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Two US Marines Foil Terrorist Attack On Train In France
hcs_$reboot writes: A heavily armed gunman opened fire aboard a packed high-speed train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris late Friday afternoon, wounding several passengers before he was tackled and subdued by two Americans Marines. The assault was described as a terrorist attack. President Barack Obama has expressed his gratitude for the "courage and quick thinking" of the passengers on a high-speed train in France, including U.S. service members, who overpowered the gunman. Bernard Cazeneuve, the French interior minister, paid tribute to the Marines as he arrived at the scene, and said "Thanks to them we have averted a drama. The Americans were particularly courageous and showed extreme bravery in extremely difficult circumstances."
How is this related to slashdot's supposed themes, this is just general news
will feed into the NRA mantra of everyone being armed everywhere every time
which would have made everything a lot easier.
you do realize not more than 15 years ago you could fly with a weapon in the cabin. I'm sure you're also aware of the violence statistics in Chicago after they lifted the handgun ban.
"This sort of thing feeds into the TSA mentality - search everyone everywhere every time. And then it will feed into the NRA mantra of everyone being armed everywhere every time."
And best of all, it's the umpteenth time that an illegal alien terrorist (sorry, "refugee") has taken advantage of European white guilt to slaughter people he know were unarmed and wouldn't resist. But whoops, US Marines happened to be standing near that toilet.
How many Charlie Hebdos will it take before they know
That too many people have died?
These guys weren't armed with anything more than good training, and the mental preparedness to take action in a crisis, nevermind the guts to do so at considerable personal risk.
The average person will most likely freeze in a crisis, just out of sheer human nature. It takes a lot of training to overcome that, and to build up the instinct to act (nevermind in a beneficial manner), which in a combat situation is often the difference between life and death.
These guys weren't armed with anything more than good training, and the mental preparedness to take action in a crisis, nevermind the guts to do so at considerable personal risk.
The average person will most likely freeze in a crisis, just out of sheer human nature. It takes a lot of training to overcome that, and to build up the instinct to act (nevermind in a beneficial manner), which in a combat situation is often the difference between life and death.
And yet the NRA thinks that the "average person" with a firearm is the solution to the problem.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
These guys weren't armed with anything more than good training, and the mental preparedness to take action in a crisis, nevermind the guts to do so at considerable personal risk.
"The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with training and mental preparedness to take action in a crisis".
Hmm. It'll never fit on a bumper sticker, but training more people how to effectively handle a violent person might be a better idea than handing everyone a gun and hoping for the best.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
And yet the NRA thinks that the "average person" with a firearm is the solution to the problem.
The average person with a gun knows how to use it.
I'm guessing that, if there hadn't been soldiers on the train ready to risk their lives to save others, you'd be telling us how much better it was for a few dozen people to be shot dead than for them to carry a gun to defend themselves.
And yet the NRA thinks that the "average person" with a firearm is the solution to the problem.
Do you think one of the marines (in critical condition) would have been shot in the neck if he had been armed himself? Would even any other civilians had been shot when the first shots fired were from someone trained not to hit people if needed vs. someone trying to hit anyone?
It's absurd to say this shows you can always do without a gun when two marines in the prime of their life take out a gunman they know is exiting from a very small space.
What if you are not two cut marines and there's a guy with a gun who just swings around a corner? What if you are a woman alone and there's someone with a knife telling you to strip your clothes off? What if you are home alone and three guys bust the door open wide and storm inside your house? There are a lot of situations where a gun is much better than most other things, including being unarmed - and the very case you claim is proof of how you "don't need guns" is one of them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
While flying without nail clippers might be debatable, 15 years ago you could not fly with a gun in the cabin.
You had to check your gun, and you can still fly with a gun, provided you check it. It cannot be checked in undeclared, and in the process of declaring it, it must be inspected to be save (unloaded) and secure (typically in a locked hard case).
