped to disarm. Then he took box cutter slashes before they all beat the fsck out of the moroccan.
No wonder it is said Obama dislikes individual achievement.
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Its all about narrative for the progressives. They like to play with language, redefine words, ban words, rephrase things... and its all to misrepresent situations, hide inconvenient realities, or otherwise push their preferred narrative no matter how irrational or baseless it is...
You see it everywhere on anything they really care about it. Look at the terms they use for things. Its all weird terms that were clearly concocted to avoid using another term that is actually more descriptive.
Its part of why whe
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Its all about narrative for the progressives. They like to play with language, redefine words, ban words, rephrase things... and its all to misrepresent situations, hide inconvenient realities, or otherwise push their preferred narrative no matter how irrational or baseless it is...
Projection much?
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In what way was I projecting?
You're saying that I play with language, redefine words to suit my narrative, manipulate the media, ban words, misrepresent situations to suit my narrative, hide inconvenient realities, or otherwise push my preferred narrative no matter how irrational or baseless it is?
is that what you're implying?
Because these are falsifiable arguments.
Did I redefine language anywhere or would you like to associate me with some other group that does that? Lets see your argument. We can see on t
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No I'm not.
Every citation I threw out was progress retards.
Choke on it.
If you want to have a more substantive discussion on how right I am... login. I can't keep the ACs straight. One AC says X, another AC says Y... I respond to either X or Y and the AC i'm talking to invariably says "I didn't say that"... login. Or you're just going to get a onesided lecture out of me. I can't engage in dialog with ACs because they don't label themselves.
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So... you say I am projecting... lets see where you back that up... anywhere.
First sentence... conservatives do X... well, I'm talking about progressives here... not everyone on the left. Most people on the left are not progressives. Progressives are to liberals what sister fucking red necks are to conservatives. Just so we're clear.
Second, you say I didn't learn the meaning of words? I got a near perfect score on the English portion of my SAT's, chump. I know what the words mean.
Third, to conservatives bei
merci (Score:4, Insightful)
A train was a horribly good choice of target. (Score:5, Informative)
The attacker chose his target intelligently. If he hadn't have been stopped, this could have been horrific.
If he had attacked a cinema or a shopping mall with multiple exits, people would disperse and flee very easily and quickly as soon as he started shooting. Armed police would be on the scene in minutes.
On a train, hundreds of people would effectively be trapped in there with him until it could be brought to a halt and the doors opened. He would have walked the length of it, killing at will. This would have been worse than Anders Breivik's attack. The two that stopped him averted a nightmare.
Of course now, there'll be talk about airport security at railway stations. The UK has over 2500, including many small ones used by less than 100 passengers a month. So that's going to be a problem.
there was no other way for them (Score:2)
Re:Unfortunately (Score:4, Insightful)
will feed into the NRA mantra of everyone being armed everywhere every time
which would have made everything a lot easier.
you do realize not more than 15 years ago you could fly with a weapon in the cabin. I'm sure you're also aware of the violence statistics in Chicago after they lifted the handgun ban.
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you do realize not more than 15 years ago you could fly with something that might be employable as a weapon in the cabin.
FTFY
Re:Unfortunately (Score:4, Insightful)
You're probably on a list now.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Informative)
you do realize not more than 15 years ago you could fly with a weapon in the cabin. I'm sure you're also aware of the violence statistics in Chicago after they lifted the handgun ban.
I did not know that. 15 years ago, I flew quite often, and I thought I had to check any rifles, shotguns, or handguns. I always had to do their "residue check" which was NOT RANDOM. LIARS! But please elaborate on carrying firearms in cabin at that time. Thanks!
Re: Unfortunately (Score:4, Funny)
He said nothing about lions.
He said he "hunted Africa", which I understand to mean that he stepped off of the plain, looked around, found an Africa, and started shooting the ground.
Continents are hard to kill, though, because they're just so big. There's been maybe one good account of a kill, but it was so long ago that it might have been fictionalized. Sure, lots of folks tell stories about it, but very few ever even try to take down a continent themselves. Even the attempt is impressive.
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you do realize not more than 15 years ago you could fly with a weapon in the cabin.
With all the aircraft hijackings [wikipedia.org] happening in the 80's, I doubt in 2000 you could have reached the cabin having a kalashnikov in your handbag.
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you do realize not more than 15 years ago you could fly with a weapon in the cabin.
