Sheep on Public Vehicles

reinbeau

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PRESS RELEASE - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Sheep on passenger vehicles is a deadly situation, says activist.

Philadelphia, July 13, 2006 – The epidemic of sheep riding on planes, trains
and buses is so bad that the nation’s passenger transport system is at risk,
one civil rights advocate has declared. So he’s become determined to spread
the word about the problem.

“Every day, sheep travel on commercial airline flights, trains and buses.
Surprisingly enough, the public doesn’t even notice what’s going on,” said
Philadelphia resident Michael L. Bane. “Nobody recognizes the danger.”

Bane’s use of the word “sheep” doesn’t refer to actual animals, but to the
passengers themselves. He calls them sheep because they just go along with
the security procedures, searches and the government bureaucracy established
in the wake of September 11th. More importantly, Bane says, they don’t
realize that not being allowed to bring weapons onboard actually does more
harm than good. Without weapons, Bane says, law-abiding citizens can’t
defend themselves and their fellow passengers from criminal and terrorist
attacks. “You shouldn’t have to surrender your basic human right of
self-defense just because you are traveling,” Bane says. “On September 11th,
thousands of sheep became sacrificial lambs while a small group of
terrorists got around airport security.”

Bane points out the heroism of the people on United Flight 93 to make his
case. “Those passengers took action to stop the terrorists. If they hadn’t,
who knows where the hijackers would have crashed the plane? Flight 93 is
proof that passengers can stop hijackers. But we need to ask whether they
could have done more and saved themselves and the plane by using weapons
against the perpetrators.”

To let people know about this issue, Bane has created
www.armedpassengers.org. It contains advice on things people can do to
promote the cause. At the top of the list is boycotting travel as much as
possible, especially by airplane. If people don’t fly, Bane says, the TSA
doesn’t get the revenue from the security fee that is added the ticket
price. It is this revenue that funds TSA’s operations. The sight also
contains links to news articles, including negative pieces about the TSA and
air marshals. Bane hopes that reminding people about all the problems will
cause them to think twice about whether they should trust the government to
provide transportation security in the first place.

This isn’t Bane’s first involvement in political issues. His history of
activism includes a run as an independent candidate for judge in traffic
court and election to his local civic association board of directors. He has
had letters and political cartoons published in Philadelphia area
newspapers, and volunteers his time to several nonprofit organizations.

Bane practices what he preaches on his website. His job doesn’t require
traveling for business purposes, and plans his vacations as driving trips..
He’s even traveled cross-country by himself. While more time consuming and
costly, Bane feels it’s worth it as a matter of principle. “I have a good
feeling knowing that my money contributes to the local economies I travel
through, and not to the government or big companies.”

Bane realizes the controversial nature of what he’s proposing, but says it’s
important to get it out there. “People have been so conditioned to accept
the conventional wisdom about transportation security,” he said. “It’s
understandable that some people will have trouble with this idea. But we
need to look at the message we’re sending with our current transportation
security policy. We wouldn’t tell the family of a September 11th victim it
was better their loved one died in the name of national security and
political correctness. That would add insult to injury. So why is it OK to
support laws and rules that promote the very same principle? Well, it isn’t
OK; it’s just wrong. And in the case of the September 11th victims, it’s
dead wrong.”

Contact: Michael L. Bane
[email protected]
 
From the FAQ section of http://www.armedpassengers.org/
If passengers aren't checked for weapons, won't it be easier for terrorists to have them too?
In the states that allow people to carry concealed weapons, violent crime dropped. That is because criminals were afraid to confront potentially armed victims. Criminals did not respond by arming themselves better than the victims. It's reasonable to assume the same effect would occur with law abiding passengers.
+1
 
One of my favorites:
FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED FEB. 10, 2002
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Airline security and my 'attack on free enterprise'

An e-mail correspondent writes in, responding to my January column about a retired Marine Corps general being held up by clueless Phoenix airport security guards, who didn't want him to carry his Medal of Honor on board:

"There's a problem with your story.

