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Gyro-Copter Lands On West Lawn of US Capitol, Pilot Arrested
An anonymous reader writes that Doug Hughes, 61, a mailman from Ruskin, Florida was arrested for landing a gyro-copter on the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol. "A 61-year-old Florida mailman was arrested Wednesday after he landed a gyrocopter on the U.S. Capitol west lawn. The gyrocopter was carrying the pilot and 535 stamped letters for members of Congress urging 'real reform' to campaign finance laws. Doug Hughes told the Tampa Bay Times ahead of the afternoon stunt that he notified authorities 'well over an hour in advance of getting to the no-fly zone, so they know who I am and what I'm doing.' Capitol police sent dogs and a bomb squad to the scene. Nothing hazardous was found. A city block from the Capitol had been cordoned off."
It'd be fucking stupid to shoot him down like that.
So instead of there being a helicopter in the air with a human at controls, doing what you suggest would result in a helicopter in the air with nobody controlling it.
At least there's a chance of it being landed safely when there's a human controlling it.
When nobody is controlling it, there's a much greater risk of it falling out of the sky and causing harm. It could land on buildings. It could land on vehicles. It could land on pedestrians and tourists. It could land on your own frigging cock and balls, for crying out loud.
Because having his nuts groped by the Secret Service will be a far superior experience.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
He's a complete jackass for doing it in the first place.
I applaud him. He's protesting what is the #1 problem in government today in a peaceful way that was sure to make headlines. The problem isn't people like him, the problem is people who are apathetic about the issue in the first place.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
No, they arrested an idiot who is supposed to have a pilot license who does not understand the concept of a 'no-fly-zone'.
You might be the idiot. He fully understood all of the implications of what he was doing, and worked out several scenarios. His expected scenario was that a Blackhawk would be scrambled from Quantico, but would overfly him as he was flying so low and slow, and he hoped that by the time the Blackhawk caught up to him that they would have orders to not shoot him down. His biggest worries were that he would be shot down or that he wouldn't have the nerve to do it in the first place. I can't imagine the adrenaline going through him as he was flying across the national mall in sight of the Capitol without a single LEO or military aircraft in sight.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/p...
He's right, too. Campaign finance laws and all of the corruption that goes with them is the single largest problem with the current government, and apathy from people like you helps to ensure that it doesn't get fixed. Go on, citizen, stamp the vote card. R or D, your choice. Whichever R or D you want to pick will be just fine.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
a couple thoughts...
1) this guy is a nut. the fact that he is a post man and shows up with 535 *stamped* letters is super funny.
2) gyrocopters are inherently funny. those things don't fly so much as fall through the air and manage not to crash. they remind me of bumblebees.
3) maybe this is a woosh on my part, but the GP refers to TSA nut grabbing. This was just in the news yesterday cuz there was a bust at denver where a gay tsa officer was using coded signals to other officers so he would ahve the chance to grope people's nuts.
His message is that he wants the government to limit your ability to engage in free speech.
There's a constant and deliberate conflation of money and speech going on in this country. They are not equivalent to each other.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.