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Taking Sense Away: Confessions of a Former TSA Screener
OverTheGeicoE writes "TSA gets discussed on Slashdot from time to time, usually negatively. Have you ever wondered about the TSA screeners' perspective? Taking Sense Away is a blog, allegedly written by a former TSA screener, offering insider perspectives on TSA topics. For example, there's the Insider's TSA Dictionary, whose entries are frequently about the code screeners use to discuss attractive female passengers (like 'Code Red,' 'Fanny Pack,' and 'Hotel Bravo'). Another posting explains what goes on in private screening rooms, which the author claims is nothing compared to screener conduct in backscatter image operator rooms. Apparently what happens in the IO room stays in the IO room. Today's posting covers how TSA employees feel about working for 'a despised agency'. For many the answer is that they hate working for 'the laughing stock of America's security apparatus,' try to hide that they work for TSA, and want to transfer almost anywhere else ASAP."
Because the evidence, say, from Japan, that an almost complete prohibition of firearms will make the murder rate very low. Even if you look at say, germany and the UK, who have much higher violent crime rates than the US, their murder rate is much lower.
There should be a TSA, it should try and prevent dangerous shit from getting on aircraft, trains, airports etc. It's not that there shouldn't be a TSA, it's that the TSA as implemented is unlikely to efficiently accomplish any of the broad goals it has.
You're right that stopping the occasional mass shooting is extremely hard. That's actually the wrong target for the US, the real target for the US should be handguns and work from there. Despite the occasional mass shooting the US averages about 40 murders a day, whereas the equivalent rate in the EU would be more like 10.
This poll does, and strangely enough doesn't find much difference.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The reasonable question I would ask is "What is the complete impact of stricter gun laws on crime."
Glad to oblige! Here's a scientific study done by the Australian government to determine the result of the crackdown on firearms possession post-Port Arthur massacre. It's got numbers in it, and the statistical determination is all well laid out for you.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2704353/
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
According to wikipedia, the rate of homicide in the US is 4.2/100k people and the rate of gun related homicide is 3.7/100k people. Therefor, 89%ish of US homicides are gun related homicides.
Contrast this with the UK, which has 1.2/100k homicides and 0.04/100k gun related homicides, or 3.3% of homicides are gun related.
Another way to look at this would be to consider the guns per gun related homicide numbers. In the US, there are approximated 89k guns per 100k people, giving a guns per gun-homicide ratio of 24k guns per gun-homicide. Serbia, the #2 country for guns per capita has approximately 58k guns per 100k people, giving them a guns per gun-homicide rate of 93k guns per gun-homicide.
Clearly, in the states we're all about shooting each other, even in comparison to other nations with (roughly, since no one can claim truly similar) similar rates of gun ownership. Put another way, in the US, we have more gun related homicides per capita (by a factor of 4 almost) than most developed countries have in TOTAL homicides.
Full disclosure: I fully suspect that if guns were outlawed here in the US, we would see an alarming rise in knife related crime. I personally think that everyone here is so willing to kill each other because we have so little vacation time. Damned Protestant work ethic!
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_of_guns_per_capita_by_country
No matter how bad a day a waiter is having, he shouldn't spit on food. And TSA employees should treat people like people, not like a piece of meat on a slaughter line.
There is a crucial difference in these two examples
If I caught a waiter spitting in someone's food, I could have them fired or worse. Good luck holding a TSA representative responsible for anything, even if they did something bad. It's like you would complain about the waiter spitting in your food, the restaurant association would review your complaint and then inform you that such behavior aligns with restaurant's official policy. And if you press the issue, you could get fined/arrested or even put on the "no eat" list.
If you allow people to behave badly without fear of punishment, you should expect that they will. In part because the people who are attracted to such positions will be more prone to perpetrating abuse.