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."

Comments

Unfortunately

[ColdWetDog]

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.

When the truth of the matter is we just need more trained people. Everyone to boot camp!

Re:Unfortunately

[electrosoccertux]

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.

Re:Unfortunately

[Applehu Akbar]

"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?

Re:Unfortunately

[Fire_Wraith]

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.

Re:Unfortunately

[ClickOnThis]

you do realize not more than 15 years ago you could fly with something that might be employable as a weapon in the cabin.

FTFY

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[glitch!]

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.

I did not know that. 15 years ago, I flew quite often, and I thought I had to check any rifles, shotguns, or handguns. I always had to do their "residue check" which was NOT RANDOM. LIARS! But please elaborate on carrying firearms in cabin at that time. Thanks!

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[ClickOnThis]

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.

Re:Unfortunately

[Jeremi]

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.

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[MillionthMonkey]

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy who can tackle.

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[0123456]

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.

Re:Unfortunately

[David_Hart]

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.

It's fun when people make assumptions based on their own biases... The latest update from CNN mentions that a civilian was also involved in subduing the shooter. "The three men -- a member of the Air Force, an inactive National Guard member and a civilian -- responded quickly, possibly preventing a deadly attack on the high-speed Thalys train." So, what were you saying about the average person again?

Everyone has fight or flight instincts and each situation is different. I would expect armed forces personnel to be more likely to respond quickly. That being said, it doesn't negate the fact that there are civilians who keep their heads in a crisis and who would respond.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/08/21/...

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

The NRA goes off the deep end with propaganda because their opponents think a black stock makes a firearm more dangerous.

Gun control loonies have only themselves to blame for the NRA's present insanity.

Re:Unfortunately

[hcs_$reboot]

you do realize not more than 15 years ago you could fly with a weapon in the cabin.

With all the aircraft hijackings happening in the 80's, I doubt in 2000 you could have reached the cabin having a kalashnikov in your handbag.

Re:Unfortunately

[Awesom-0]

TSA? This is the first comment on this? I been around here for so long here and just now made a account to respond to anything. Two good people who were trained to be what they are did something. And the first comment on /. brings up the the TSA. I am getting tired of the girly tech responses to the real world. And don't get me wrong I won't fly because of the TSA. But really I know this is something out of the norm and it is something of big news. But have you saved anyones lives? If those two were on either flight that caused 9\11 would they stop what happened? Was no Ak47. I am starting to hate this place and what it has become. Get out of your basement, because it all belongs to us. Post Taco,9\11,and profit for slashdot...

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Unfortunately

[ChunderDownunder]

Or perhaps European railway stations might just implement baggage scans on long-distance journeys.

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[Karmashock]

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.

Re:Unfortunately

[amiga3D]

A lot of truth in that. Handing untrained people a gun is a good way to have a mess. It takes a lot of training to teach a person to handle a gun in a crisis situation. Most people get excited and snatch the trigger spraying bullets around and hitting everything except what they're aiming at. It's amazing how many shots get fired with no one getting hit. This video is a good example, lots of shots and no one hit. All at almost point blank range too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

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[h33t l4x0r]

Yes, thank heavens for the US war industry, otherwise a lot of lives could have been lost.

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[Crashmarik]

Seeing as you are modded flamebait, not enough yet.
Oh well escalation will happen

Re:Unfortunately

[perpenso]

you do realize not more than 15 years ago you could fly with a weapon in the cabin.

With all the aircraft hijackings happening in the 80's, I doubt in 2000 you could have reached the cabin having a kalashnikov in your handbag.

More like early to mid 1970s

Re:Unfortunately

[Falconhell]

The civilian was a British IT consultant!

Re:Unfortunately

[perpenso]

And yet the NRA thinks that the "average person" with a firearm is the solution to the problem.

Actually the NRA is the premier advocate of and provider of firearms safety and training, training many firearms and safety instructors as well as private citizens. This is their primary mission. Political advocacy is their secondary mission, one they feel "forced" into.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

In onion layer security, the outermost layer is always the most available, and always has the most potential attack vectors. So, you just pushed the attacker away from the large shiny metal things to which these assholes seem to be attracted, and instead into the bigger, probably harder to effectively secure lobby where people congregate to go through metal detectors. Practical changes? None. Zippo. Nil. Nada.