With all the aircraft hijackings [wikipedia.org] happening in the 80's, I doubt in 2000 you could have reached the cabin having a kalashnikov in your handbag.
More like early to mid 1970s
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
While flying without nail clippers might be debatable, 15 years ago you could not fly with a gun in the cabin.
You had to check your gun, and you can still fly with a gun, provided you check it. It cannot be checked in undeclared, and in the process of declaring it, it must be inspected to be save (unloaded) and secure (typically in a locked hard case).
A gun can puncture the pressure hull of the plane, and considering it's altitude, that would be both unpleasant and potentially life threatening (in addition to any other immediate threats). We have already seen personnel lost overboard on aircraft, and while a single small bullet hole is likely to not directly cause such issues, bullet holes could (in theory) cause other failures, leading to rapid depressurization.
Also note that in 2012, against a national trend, Chicago murder rates spiked, two years after lifting the handgun ban. Currently the rate is down for Chicago; however, on average a handgun ban lift doesn't create an easy prediction of future crime. Some cities it goes down, some it goes up. Odds are the ban doesn't have a direct impact, probably because people were already carrying, just illegally.
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"A gun can puncture the pressure hull of the plane, and considering it's altitude, that would be both unpleasant and potentially life threatening"
That's not the real problem. A 1 cm2 hole will leak around 20 liters of air per second, which is negligible to the 500+ l/s of air that needs to be refreshed in a typical 200-passenger aircraft to keep the passengers from suffocating.
A bigger problem is that the bullet can damage electrical and hydraulic lines on the way out.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
As for chicago the answer is: nothing changed, because when you ban guns locally but not just a few miles down the road in the outlying suburbs, the ban doesnt actually mean or do anything.
In other words, it's the local culture that's the problem, not the guns.
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Yup, guns just make it worse. Best to ban them where the culture is bad.
So in places where roving mobs use social media to coordinate on the trashing of stores or looting, etc., you're all for suspending the first amendment, and doing things like banning mobile phones? Please be specific.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
So, your solution is to penalize all of those that know how to use a gun in order to stop the few that cause problems. Which has been shown repeatedly doesn't work, criminals are a very creative bunch. Instead, people point to senseless statistics as if killing 9 people is acceptable, but 10 is not.
You sir, sound like an idiot. An idiot who likes to generalize. I've known many people who shoot, and the vast majority of them are not beer drinking good 'ol boys. They are my neighbors, my family, my friends, and my fellow geeky workers.
NRA doesn't 'pander' to anyone. The NRA is supported by millions of people who use guns, and it simply echos their views. The tired generalization that somehow the NRA is pushing an agenda is misplaced, the millions of VOTERS who support the NRA are pushing an agenda. The NRA is no different from the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, who also are supported by millions of people who help to shape their agendas.
The real problem is idiots who think they know what is best for everyone else, probably because their ego is so huge. The majority of gun owners I know simply want to be left alone and allowed to target shoot in peace, buy a gun whenever they find one they like, and be able to defend themselves if necessary.
I am also anti-stupid-fucking-idiot-with-a-gun. The problem is determining who the stupid-fucking-idiots are. I personally don't trust you to make that judgement, it sounds to me you are like most car drivers .. everyone driving faster than you is an asshole and everyone driving slower is an idiot. You talk like you would think you are the only one that knows exactly the right speed to travel.
When you and your fellow anti-gun fanatics can come up with a method that keeps guns out of the hands of the very small minority of criminals and allow the far greater number of legal gun owners to go out and target shoot, carry a gun for defensive purposes, and collect guns without being overly burdened with fees or procedures, or having to register their property, let me know.
Until then, please leave me the fuck alone. Your tired, ignorant rhetoric is getting boring. My wife an I own several revolvers, pistols, bolt-action rifles, and semi-automatic rifles. Never once has any of them been pointed at another person or animal. They have been used to shred a large number of paper targets and put holes into plastic water-filled bottles (which where collected and recycled afterward.) They have been used to help my wife sleep at night when I'm away. And to make me feel a bit safer investigating what that noise was at night.In my 56 years of living, and probably 46 years of shooting, no one has been even remotely put into danger by my actions.
Insinuating that somehow I shouldn't be allowed to have guns because you know someone who is an idiot or because someone else shot somebody is just moronic. If we used that logic, we should also remove all the cars from the roads and knives from our kitchens.
