US Congressman Announces Plans To Probe Wikileaks

eldavojohn writes "Congressman Peter King (R-NY) is calling for a probe into Wikileaks with regard to the recent publication of half a million 9/11 pager messages. He has announced that he plans to have his Washington staff begin a preliminary investigation because Wikileaks' action 'raises security issues.' A word of caution: Congressman King has been known to make inflammatory and unpopular statements."

Comments

Re:"Raises security issues"?

[Rogerborg]

If not the government, then who? Saucer People? Mole Men? It's not a crackpot conspiracy theory to accuse the government when they've the most likely candidate, especially when they confirm it for us by stumbling into action to investigate the leak.

6 people killed in todays mass smoking.

[mjwx]

2: more people die from tobacco related health issues (cancer, pneumonia, emphysema, etc) than of fatal shootings.

1: How many people die from another persons ciggarette?
2: How many people die from one cigarette?
3: How many people died in the last mass smoking?
4: How many kids died from the last school smoking?
5: etc... a gun does to you in a minute what a lifetime of smoking can do to you. There are two parts to risk, one is severity and the other likelihood. There is a higher likelihood of a person getting ill from smoking, there is an extreme severity when guns get involved. This is a bit like choosing between Ebola and AIDS, both are usually deadly but AIDS takes 10 years longer then Ebola and personally I'd rather have neither.

If you really wanted to reduce the shooting crime rate in the US, I would suggest the following actions:

You're started out on the right track but need to think about things a bit more.

1: provide mandatory firearm safety courses in high school.

Close, introduce firearm licensing laws and require every firearm owner to complete the license examination. You know, like what we do with cars.

2: provide, free of charge, firearm safes and safety locks to all families owning firearms to prevent accidental use by children.

Rather then this, mandate that all firearm licensee's must possess a regulation safe that is secured to a buildings foundations. This does not need to be on a persons property (I.E. you can keep your firearms at a gun club)

3: require all men to own and carry a firearm in public.

Now it stops being a right and something that is forced. You don't choose to have a gun, you HAVE to have a gun, herr friend. Also remember that a crazy man with a cigarette is an annoyance, a crazy man with a gun is a bloodbath.*

4: require all women to own and carry a firearm in public (this will also reduce the rate of sexual assault).

Nice, lady A with PMS/bad divorce shoots man B. Claims sexual assault? who will question.*

* - Before anyone chimes in with the delusion that if everyone is armed then there will be no crime as they will be able to shoot the crim, consider this scenario. Crazy A shoots Person B, Person C sees this and shoots Crazy A. OK na. Now Person D sees person C shooting Crazy A but did not see Crazy A shooting in the first place thus shoots Person C. Person E now thinks Person D is a Crazy and shoots person D, Person E misses Person D and hits Person F ad nauseam until the local population is sufficiently thinned out.

In order for MAD to work on such a scale you have to be 100% absolutely certain no one will ever open fire ever.

Ever.

This is controllable with 2 players but with 100 not so. With MAD you are only as safe as the craziest individual wants you to be. Using a lot of guns for civil enforcement relies on too many variables to work, here are a few:
1: everyone must have a firearm.
2: everyone must have a firearm at all times.
3: everyone must know how to operate and care for that firearm.
4: everyone must keep their firearm in good working order (yes, everyone keeps their car in good nick don't they, you never see a beaten up old GM/Dodge trundling down the street with bits falling off of it).
5: everyone must be willing to use their firearm.
6: everyone must be capable of operating their firearm under extreme stress.
7: everyone must be able to hit a moving target at 100 meters with pin point accuracy.
8: everyone must have complete situational awareness at all times.

I'll stop here because this is a big one, most people don't have a clue what others in the same line are doing let alone everyone in a crowded area, like an intersection at the CBD. This method of protection relies on the assumption that everyone will be scared, of course this ignores the fact that more then a few people are a few cans short of a six pack, and this system will give these people guns.