From: Michael M. Butler (butler@comp-lib.org)
Date: Thu Sep 13 2001 - 00:57:59 MDT
Oy.
Zero Powers wrote:
> Everything is *not* a gun issue.
True.
> Terrorists aren't roaming the streets shooting people.
Not in the US, now. True.
> If every single New Yorker was armed yesterday, that would
> not have had any impact whatsoever on airliners slamming into skyscrapers.
Ah. Obviously. But what if every single (sane, adult) Bostonian, including
all those nonterrorists that boarded the planes in Boston, had been armed?
Or, say, just the flight crew?
Not meaning to carp. Just saying, is all.
So let's skip to the meat of the matter.
It started with boxcutters and the lower average level of terror that one can match
up with the implicit "rules" for hijackings most people here have taken for given, viz.
"We can get out of this if we're careful; just take them where they want to go,
and do what they say." "We can negotiate." ...et pitiful cetera.
These mantras are no longer in effect; it has a certain clarifying effect.
Everyone keeps saying this isn't a movie, but they're partly wrong.
The effectors of these sad events have put us in a Bruce Willis or Stephen Segall scenario.
Or, maybe, Terminator.
"Listen. And understand. That terminator is out there. It can't be bargained with.
It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear.
And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are dead."
Which sucks. Sorry for the drama, but it's called for, for once. That level of focus, to
use a neutral word, is necessary for success. Going the extra five minutes.
The ability to deal deadly force on an instant's notice just got epsilon more valuable here
in the ol' US of A.
That sucks, too. But that's what's at issue here, not guns per se.
MMB, who doesn't like vigilantes but likes terrorists just a skosh less...
-- "Du musst ... Amboss oder Hammer sein." -- J. W. von Goethe, _Der Gross-Cophta, Act II_
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