Until one or more of these conditions is met, nothing will change:
a) we develop some technology to deal with the threats from a safe distance. Said technology will likely be able to be used for, or chiefly function through violating your rights in one way or another, and/or violating your body in one way or another.
b) we all get fed up with the principal actors in these terrorist plots, collectively go crusades 2.0 on their backwards asses and forcibly drag their sorry excuse for a culture out of the bronze age.
c) terrorism no longer is an effective political and economic tool
d) their goals having been achieved through use of a clever combination of white guilt, uncontrolled illegal emigration, and higher birth rate, Sharia law is instituted in the New European Caliphates; political violence is no longer necessary.

I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine which is the most desirable, and which is the most likely of those events to occur.

Re:Unfortunately

[perpenso]

Sorry, botched an edit and hit submit rather than continue editing, should have read: "premier advocate of firearms safety and provider of training"

Re:Unfortunately

[AK Marc]

https://xkcd.com/705/

Re:Unfortunately

[mi]

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.

To paraphrase a famous saying, a well-trained person with a gun can achieve more than a well-trained person without one.

Re:Unfortunately

[mi]

thank heavens for the US war industry, otherwise a lot of lives could have been lost.

Indeed... Count the number of years between WW1 and WW2. Then compare with the period between WW2 and WW3... Oh, that's right, the US "war industry" is so overwhelming WW3 is nowhere in sight...

Re: Unfortunately

[DeBaas]

Forced? Someone holding a gun to their head?

Re:Unfortunately

[davester666]

OMG. That just makes the problem worse, because then we all become highly-trained terrorists, instead of just the plain terrorists we currently are.

We'd have to immediately deploy the military across the country to thwart everyone.

And of course, it's a terrorist attack. Not a lone gunman, or deranged lunatic, but because the person is not white "terrorist!"

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[h33t l4x0r]

My guess is the period between WW3 and WW4 will be millions of years. It doesn't mean we're on a good trend though.

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[h33t l4x0r]

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.

Re:Unfortunately

[MrL0G1C]

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,

Elitist rubbish, some people freeze, the majority will cower but a sizable minority will realise that they have a better chance of surviving if they can do something to subdue the shooters.

Sure military training will help in the take-down but don't tell me that people don't naturally have a survival instinct or that they will all cower because history says this isn't true.

https://www.google.com/search?...

Re:Unfortunately

[Opportunist]

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.

Re:Unfortunately

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

Everyone should not be armed, because quite frankly, most people are more a danger with a weapon than an asset. Especially gung-ho idiots with IQ's smaller than their shoe size, whether by nature or by alcohol.

Based on your comments, I think that certainly you have no business carrying a gun.

Re:Unfortunately

[dywolf]

"The average person with a gun knows how to use it."

if only that were actually true.
and theres more to it than just knowing how to use the gun, ie, that mental mindset the OP mentioned.

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[Viol8]

"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.

Re:Unfortunately

[Boronx]

I'm pretty sure irony has swooped around and bit its own head off.

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[mOzone]

i hunted Africa in the early 90s and carried on rifles after they where checked in ..ammo in separate bag 8 rem mag
no one batted a eye at me . sat in empty seat next to me standing up with a crappy belt looped thu handles so they wouldnt move

Re:Unfortunately

[perryizgr8]

You're probably on a list now.

Re:Unfortunately

[ScentCone]

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.

Re:Unfortunately

[Boronx]

Are you aware what happened in Australia after they banned guns?

Re:Unfortunately

[ScentCone]

Race? Where was that mentioned? Please be specific.

Re: Unfortunately

[ScentCone]

Forced? Someone holding a gun to their head?

No, they're forced in the sense that irrational people pushing for irrational, counter-constitutional policies required somebody to push back.

That's different than, say, the way you are forced by your age as a middle-schooler to dish up pointless snark for no reason.

Re:Unfortunately

[ScentCone]

Except that the vast majority of times that the average Joe uses a gun to defend himself or someone else, the gun is never fired. It's presented ("brandished") and the assailant or threatening person simply runs away. Lengthy academic studies have shown that this happens hundreds of thousands of times a year in the US. In areas where concealed carry isn't unconstitutionally interfered with, the rates of violence in typical street crime are much lower than elsewhere. Bad guys don't like having guns pointed at them. It rarely comes down to anyone spraying bullets anywhere.

Re:Unfortunately

[ScentCone]

But likewise neither would have the terrorist.