"First, you allege in your opening sentence that airport screeners 'let 19 out of 19 terrorists slip through their net...'. This is not true, the hijacker/terrorists did not breach any security pertaining to airport operations. The airport screening contractors did exactly what they were supposed to have done on that day. ... If the U.S. government refuse to allow an aggressive physical profiling system, and fail to prohibit box-cutters from being taken on a plane, what would you have expected these screeners to do? The government ... well, that's another issue.

"You also state that 'The press widely reports that metal nail files and other instruments with blades are now prohibited in aircraft cabins under Federal Aviation Administration regulations that went into effect after Sept. 11 -- though in fact the FAA has no power to enact any new laws through its advisory 'security directives.' This is incorrect.

"The FAA (and the newly named TSA) regularly fine air carriers $11,000 per violation of all the matters set forth in their Security Directives. The fingernail file, a Department of Aviation (the local airport operators) prohibition, although not enforceable through fine, will cause the DOA to shut down the airport if the carriers, though their security checkpoint contractor, do not enforce this prohibition. ...

"I was dismayed to read of your criticism of private enterprise when it is the government that was at fault on Sept. 11th. -- M.V."

# # #

I replied:

Hi, M.V. -- Airport security is supposed to keep would-be hijackers from boarding airplanes. To argue otherwise is to argue: "The purpose of armies is to march around in squares and make their bunks so taut you can bounce a quarter off the blankets. After all, isn't that what we practice, over and over? Yes, yes, my boys surrendered as soon as one enemy soldier came over the ridge on a donkey and told them to drop their weapons. But dammit, I think they put on the smartest surrender parade anyone has ever seen."

Nineteen would-be hijackers tried to board American airplanes on Sept. 11 (Actually, we're pretty sure it was 24 -- another Arab gang on a flight grounded in St. Louis turned out to have box-cutters, and all promptly boarded a train together, escaping to Texas.) Every one got on the plane he wanted to. The security failure rate was 100 percent. To say "The hijacker/terrorists did not breach any security pertaining to airport operations, the airport screening contractors did exactly what they were supposed to ..." is absurd casuistry and dangerous nonsense. Are you a lawyer or a Jesuit?

Americans have been submitting to wasteful, time-consuming, intrusive, humiliating and disgusting searches and snooping for years, all on the premise that this nonsense would PREVENT HIJACKINGS. Yet on the one day it confronted the problem it was supposed to prevent, the system FAILED COMPLETELY. Your argument is like saying, "The operation was a complete success; my stated goal was to remove the appendix and, as you can see, the appendix is out. The fact that the patient died is of no concern to me."

The system didn't even fail because the crack Fred & Ethel Mertz operatives were distracted with flash-bang devices, or because a really clever Tom Clancy/Fred Forsythe-style operative disguised his sniper rifle as a pair of crutches. No, the terrorists breezed through, smiling and flashing their government-issued photo IDs, successfully answering the tricky, "Has anyone else had control of your luggage" questions -- with their box-cutters either taped to their thighs or pre-planted on the planes by Fatimah the night janitor. The airport security system failed ... as it will always fail. Why? One airport executive in Texas has correctly compared the whole enterprise to "putting a steel door on a grass hut."

The events of Sept. 11 would have been impossible if there were NO AIRPORT SECURITY SYSTEM AT ALL. If average Americans were allowed to carry their personal firearms on board our aircraft (as they were up through the 1960s -- any restrictions being prohibited by the Second and 14th Amendments), the chances that several passengers on each flight would have been armed -- and thus able to shoot the hijackers, preventing the Trade Center and Pentagon hits --- would have been quite substantial. Just as school shootings are facilitated by turning the schools into "self-defense-free zones," so the same thing has been done to our airports and aircraft.