A gun can puncture the pressure hull of the plane, and considering it's altitude, that would be both unpleasant and potentially life threatening (in addition to any other immediate threats). We have already seen personnel lost overboard on aircraft, and while a single small bullet hole is likely to not directly cause such issues, bullet holes could (in theory) cause other failures, leading to rapid depressurization.
Also note that in 2012, against a national trend, Chicago murder rates spiked, two years after lifting the handgun ban. Currently the rate is down for Chicago; however, on average a handgun ban lift doesn't create an easy prediction of future crime. Some cities it goes down, some it goes up. Odds are the ban doesn't have a direct impact, probably because people were already carrying, just illegally.
its not one or the other...
Though I think the real take away is that you shouldn't give visas to people that hate your country and want to kill your people.
Isn't that the real take away here?
As to trained people... we had that marine recruiting station in the US that was attacked by a similar muslim whack job. The marines couldn't defend themselves because they didn't have weapons. So... the NRA point is frankly valid... I mean... I'm just saying arm trained soldiers. Is that rocket science?
I guess some people will say "well, we don't want people with guns inside of this shopping mall"... Fine... don't put the recruiting station in the mall then. Put it right next door in a different building that the landlord will feel less politically pressured to impose irrational rules. And then put up some advertisements inside the mall that say "if you want to join the armed forces, we're in the next building."... done.
As to the TSA... the TSA is largely ineffective because they go for security theater instead of doing what the Israelis do... which is actually know who is getting on a plane. They know who you are if you board a plane in israel. They do background checks. And if you're a nut job then you're not getting on a plane.
That's their system. And its frankly the only security measure that is going to work. Rather than filtering for bombs or weapons you should filter for PEOPLE.
Bad people will find ways to do bad things. You can ban whatever you like and bad people will find ways to kill people. How many people do you think I could kill with my car? Dozens easily especially if I didn't care if I lived or not.
How many people are inside a restaurant on a friday night? Hundreds in some cases... Think like a monster for a moment. People are so vulnerable and there really isn't any way to protect yourself besides simply not permitting these people in the country in the first place.
Here someone is going to say I'm being bigoted or racist or something. I didn't say anything about banning a race or even a religion. I'm talking about crazy people or people that hate the country. Not people that just happen to come from country X or religion Y. And here someone will say "but how do you know"... these guys are known. They've all had files. They make these trips, they are known to move in radical circles... its not that controversial.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Yes, thank heavens for the US war industry, otherwise a lot of lives could have been lost.
As an American, I wish my fellow countrymen would stop beating their chest about this. All politicking aside, we should just thank those passengers who defeated that terrorist. It doesn't matter if they were Marines, Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, or whatever. They could have also been French, Dutch, German, or any other nationality. When somebody throws a grenade into a room, somebody has to jump on it, or everyone will get killed. Those passengers "jumped on the grenade" and saved many lives. Merci.
I think whoever downvoted this doesn't understand the paradox. In the absence of a large US war industry, those soldiers wouldn't have been on the train. But likewise neither would have the terrorist.
Erh... no. The average person with a gun doesn't know shit. The average person with a gun is actually less capable to handle it sensibly than the average person with a car because at least for the latter you need a license. And just look at the stupidity going down on our roads.
I spent some time in the military. I know how to handle a gun, inside and out, and that's also why a gun is one of the last things I'd want to have in many situations where people cry for people being armed.
Seriously, the very, very LAST thing I'd want is the average person being armed in a plane at cruising level. Especially in case a terrorist goes nuts.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"and people are modding this racist garbage insightful."
Care to point out where he mentioned the guys race? Is a refugee a race now? Or are you just kneejerking along with all the other liberal fuckwits tossing out the usual playground insults? Hmm, I wonder which one it could be...
" the bullshit perception that Europeans are weak and cowardly"
I'm a european and I'd call most european governments cowardly. They're too scared to do what the people actually want but have sacrficed themselves on the alter of political correctness. Well, the road to hell is paved with good intentions isn't it.