Oh wait .. several years ago in the UK, a bunch of people suggested just that .. that pointy kitchen knives had no use other than killing people and should be banned. It seems that once guns were effectively banned, people started finding other ways to kill people. I can't wait for the day when cricket bats become the weapon of choice. Oh .. wait ... during some riots in London, miniature baseball bats became the self-defense weapon of choice when the unarmed police couldn't control the crowds.
The real problem is a very small minority of people sometimes want to hurt other people. And all the banning of devices in the world will never stop that.
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!HSOOOOOHW
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I am. The murder rate stayed the same and suicides went down significantly.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
"This sort of thing feeds into the TSA mentality - search everyone everywhere every time. And then it will feed into the NRA mantra of everyone being armed everywhere every time."
And best of all, it's the umpteenth time that an illegal alien terrorist (sorry, "refugee") has taken advantage of European white guilt to slaughter people he know were unarmed and wouldn't resist. But whoops, US Marines happened to be standing near that toilet.
How many Charlie Hebdos will it take before they know
That too many people have died?
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Seeing as you are modded flamebait, not enough yet.
Oh well escalation will happen
Re: Unfortunately (Score:3)
Or to switch it to the US: how many school shootings have to happen. I don't agree with either too many guns or not enough. I live in the UK and the city centres are bad enough at the weekends as it is without drunken fuckwits having easy access to firearms.
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"and people are modding this racist garbage insightful."
Care to point out where he mentioned the guys race? Is a refugee a race now? Or are you just kneejerking along with all the other liberal fuckwits tossing out the usual playground insults? Hmm, I wonder which one it could be...
" the bullshit perception that Europeans are weak and cowardly"
I'm a european and I'd call most european governments cowardly. They're too scared to do what the people actually want but have sacrficed themselves on the alter of
Re:Unfortunately (Score:4, Insightful)
A "random brown guy." Yeah, right. Pull the other one. No matter how many massacres involving organization and the kind of heavy weapons which are hard to get in Europe because, you know, it has strict gun control, the media there hopefully keeps calling each one a lone-wolf attack.
What Europe needs to do is ship all of those "refugees" back to the hellhole shores they came from. Those who honestly want a better life have two options: they can go to a embassy and apply for legal immigration into some other country like all those generations of people before them, or they can stand and take back their homelands from the jihadists. We will gladly offer drone and bomb strikes where those might help.
We have a refugee problem of our own in the US, solutions for which are the biggest subject of debate in the new presidential campaign. As in Europe, a certain small percentage of our refugee stream consists of bad guys. But at least our bad guys are the kind of common criminals we can take care of with our own guns, not bloodthirsty international terrorists organizing to take over a continent where hitting your mugger with an umbrella is considered a felony.
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2. The homocide rate in Europe is way lower than in the USA.
No. The homicide rate in Europe is HIGHER than in the USA. It is lower in the EU, but if you include the rest of Europe (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, etc.) the rate goes way up. Even if you only look at the EU, the homicide rate is not "way lower" but only somewhat lower. Some countries in the EU have a homicide rate higher than the USA, and several US states have homicide rates lower than the EU average.
It should also be noted that different countries have very different standards for what is "homicide".
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
The average person will most likely freeze in a crisis, just out of sheer human nature. It takes a lot of training to overcome that, and to build up the instinct to act (nevermind in a beneficial manner), which in a combat situation is often the difference between life and death.
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These guys weren't armed with anything more than good training, and the mental preparedness to take action in a crisis, nevermind the guts to do so at considerable personal risk.
The average person will most likely freeze in a crisis, just out of sheer human nature. It takes a lot of training to overcome that, and to build up the instinct to act (nevermind in a beneficial manner), which in a combat situation is often the difference between life and death.
And yet the NRA thinks that the "average person" with a firearm is the solution to the problem.
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And yet the NRA thinks that the "average person" with a firearm is the solution to the problem.
The average person with a gun knows how to use it.
I'm guessing that, if there hadn't been soldiers on the train ready to risk their lives to save others, you'd be telling us how much better it was for a few dozen people to be shot dead than for them to carry a gun to defend themselves.
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Or perhaps European railway stations might just implement baggage scans on long-distance journeys.