Islamist wackadoos wanting to take over Europe (and elsewhere) aren't doing so because they think the US has too big a military. They're doing it because they think the rest of the world should live under the culture they consider to be the only valid one. As they've been doing for centuries, they are willing (and in fact feel obliged) to do their bit for medieval theocracy through violence. The existence of large militaries run by cultures that don't wish to live under the thumb of Islam is indeed annoying to them, but that's not what motivates them.

Re:Unfortunately

[peragrin]

actually you can't prove that, it is a logical fallacy, and definitely not supported by the facts.

The tension between sunni and shite's has been building for centuries. Even without the US military and stupid foreign policies those two groups have been building to a islamic civil for a few hundred years.

Just like christianity did when it turned 1400 there will be purges, burning, and random fighting between the various islamic sects. The very reason the USA has freedom of religion was to prevent any one christian religious sect from controlling the government at the expense of others.

Muslims are doing the exact same thing. only with automatic weapons, and RPG's.

Those terrorists would likely have still been there.

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[PopeRatzo]

The only thing that can stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy who can tackle.

I hope the 2015 Chicago Bears defense does not encounter any bad guys with guns.

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[PopeRatzo]

a well-trained person with a gun can achieve more than a well-trained person without one.

I agree with your suggestion to limit gun ownership to well-trained persons.

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[amiga3D]

I know it happens but honestly I would like to see a link to your study. I'm thinking it doesn't happen all that often. I know if I pull a weapon someone is getting shot. I'm not pulling it unless I have to and once it's out I'm not playing or threatening with it, it's business time. Brandishing a weapon that you're not committed to using is a good way to get killed.

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[Noah Haders]

!HSOOOOOHW

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[sribe]

The average person will most likely freeze in a crisis, just out of sheer human nature.

Bullshit. Lots of people freeze, and lots of people do not.

Re:Unfortunately

[sribe]

I know if I pull a weapon someone is getting shot. I'm not pulling it unless I have to and once it's out I'm not playing or threatening with it...

Really? So if the assailant immediately surrenders, or turns and runs away, you're going to shoot him anyway, just because?

Re:Unfortunately

[murdocj]

The average person with a gun knows how to use it.

No, they don't, at least not in the USA. Guns are easy to get, no training required. Fairly often there are articles in the newspaper about people getting accidentally shot, and it's obvious that if they had a clue about how to use a gun, these accidents wouldn't happen. The last thing I want when a gunfight erupts is a bunch of untrained people trying to pull out their guns and firing.

Re:Unfortunately

[amiga3D]

Didn't say that, I said I'm not pulling it unless I have to. And if I have to it's because I'm in dire, immediate danger. It's not going to be something I have trouble explaining to the cops. Just because a group of thugs comes up and starts hassling me isn't a reason to pull. When they pull a gun and threaten me I'm going to shoot them. The gun is coming out and the bullets are going downrange.

Re: Unfortunately

[cyber-vandal]

Or to switch it to the US: how many school shootings have to happen. I don't agree with either too many guns or not enough. I live in the UK and the city centres are bad enough at the weekends as it is without drunken fuckwits having easy access to firearms.

Re:Unfortunately

[SuricouRaven]

No, that is exactly what you said. In your words: " I know if I pull a weapon someone is getting shot." I can see only two interpretations for this: Either you would shoot a fleeing assailant, or you intend to shoot the instant you draw so the assailant doesn't have time to react.

Re:Unfortunately

[jafiwam]

They don't care fuck about what you do in your country. They are doing it because your country (and the US) is doing things in their country.

If you are going to spout this stupid lie. Do it while not being an Anonymous Coward. It MIGHT get a little more traction then. As such, the muzzies themselves SAY why they are doing it and it's not "because meddling."

Re:Unfortunately

[ScentCone]

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.

Re:Unfortunately

[Applehu Akbar]

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.

Re:Unfortunately

[ScentCone]

Then you learn that those studies are bogus, and based on speculation and guesswork, with less legitimacy than tobacco company cancer studies.

Leaving aside for the moment that the CDC is not the right entity to be studying criminal behavior, their own published study in 2013 - essentially commissioned by the Obama administration - had the interesting unintended side effect of bolstering the position that defensive use of firearms by potential victims of crime reduced the frequency and severity of crimes and personal injury or death.

The CDC's own study came up with gun use victims (including those threatened with, not shot, and including a lot of suicides) at 150,000 to 300,000, and during the same period, defensive uses between 500,000 and 3,000,000. Of note, the study treats one person doing something like shooting randomly at a gathering of 20 people as 20 victims (even if nobody is hurt) ... but if one person uses a gun while defending (for example) a family of four ... that's only one "use" in that study's stats.