You're probably on a list now.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
As for chicago the answer is: nothing changed, because when you ban guns locally but not just a few miles down the road in the outlying suburbs, the ban doesnt actually mean or do anything.
In other words, it's the local culture that's the problem, not the guns.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Are you aware what happened in Australia after they banned guns?
Play Command HQ online
which would have made everything a lot easier.
And I'm not talking about that executed police officer.
Or the executed Protection Service officer (French version of Secret Service), assigned as a bodyguard to Stephane Charbonnier.
I'm talking about this guy reportedly getting his guns and ammo at the same place where terrorists in France have been getting it "traditionally" - Belgium.
From TFA:
Matthew Holehouse writes from Brussels:
The attack on the Thalys train brings fresh scrutiny on the ease of purchasing weapons in Belgium.
The gunman is believed to have entered the train at Brussels Gare du Midi, Belgium's busiest station and the terminus of the Eurostar rail link to Britain.
He was carrying a short-stocked Kalashnikov assault rifle, at least five magazines of ammunition, a handgun and knives, according to witnesses.
It comes eight months after the terrorist attacks in Paris in January. The weapons used in those attacks were bought from criminal gangs and arms dealers in Belgium.
Amedy Couliby, whose attack on a Kosher supermarket killed four Jewish Parisiens, bought his Scorpion machine gun and Tokarev handgun in Brussels and Charleroi.
The Kuoachi brothers, who slaughtered 12 people at Charlie Hebdo magazine, received their weapons from Coulibaly, who bought them near Gare du Midi for around £3,800.
The scruffy backstreets around the station host a large market and the area is well known as a marketplace for illegal arms.
Many weapons are thought to be left over from the wars in the former Yugoslavia. Typically, a Kalashnikov automatic rifle, could be bought for several hundred euros in Bosnia, and then sold on in Belgium or the Netherlands for use in organised crime for ten times that sum.
Earlier this month police in Charleroi broke up a suspected international arms smuggling ring, alleged to be using crude forged paperwork to import Glock and Sauer handguns fitted with silencers, Browning rifles, and shotguns.
Gun ownership is permitted under licence in Belgium, although automatic and military-grade weapons are illegal.
There are around 900,000 firearms circulating in the country of 11 million, of which around 300,000 are thought to be unregistered, according to official estimates.
Easy access to guns is what has made this attack in France and those before possible.
What prevented it from becoming a tragedy were people willing, ready and able to rush and tackle the gunman.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I agree with your suggestion to limit gun ownership to well-trained persons.
You are welcome on my lawn.
They are doing it because your country (and the US) is doing things in their country.
So, just to be clear, the Taliban drags female school teachers out into a public square and shoots her in the head for teaching girls to read ... because they're angry at the US? Militant Islamists in Africa slaughter villages full of non-Islamists because they're angry at the US, which isn't even present in the area they're taking over? Militant Islamists are lining up and beheading rows of Egyptian Christians in Libya because they're not happy with the US?
Sunni and Shia factions, which have been fighting each other for centuries, have been and continue to do that because of the US?
If you consider yourself informed on the subject (which you can't be - these groups are telling you in plain language why they're doing what they're doing, and it generally comes down to: "people who aren't sufficiently Islamic by our standards should be killed") then please don't do anything dangerous like voting.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
A "random brown guy." Yeah, right. Pull the other one. No matter how many massacres involving organization and the kind of heavy weapons which are hard to get in Europe because, you know, it has strict gun control, the media there hopefully keeps calling each one a lone-wolf attack.
What Europe needs to do is ship all of those "refugees" back to the hellhole shores they came from. Those who honestly want a better life have two options: they can go to a embassy and apply for legal immigration into some other country like all those generations of people before them, or they can stand and take back their homelands from the jihadists. We will gladly offer drone and bomb strikes where those might help.