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In onion layer security, the outermost layer is always the most available, and always has the most potential attack vectors. So, you just pushed the attacker away from the large shiny metal things to which these assholes seem to be attracted, and instead into the bigger, probably harder to effectively secure lobby where people congregate to go through metal detectors. Practical changes? None. Zippo. Nil. Nada.
Until one or more of these conditions is met, nothing will change:
a) we develop some technology to
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Erh... no. The average person with a gun doesn't know shit. The average person with a gun is actually less capable to handle it sensibly than the average person with a car because at least for the latter you need a license. And just look at the stupidity going down on our roads.
I spent some time in the military. I know how to handle a gun, inside and out, and that's also why a gun is one of the last things I'd want to have in many situations where people cry for people being armed.
Seriously, the very, very
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Seriously, the very, very LAST thing I'd want is the average person being armed in a plane at cruising level. Especially in case a terrorist goes nuts.
People just have no clue how flimsy and delicate a plane is. But then again, people have no clue how flimsy and delicate a car is... because they don't want to admit how flimsy and delicate they are, in the grand scheme of things.
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The average person with a gun knows how to use it.
No, they don't, at least not in the USA. Guns are easy to get, no training required. Fairly often there are articles in the newspaper about people getting accidentally shot, and it's obvious that if they had a clue about how to use a gun, these accidents wouldn't happen. The last thing I want when a gunfight erupts is a bunch of untrained people trying to pull out their guns and firing.
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The NRA goes off the deep end with propaganda because their opponents think a black stock makes a firearm more dangerous.
Gun control loonies have only themselves to blame for the NRA's present insanity.
The real message is lost on you (Score:2, Insightful)
And yet the NRA thinks that the "average person" with a firearm is the solution to the problem.
Do you think one of the marines (in critical condition) would have been shot in the neck if he had been armed himself? Would even any other civilians had been shot when the first shots fired were from someone trained not to hit people if needed vs. someone trying to hit anyone?
It's absurd to say this shows you can always do without a gun when two marines in the prime of their life take out a gunman they know is e
Re:The real message is lost on you (Score:4, Insightful)
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Wow, didn't you just accuse an imaginary strawman of a "false dichotomy"?.. Or are you trying to show us, how to commit the same fallacy better?
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Rather, an armed society is a society afraid to piss someone off by speaking the truth. With a lot of built up rage waiting to break to the surface.
If you need proof for that, take the internet and its perceived anonymity, and compare to the behaviour of people in societies with lots of guns in it.
Re:The real message is lost on you (Score:5, Insightful)
Seriously, when the only support for your insanity is fiction, shouldn't that give you a hint of reality?
It's been noted that in spite of the high gun ownership and limited law enforcement, the so-called "wild west" was actually not significantly less lawful than the rest of the country. That doesn't actually speak to whether the presence of guns promoted that atmosphere, because we'll never know what it would have been like without them. Anti-gun advocates still seek to paint it as a lawless time [fabiusmaximus.com], but they are quite a bit off the mark. Their anecdotes favor more local law enforcement as a solution, not the elimination of firearms.
The best support for the argument that people should be able to legally carry firearms, perhaps with some background checks and licensing (which is the case in at least some of the states which permit carry, and AFAIK true of all the states which permit concealed carry) is that the people who legally carry firearms within these programs very rarely use them to commit crimes. They should not be required to justify themselves by claiming that they will protect you. All the justification that should be required is that they are not doing harm. You and I and everyone else here does a dozen things a day or more that cause harm to other people. We drive, we use the internet, we throw stuff away that has a high percentage likelihood of being disposed of improperly and which was typically produced with little concern for the unwanted outputs — nearly no industry on earth would be profitable if it had to account for its externalities.
I'm not against reasonable gun control. I have concerns regarding the government's qualifications in deciding what constitutes mental fitness, however. That's something that can easily be wielded awry. The latest DSM can be read such that if you ask questions about your health care, you may have something wrong with you. We're one fine red hair away from criminalizing dissent, and don't think it can't happen here. It can, and it can happen in tiny steps that are nearly imperceptible to the average citizen.
There is plenty of support for the notion that a responsibly armed society is a polite society. When Heinlein imagined the majority of people acting responsibly of their own accord, he engaged in works of fiction, and he knew that. While it's not the current state of affairs, there's no particular reason why that cannot eventually become reality. But there's far more people than you notice carrying weapons legally, and you don't notice them because there's no reason why you should do so.