Of course you already know the CDC did this report, and you're just trolling.

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Unfortunately

[drinkypoo]

When the truth of the matter is we just need more trained people. Everyone to boot camp!

I'd be into compulsory military service if it didn't come with a tour in someone else's country for the profit of some already-rich old white fucks, or assistance with maintenance of an ongoing genocide, etc etc.

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[Applehu Akbar]

GOOD one! Why don't we get mod points anymore?

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[drinkypoo]

They don't care fuck about what you do in your country.

That's really not true for a variety of reasons, the most obvious of which is that what one does in one's own country affects people in other countries, because we have a global economy.

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[johnlcallaway]

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.

Re:Unfortunately

[drinkypoo]

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.

People just have no clue how flimsy and delicate a plane is. But then again, people have no clue how flimsy and delicate a car is... because they don't want to admit how flimsy and delicate they are, in the grand scheme of things.

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[Intrepid imaginaut]

b) we all get fed up with the principal actors in these terrorist plots, collectively go crusades 2.0 on their backwards asses and forcibly drag their sorry excuse for a culture out of the bronze age.

Eh no, that would be less crusades 2.0 and more scramble for Africa, whose main justification was "forcibly dragging their sorry excuse for a culture out of the stone age".

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[mi]

I made no such suggestion, of course, which makes you a lying sack of shit. Have a nice weekend.

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[LetterRip]

I know it happens but honestly I would like to see a link to your study. I'm thinking it doesn't happen all that often.

The 'defensive gun uses' the previous poster is referring to include actual defensive gun uses, but also people pulling their guns inappropriately because they thought someone looked suspicious; or being in an argument and pulling the gun to end the argument. Neither of which are actual DGUs but make up the vast majority of claimed DGUs that are a part of DGU statistics.

Re:Unfortunately

[Streetlight]

Apparently the US military personnel weren't marines. One was a US Army National Guardsman, one was a US Air Force service man and a third was a US college student. US Marines aren't the only US military heroes.

Re:Unfortunately

[hankwang]

"A gun can puncture the pressure hull of the plane, and considering it's altitude, that would be both unpleasant and potentially life threatening"

That's not the real problem. A 1 cm2 hole will leak around 20 liters of air per second, which is negligible to the 500+ l/s of air that needs to be refreshed in a typical 200-passenger aircraft to keep the passengers from suffocating.

A bigger problem is that the bullet can damage electrical and hydraulic lines on the way out.

Re:Unfortunately

[LetterRip]

The CDC's own study came up with gun use victims (including those threatened with, not shot, and including a lot of suicides) at 150,000 to 300,000, and during the same period, defensive uses between 500,000 and 3,000,000.

It wasn't a study, it was a summary of some of the literature from preexisting studies. It ignored the criticisms of the literature (that most DGUs claimed are actually not DGUs but assault with a deadly weapon; and that simple extrapolation shows that the DGU 'statistics' are ridiculously overstated since there would have to be a huge number more serious gun injuries at hospitals; that false positives dramatically skew the statistics; etc).

Re:Unfortunately

[ShanghaiBill]

2. The homocide rate in Europe is way lower than in the USA.

No. The homicide rate in Europe is HIGHER than in the USA. It is lower in the EU, but if you include the rest of Europe (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, etc.) the rate goes way up. Even if you only look at the EU, the homicide rate is not "way lower" but only somewhat lower. Some countries in the EU have a homicide rate higher than the USA, and several US states have homicide rates lower than the EU average.

It should also be noted that different countries have very different standards for what is "homicide". For instance, some include suicide. If Japan did that, they would go from the bottom of the list to near the top.

Re:Unfortunately

[electrosoccertux]

yeah, you just had to declare it.

Re: Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

The Average gun-owning American indeed knows how to use their firearms safely. The Average user must know by simple virtue of the fact that if they didn't, the half-life of their ability to keep a firearm would be very short. If 50% of Average owners (remember, -average-) had an accident in one year, there would be something on the order of 100 Million accidents that first year. If one in ten were fatal, there would be 10 Million dead. At that rate, the total population count of the US would be severely impacted in five years (not extinction, just a massive head count reduction).

The Average US firearm owner is not what Europe or anti-gun proponents portray them to be. The outliers get the attention which leads to sterotyping at the advantage of the power-brokers. Guns in the hands of average citizens is not the primary gun violence threat vector to be afraid of. Outliers will do what they do, but to the population body they are noise. The threat comes from those that use outliers to drum up fear and sentiment that only the power-players should be allowed access and right to use asymetric instruments of force...