Yet your solution is to defend and continue to tinker with the existing, worthless airport security system, tacitly endorsing its continued role in accustoming a once-free people to submitting themselves to random body searches, defending it and the dangerously conscienceless "just-following-orders" morons who staff it, urging the government to "ban box-cutters," and so forth?

If you were aboard the Titanic, would you be pestering the captain with a detailed new plan for rearranging the deck chairs?

I don't give a damn whether the FAA "regularly fines air carriers." I said they have no power to enact new laws by issuing mere bureaucratic directives. The Constitution states "All legislative powers ... shall be vested in a Congress of the United States." Does it say, "... or can be delegated to such non-elected agencies as the Congress sees fit, whereupon such agencies can issue any old piece of paper on their letterhead and the people will have to obey it the same as if it were a law"? I don't think so. I can't find that language in MY copy. If I were to say, "Concentration camp guards have no right to murder inmates in cold blood," would you reply, "This is incorrect; the guards at Auschwitz and Sobibor regularly murdered inmates in cold blood"?

What these fastidious and finally counterproductive little bureaucrats DO has very little to do with their quite limited delegated powers. Do you believe what armed agents of the state have a "right" to do is limited only by what their guns -- and the bovine obedience of the captive masses -- allow them to get away with? Did Hitler have a "right" to conquer Poland?

As for my "criticism of private enterprise": If airlines and airports in America today are a "private enterprise," I'm starting to sell stock today in "Air Ganja," my all-armed, all-smoking private carrier which will indulge in NONE of these security measures, instead advertising, "Our airline is safe because we ENCOURAGE our passengers to come armed. In fact, if you don't have a gun, ask our friendly stewardess; she'll be happy to loan you a Colt .45 (loaded with pre-fragmented rounds) till you reach your destination."

My stewardesses (no, not "flight attendants" -- if I hire someone whose main job is passenger safety rather than delivering the drinks you'll be able to recognize her from her fire axe and her Thompson Gun) will also assure folks that our superior air conditioning system allows them to consume any drug of choice once we're airborn and therefore out of the jurisdiction of any ground-level authority (as all Americans were free to do up through 1933, when this was a much more polite and peaceful nation) -- with free hashish and marijuana spliffs being handed out in First Class.

Since airlines are "private enterprises," rather than captive, subsidized slaves of fascist government overseers with their unconstitutional "one-size-fits-all" regulatory protection rackets -- variously disguised as "advisory directives," "voluntary corporate policy," and so on -- I'm sure no federal agency will have the desire or power to stop me from launching my new airline ... right?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Review-Journal. For information on his monthly newsletter and on his next book, "The Ballad of Carl Drega," dial 775-348-8591.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Vin Suprynowicz, [email protected]

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

Ken
 
I'm all for weed on airplanes, and even knives, but I really don't think guns on airplanes is a great idea. I've seen plenty of passengers freak out just from the stress of being in the air, and I'd rather not give them the ability to take down a whole flight because they missed and blew out a window.




Man, I just lost all my libertarian street-cred...
 
chobicus said:
I'm all for weed on airplanes, and even knives, but I really don't think guns on airplanes is a great idea. I've seen plenty of passengers freak out just from the stress of being in the air, and I'd rather not give them the ability to take down a whole flight because they missed and blew out a window.

There's no way that blowing out a window or two or even a dozen would possibly take down a plan, unless it somehow managed to go through the bullet proof cockpit door and take out both the pilot and co-pilot.

Ken
 
I believe chobicus is referring to explosive decompression. This was the problem the British had with the Comet, their first jet airliner. Most Boeings have what's called "tear stoppers" which are titanium strips integral with the skin of the aircraft. This will slow a tear in the fuselage long enough for the pilot to descend to a safe altitude.

Besides that, there's plenty of frangible ammunition on the market nowthat will shatter instead of breaking the skin or a window. As for the drugs on the aircraft, I don't believe someone carrying a pistol should be around em. As has been proven time and time again drugs can make otherwise sane rational peopl\e do extremely irrational things.
 