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An armed society is a polite society- Robert Anson Heinlein
"An armed society is a polite society" A character from fiction
Seriously, when the only support for your insanity is fiction, shouldn't that give you a hint of reality?
Umm.. Robert A Heinlein is NOT a ficticious character.. He's one of the most famous science-fiction authors of all time... And he is ABSOLUTELY
right about an armed society being a polite society.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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An armed society is a polite society- Robert Anson Heinlein
"An armed society is a polite society" A character from fiction
Seriously, when the only support for your insanity is fiction, shouldn't that give you a hint of reality?
Umm.. Robert A Heinlein is NOT a ficticious character.. He's one of the most famous science-fiction authors of all time... And he is ABSOLUTELY right about an armed society being a polite society.
You miss the point. Robert A. Heinlein did not say "An armed society is a polite society." A character in his fictional novel Beyond This Horizon said it. A writer is not responsible for what his fictional characters say.
It is often claimed that Shakespeare said: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." No, a character in Henry VI, Part II said it. A criminal, in the context of overthrowing the government.
Re:The real message is lost on you (Score:4, Interesting)
And yet the NRA thinks that the "average person" with a firearm is the solution to the problem.
Do you think one of the marines (in critical condition) would have been shot in the neck if he had been armed himself? Would even any other civilians had been shot when the first shots fired were from someone trained not to hit people if needed vs. someone trying to hit anyone?
It's absurd to say this shows you can always do without a gun when two marines in the prime of their life take out a gunman they know is exiting from a very small space.
What if you are not two cut marines and there's a guy with a gun who just swings around a corner? What if you are a woman alone and there's someone with a knife telling you to strip your clothes off? What if you are home alone and three guys bust the door open wide and storm inside your house? There are a lot of situations where a gun is much better than most other things, including being unarmed - and the very case you claim is proof of how you "don't need guns" is one of them.
The whole good guy with a gun bullshit you argue here falls apart in one hell of a hurry in the real world. IN THE REAL world the guy busting into a room has the gun at the ready and guess what sucker? HE HAS THE DROP ON YOU. Better still your move to get a gun in another room in a lockup so your kid does not blow his brothers brains out by accident, is not going to cut it.
What you are suggesting is having granny sitting on the porch 24/7 with a shotgun for security to keep the trespassers out. HERE are the real facts about why arming the hell out of the public is not how to stop crime; ASK ANY experienced police officer and they will tell you that over 60 percent of guns that wind up on the street are stolen from property crimes and that most bad guy incidents like home invasions and burglaries are not helped by the home owner or any resident using a firearm to either scare off or defend their life and property. AMERICANS are stupid idiots when it comes to fire arms, the truth is unless you are packing 24/7 and it is loaded and at the ready a handgun is useless for protection. So essentially the NRA is correct lets get rid of the morons, let every one pack a piece and make it mandatory. BANG BANG SHOOT SHOOT happiness is warm gun OOH OOH.
The moronic comments here do not surprise me at all but they are an insult to the courage and skill of the Marines that put their lives at risk stopping another idiot with a gun! Idiots with guns confronting idiots with guns is not the answer here, never has been and never will be.
I HUNT and use firearms and have done so since I was a little kid. Most citified morons that worship the almighty hand gun can't even shot a grouse in the head with a 22 short the way we did when we were kids. I am Canadian and the American attitude towards guns is one very good reason why all of you should have your vehicles searched at the border. Like an American uncle of mine that took pride in showing off his 38 that he packed in his glove box loaded all the time just in case some mad trapper or savage wild man attacked while he visited us in our igloos, we all laughed like hell at him cause with a real gun he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and the hand gun he had and shot off all the time was so far beyond his abilities that I would duck when he blasted away because you never knew if he was gonna double on the trigger and pop two off on recoil! So PEOPLE WHO do nothing but watch movies and tv and think they can use firearms should not be allowed anywhere near them and this especially goes for most arm chair Clint Eastwoods which is what most NRA members and supporters are!
Re: The real message is lost on you (Score:2)
Why wouldn't Mr Rapist also be armed with a gun? Why wouldn't the three guys that burst into your house be armed? Would they be nice enough to let the victim grab their gun?
Re: The real message is lost on you (Score:3)
Nope all I'm saying is that a gun isn't a guarantee of safety unless you have it in your hand at all times.