Re: Unfortunately

[Sarten-X]

He said nothing about lions.

He said he "hunted Africa", which I understand to mean that he stepped off of the plain, looked around, found an Africa, and started shooting the ground.

Continents are hard to kill, though, because they're just so big. There's been maybe one good account of a kill, but it was so long ago that it might have been fictionalized. Sure, lots of folks tell stories about it, but very few ever even try to take down a continent themselves. Even the attempt is impressive.

Re: Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

I stopped at the part where you called him and idiot for generalizing then proceeded to generalize.

Re:Unfortunately

[Uberbah]

Islamist wackadoos wanting to take over Europe (and elsewhere) aren't doing so because they think the US has too big a military. They're doing it because they think the rest of the world should live under the culture they consider to be the only valid one.

You from the U.S.? It takes an extra special brand of racist dumbfuckery to be from a country that has bombed and overthrown dozens of countries over the last 70 years, gotten tens of millions of people killed, had a worldwide kidnapping & torture program, assassinates people based on "meta data", yet wag your finger at those people over there to whine about how irrational and violent they are.

The best part about it is, any Radical Islamofacism you can name is directly the fault of the U.S., or a direct backlash to U.S. imperialism. Don't like Iran's theocratic government? Blame the U.S. and Britain for overthrowing their secular democracy in the 50's. Say Pan Am Flight 103 was a horrible crime? Tell it to the family members of those on Iran Air Flight 655. Taliban got you down? Take it up with Zombie Reagan, who gave them weapons in the 80's. ISIS being a pain? Blame the Obama Administration for giving them arms and training to fight Assad.

And of course there's Saudi Arabia, the most brutal regime on the planet, which the U.S. sells billions of dollars in arms to every year.

Re:Unfortunately

[phantomfive]

20 years ago, a football coach for the Dallas Cowboys was arrested for trying to bring a gun on an airplane. So it was illegal then, and now (as it should be).

Re:Unfortunately

[itsenrique]

I don't think they are giving out asylum to many Moroccans. You assume he was a refugee?

Re:Unfortunately

[LynnwoodRooster]

Heck, fly business/first class and have the airlines HAND YOU metal knives and forks for your meal. Sometimes including nice, serrated edged steak knives!

Re:Unfortunately

[Anonymous Coward]

Because we have no choice. Given a choice, most people would like to live in a society where locks on houses and car doors are unnecessary because everyone is honest and good.

Do you think people who rob others are polite?

"Ahem. Excuse me, sir. I would like some money but don't want to earn it. Could you please give me your wallet and your watch? No? Could I persuade you otherwise? Shall I tell you about all the wonderful things I intend to use the money for? Still no? Very well, a good day to you, sir, and my apologies for disturbing you."

Unlike the above, it's more likely the following:

"Your money or your life! NOW!"

Or:

"Your money and your life!"

Re: Unfortunately

[Fire_Wraith]

I'm not talking about being trained in how to use the gun, how to aim accurately, etc. I'm talking about how to think, act, move in a crisis, when seconds count, and not panic. This is not the kind of thing that civilians are normally trained to do, unless they are in certain fields (EMS, LEOs). It's something that the military tries to train you for, and combat operations throw you right in the thick of.

To put another way, even with training, a lot of soldiers tend to freeze the first time they found themselves in combat, because that's the natural human reaction. This is why they're trained to act, but also to follow orders, so the more experienced NCO can get them moving, firing back, until they overcome the initial reflex response.

It's certainly not true of everyone, but I certainly wouldn't want to rely on Joe Smith who's taken a few gun safety classes and goes to the range every other week to react in the same way that a military combat veteran would/could.

Re: Unfortunately

[murdocj]

Explain the fact that these allegedly intelligent gun owners, even owner who have used guns for years, do stupid things like mixing firearms with alcohol, firing guns in populated areas, accidentally kill their friends, etc. What people don't get is that firearms are designed to KILL. They are not toys, and they shouldn't be treated as such.

Re: Unfortunately

[TechyImmigrant]

He said nothing about lions.

He said he "hunted Africa", which I understand to mean that he stepped off of the plain, looked around, found an Africa, and started shooting the ground.

Continents are hard to kill, though, because they're just so big. There's been maybe one good account of a kill, but it was so long ago that it might have been fictionalized. Sure, lots of folks tell stories about it, but very few ever even try to take down a continent themselves. Even the attempt is impressive.