No drugs thank you!

If someone is smoking pot on a plane, all will get some dosage of weed . . . thanks but no thanks. Do it if you want on your own property as long as it doesn't effect me . . . stuff me in a plane with a pot smoker and you are effecting me and that is NOT OK!
 
LenS said:
No drugs thank you!

If someone is smoking pot on a plane, all will get some dosage of weed . . . thanks but no thanks. Do it if you want on your own property as long as it doesn't effect me . . . stuff me in a plane with a pot smoker and you are effecting me and that is NOT OK!
So only pot smokers can be irrational? If you're worried about that (I'm just responding to your post, Len, not you specifically) then get rid of the booze, too, which is simply a legal drug....that causes way more problems in society than weed does. You don't hear of passengers going nuts smoking weed, but I've heard of plenty of inebriated passengers punching, swearing and generally becoming extremely unruly. Eliminate the booze and that problem goes away. No, wait, we can't do that, because someone won't make any money....Ya.
 
Ann,

No, my comments were meant in a different way:

- If you ("global" you) drink yourself stupid on a plane, that's your problem (unless you start getting belligerent). It doesn't affect me and I don't care.

- If you are smoking pot on a plane, the oder/fumes/etc. permeates the cabin and DOES get in everyone else's bloodstream (the air is largely recycled). Thus, doing this in a closed space affects me personally and I find that unacceptable. I can't even stand the stench of pot when I get a whiff in an open air location.

I agree with you that the worst drug in society is the misuse of alcohol and that nobody will ever address that except what you do when you are stupid drunk (OUI, fighting, etc.).
 
mythbusters did an episode on explosive decompression caused by a gunshot to a window in an airplane..
it simply doesnt happen. its a movie fallacy.
they even went so far as to overcompress the cabin many, many times normal cabin pressure and it did nothing but make a hissing sound out of a 9mm sized hole in the window. they also tried the skin of the plane, same result
if such a catastrophic occurance were even remotely possible air marshalls ,even with their superb sharpshooting skills, would not be allowed on flights with firearms.

im all for "licenced" firearms owners posessing firearms on airplanes, so long as their licenced in both their take off and destination locale and no alcohol is served during the flight..
 
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SnakeEye said:
im all for "licenced" firearms owners posessing firearms on airplanes, so long as their licenced in both their take off and destination locale and no alcohol is served during the flight..

I'll assume that that's simply a poor wording of what you actually mean. I'm carrying my gun, drinking my usual club soda during the flight, so why would one insist that nobody on the flight be allowed any beer or wine? How exactly does their drinking affect my decision making and/or coordination? And if I'm sufficiently irresponsible to drink while flying and carrying, then I'm probably too irresponsible period.

Ken
 
KMaurer said:
I'll assume that that's simply a poor wording of what you actually mean. I'm carrying my gun, drinking my usual club soda during the flight, so why would one insist that nobody on the flight be allowed any beer or wine? How exactly does their drinking affect my decision making and/or coordination? And if I'm sufficiently irresponsible to drink while flying and carrying, then I'm probably too irresponsible period.

Ken

i agree with your point completely. Mine was from the perspective of a liability issue for the airlines more than anything..
due to the fact that they could be seen as a facilitator for whatever foolish act our fictionally irresponsible CCW holder might do. "before the shooting,they kept feeding him drinks" or something of that ilk..
 
Also the other problem with carrying on an airline serving alcohol is that in some states you are not allowed to have a firearm in an establishment that is serving alcohol. So what do you do when flying in or out of one of those states? Are planes exempt?
 
chobicus said:
I'm all for weed on airplanes, and even knives, but I really don't think guns on airplanes is a great idea. I've seen plenty of passengers freak out just from the stress of being in the air, and I'd rather not give them the ability to take down a whole flight because they missed and blew out a window....

Your paranoia is not supported by engineering fact.
 
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