FTFY (Score:2)
And yet the NRA thinks that the " properly trained [nra.org] average person" with a firearm is the solution to the problem.
The NRA advocates proper training for anyone who owns or carries a firearm.
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"Remember the basis for the right to bear arms is that the populous should be able to rise up against a despotic government."
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
I don't see anything about uprising there. What was that bit about 'well-regulated' and 'necessary to the security?'
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
And yet the NRA thinks that the "average person" with a firearm is the solution to the problem.
Actually the NRA is the premier advocate of and provider of firearms safety and training, training many firearms and safety instructors as well as private citizens. This is their primary mission. Political advocacy is their secondary mission, one they feel "forced" into.
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Re: Unfortunately (Score:2)
Forced? Someone holding a gun to their head?
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
These guys weren't armed with anything more than good training, and the mental preparedness to take action in a crisis, nevermind the guts to do so at considerable personal risk.
"The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with training and mental preparedness to take action in a crisis".
Hmm. It'll never fit on a bumper sticker, but training more people how to effectively handle a violent person might be a better idea than handing everyone a gun and hoping for the best.
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Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Funny)
I hope the 2015 Chicago Bears defense does not encounter any bad guys with guns.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of truth in that. Handing untrained people a gun is a good way to have a mess. It takes a lot of training to teach a person to handle a gun in a crisis situation. Most people get excited and snatch the trigger spraying bullets around and hitting everything except what they're aiming at. It's amazing how many shots get fired with no one getting hit. This video is a good example, lots of shots and no one hit. All at almost point blank range too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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In an area where "good guys" may legally carry a gun, every bad guy most certainly has a gun. So the bad guy is "brandishing" his weapon first, to get what he wants. If the good guy tries to pull his he gets shot.
Except that part is the nonsense. In places like Florida, the passing of concealed carry laws saw an immediate and persistent drop in violent street crime, including shootings across the board. Surveys of actual felons locked up for committing burglaries as well as violent crimes like robberies, muggings, and rapes find that often do NOT want to risk being caught carrying a weapon (something that might put them back in to jail even if they're not in the middle of committing a crime beyond the carrying of w
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To paraphrase a famous saying, a well-trained person with a gun can achieve more than a well-trained person without one.
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These guys weren't armed with anything more than good training, and the mental preparedness to take action in a crisis, nevermind the guts to do so at considerable personal risk.
The average person will most likely freeze in a crisis, just out of sheer human nature. It takes a lot of training to overcome that, and to build up the instinct to act (nevermind in a beneficial manner), which in a combat situation is often the difference between life and death.
It's fun when people make assumptions based on their own biases... The latest update from CNN mentions that a civilian was also involved in subduing the shooter. "The three men -- a member of the Air Force, an inactive National Guard member and a civilian -- responded quickly, possibly preventing a deadly attack on the high-speed Thalys train." So, what were you saying about the average person again?
Everyone has fight or flight instincts and each situation is different. I would expect armed forces perso
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Unfortunately (Score:4, Insightful)
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Indeed... Count the number of years between WW1 and WW2. Then compare with the period between WW2 and WW3... Oh, that's right, the US "war industry" is so overwhelming WW3 is nowhere in sight...
Re:Unfortunately (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Informative)
But likewise neither would have the terrorist.
Islamist wackadoos wanting to take over Europe (and elsewhere) aren't doing so because they think the US has too big a military. They're doing it because they think the rest of the world should live under the culture they consider to be the only valid one. As they've been doing for centuries, they are willing (and in fact feel obliged) to do their bit for medieval theocracy through violence. The existence of large militaries run by cultures that don't wish to live under the thumb of Islam is indeed annoying to them, but that's not what motivates them.
Re:Unfortunately (Score:5, Insightful)
They are doing it because your country (and the US) is doing things in their country.
So, just to be clear, the Taliban drags female school teachers out into a public square and shoots her in the head for teaching girls to read ... because they're angry at the US? Militant Islamists in Africa slaughter villages full of non-Islamists because they're angry at the US, which isn't even present in the area they're taking over? Militant Islamists are lining up and beheading rows of Egyptian Christians in Libya because they're not happy with the US?
Sunni and Shia factions, which have been fighting each other for centuries, have been and continue to do that because of the US?
If you consider yourself informed on the subject (which you can't be - these groups are telling you in plain language why they're doing what they're doing, and it generally comes down to: "people who aren't sufficiently Islamic by our standards should be killed") then please don't do anything dangerous like voting.