We have a refugee problem of our own in the US, solutions for which are the biggest subject of debate in the new presidential campaign. As in Europe, a certain small percentage of our refugee stream consists of bad guys. But at least our bad guys are the kind of common criminals we can take care of with our own guns, not bloodthirsty international terrorists organizing to take over a continent where hitting your mugger with an umbrella is considered a felony.
1: Guns were not and are not banned in Australia.
2: Total firearm ownership rates in Australia are higher than they've ever been
3: Strong firearm control laws were implemented in response to the Port Arthur massacre
4: There have been NO massacres since.
5: While crime of all types has been declining in Australia, firearm crime was markedly decreased, as were suicide rates
6: The American NRA has made a habit of lying about the Australian experience to convince their mouth breathing slaves that nothing could, or should be done to bring the USA into First World nation statues regarding their annual gun slaughter.
7: Australians worry about their kids falling off their bikes and skinning their knees, not about them being gunned down at school.
8: The USA is almost indistinguishable from a Third World nation in regards to its insane levels of gun violence. It is statistically safer to live in Afghanistan.
9: We're not laughing with you, we're laughing at you.
So, your solution is to penalize all of those that know how to use a gun in order to stop the few that cause problems. Which has been shown repeatedly doesn't work, criminals are a very creative bunch. Instead, people point to senseless statistics as if killing 9 people is acceptable, but 10 is not.
You sir, sound like an idiot. An idiot who likes to generalize. I've known many people who shoot, and the vast majority of them are not beer drinking good 'ol boys. They are my neighbors, my family, my friends, and my fellow geeky workers.
NRA doesn't 'pander' to anyone. The NRA is supported by millions of people who use guns, and it simply echos their views. The tired generalization that somehow the NRA is pushing an agenda is misplaced, the millions of VOTERS who support the NRA are pushing an agenda. The NRA is no different from the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, who also are supported by millions of people who help to shape their agendas.
The real problem is idiots who think they know what is best for everyone else, probably because their ego is so huge. The majority of gun owners I know simply want to be left alone and allowed to target shoot in peace, buy a gun whenever they find one they like, and be able to defend themselves if necessary.
I am also anti-stupid-fucking-idiot-with-a-gun. The problem is determining who the stupid-fucking-idiots are. I personally don't trust you to make that judgement, it sounds to me you are like most car drivers .. everyone driving faster than you is an asshole and everyone driving slower is an idiot. You talk like you would think you are the only one that knows exactly the right speed to travel.
When you and your fellow anti-gun fanatics can come up with a method that keeps guns out of the hands of the very small minority of criminals and allow the far greater number of legal gun owners to go out and target shoot, carry a gun for defensive purposes, and collect guns without being overly burdened with fees or procedures, or having to register their property, let me know.
Until then, please leave me the fuck alone. Your tired, ignorant rhetoric is getting boring. My wife an I own several revolvers, pistols, bolt-action rifles, and semi-automatic rifles. Never once has any of them been pointed at another person or animal. They have been used to shred a large number of paper targets and put holes into plastic water-filled bottles (which where collected and recycled afterward.) They have been used to help my wife sleep at night when I'm away. And to make me feel a bit safer investigating what that noise was at night.In my 56 years of living, and probably 46 years of shooting, no one has been even remotely put into danger by my actions.
Insinuating that somehow I shouldn't be allowed to have guns because you know someone who is an idiot or because someone else shot somebody is just moronic. If we used that logic, we should also remove all the cars from the roads and knives from our kitchens.
Oh wait .. several years ago in the UK, a bunch of people suggested just that .. that pointy kitchen knives had no use other than killing people and should be banned. It seems that once guns were effectively banned, people started finding other ways to kill people. I can't wait for the day when cricket bats become the weapon of choice. Oh .. wait ... during some riots in London, miniature baseball bats became the self-defense weapon of choice when the unarmed police couldn't control the crowds.
The real problem is a very small minority of people sometimes want to hurt other people. And all the banning of devices in the world will never stop that.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.