Training, and right place at right time (Score:2)
They happened to be outside the restroom when they heard somebody loading their AK47. And yeah, a couple of people got shot before they subdued him, but fortunately not killed.
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Elitist rubbish, some people freeze, the majority will cower but a sizable minority will realise that they have a better chance of surviving if they can do something to subdue the shooters.
Sure military training will help in the take-down but don't tell me that people don't naturally have a survival instinct or that they will all cower because history says this isn't true.
http [google.com]
Re:Unfortunately (Score:4, Insightful)
its not one or the other...
Though I think the real take away is that you shouldn't give visas to people that hate your country and want to kill your people.
Isn't that the real take away here?
As to trained people... we had that marine recruiting station in the US that was attacked by a similar muslim whack job. The marines couldn't defend themselves because they didn't have weapons. So... the NRA point is frankly valid... I mean... I'm just saying arm trained soldiers. Is that rocket science?
I guess some people will say "well, we don't want people with guns inside of this shopping mall"... Fine... don't put the recruiting station in the mall then. Put it right next door in a different building that the landlord will feel less politically pressured to impose irrational rules. And then put up some advertisements inside the mall that say "if you want to join the armed forces, we're in the next building."... done.
As to the TSA... the TSA is largely ineffective because they go for security theater instead of doing what the Israelis do... which is actually know who is getting on a plane. They know who you are if you board a plane in israel. They do background checks. And if you're a nut job then you're not getting on a plane.
That's their system. And its frankly the only security measure that is going to work. Rather than filtering for bombs or weapons you should filter for PEOPLE.
Bad people will find ways to do bad things. You can ban whatever you like and bad people will find ways to kill people. How many people do you think I could kill with my car? Dozens easily especially if I didn't care if I lived or not.
How many people are inside a restaurant on a friday night? Hundreds in some cases... Think like a monster for a moment. People are so vulnerable and there really isn't any way to protect yourself besides simply not permitting these people in the country in the first place.
Here someone is going to say I'm being bigoted or racist or something. I didn't say anything about banning a race or even a religion. I'm talking about crazy people or people that hate the country. Not people that just happen to come from country X or religion Y. And here someone will say "but how do you know"... these guys are known. They've all had files. They make these trips, they are known to move in radical circles... its not that controversial.
Soldiers everywhere! (Score:2)
Pinochet and other adherents of using military to keep internal order laugh from their graves.
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When the truth of the matter is we just need more trained people. Everyone to boot camp!
I'd be into compulsory military service if it didn't come with a tour in someone else's country for the profit of some already-rich old white fucks, or assistance with maintenance of an ongoing genocide, etc etc.
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Today:
Apparently a guy with a gun, on a train from Amsterdam (possibly still quite high) == terrorist.
Military guys (regardless of branch) are Marines, if they happen to do something interesting.
Tomorrow: ./ is dropping in quality not by day, but by the hour these days. Get a grip @timothy
A homeless guy with a knife sleeping under a bridge == terrorist
Navy cook == Navy Seal (as long as seen outside of kitchen).
Re: News for nerds? (Score:2)
I guess you've never heard of Casey Ryback.
Re: Americans save the day (Score:2)
With the help of a Brit. Bit like Iraq and Afghanistan.
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>A heavily armed gunman [...] Fixed: >A heavily armed Maroko muslim [...]
Please don't censor the truth, you liars.
Actually the attacker is of Moroccan origins. (Maroko => Nigeria...)
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Some crazed nutjob is now a terrorist?
You're acting like those two things are mutually exclusive. Most terrorists ARE crazed nut jobs. The entire medieval theocratic impulse behind the expansion of Islam by force is a case study in crazed nut-jobbedness. And in this case, the attacker was known to, among others, the Spanish government as being a radical Islamist. So yes, is tactics were designed to instill terror, and he was acting in keeping with a large movement involving millions of people ... he's a terrorist, using violence against delib
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Yeah, well, the perp denies being a terrorist and claims he "only" wanted to commit an armed robbery and take the passengers' money. Maybe facilitating that was sufficient reason to be carrying an automatic rifle, 300 rounds, and a box cutter. It stretches my credulity awfully goddam far, but it's possible. What I'd really like to know is why does it mean so much to you to have this turn out to be non Isla