Someone killed Antarctica a long time ago. It's stone cold now.

Re:Unfortunately

[rastos1]

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.

No. I think his solution was to penalize those few that know how to use a gun in order to stop all those that cause problems.

Re:Unfortunately

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

With his nickname, he was probably already on the Vatican's list anyway.

Re:Unfortunately

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

From what I've read, the airline meals themselves could be classified as lethal weapons.

Re:Unfortunately

[angel'o'sphere]

Sorry, that is just nonsense.
In an area where "good guys" may legally carry a gun, every bad guy most certainly has a gun. So the bad guy is "brandishing" his weapon first, to get what he wants. If the good guy tries to pull his he gets shot.

No idea in what world you think you live that only the good guys have guns and the bad ones run away (*facepalm*)

Re: Unfortunately

[U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M]

From what I've read online, it's getting better. I think it's going for a walk...

Re:Unfortunately

[angel'o'sphere]

Actually they where four. A british elderly men (judging from the fotos close to 70) helped as well.

Re:Unfortunately

[Hognoxious]

I am. The murder rate stayed the same and suicides went down significantly.

Re:Unfortunately

[angel'o'sphere]

WW3 is running since the 1950s

Perhaps you should watch the news more?

Re:Unfortunately

[angel'o'sphere]

They're doing it because they think the rest of the world should live under the culture they consider to be the only valid one.
No, they do it because you are suppressing their culture.
The current terrorism has no claims or aims to "conquer" they claim to fight in self defense against the US imperialism.

The new exception is the IS, which is only conquering islamic nations/areas anyway.

Re:Unfortunately

[ScentCone]

So, the Taliban (for example) kills insufficiently Islamic villagers in Afghanistan because of the US? Islamist mobs kill musicians in Mali because of the US? The Taliban use dynamite to destroy ancient Buddhist artworks because of the US?

Re:Unfortunately

[ScentCone]

Yup, guns just make it worse. Best to ban them where the culture is bad.

So in places where roving mobs use social media to coordinate on the trashing of stores or looting, etc., you're all for suspending the first amendment, and doing things like banning mobile phones? Please be specific.

Re:Unfortunately

[ScentCone]

In an area where "good guys" may legally carry a gun, every bad guy most certainly has a gun. So the bad guy is "brandishing" his weapon first, to get what he wants. If the good guy tries to pull his he gets shot.

Except that part is the nonsense. In places like Florida, the passing of concealed carry laws saw an immediate and persistent drop in violent street crime, including shootings across the board. Surveys of actual felons locked up for committing burglaries as well as violent crimes like robberies, muggings, and rapes find that often do NOT want to risk being caught carrying a weapon (something that might put them back in to jail even if they're not in the middle of committing a crime beyond the carrying of what's usually a stolen weapon or possessing one with a felony history, etc), that they really don't want to get into a shootout (they just want, mostly, to take someone else's stuff), and they really, really hate having to wonder if they're walking into a situation where someone else might be armed.

Re:Unfortunately

[amiga3D]

Exactly. "If" I pull. I'm not going to pull unless I feel the need to shoot. I'll never threaten anyone with a gun. It's a foolish thing to do. I'm not going to pull unless I feel my life is in danger and once they've crossed that line it's life or death.

Re:Unfortunately

[SuricouRaven]

Perhaps we need a more concrete scenario to figure this out.

You are out. You get mugged. The mugger brandishes his gun around, waving it in your general direction in a threatening manner, and demanding your money. Clearly your life is in danger, so you pull your gun out. As soon as the mugger sees you reaching for your gun he turns and starts to flee. Do you shoot anyway, or let him escape?

Re: Unfortunately

[ClickOnThis]

He said he "hunted Africa", which I understand to mean that he stepped off of the plain, looked around, found an Africa, and started shooting the ground.

LOL, thanks for that. Now I have a mental image of him posing for a picture beside the craters in the ground, with his rifle and a massive grin on his face.

Re:Unfortunately

[angel'o'sphere]

Exactly, you summarized it nicely up.

Because: the Taliban would not exist without the US.

Re: Unfortunately

[Frnknstn]

No, you are not.

Re:Unfortunately

[thegarbz]

One of our guys at work loves to show off his photo dated 1996 which showed him and 2 of his friends sitting in a plane with a rifle each. Slightly more than 15 years though.

Re:Unfortunately

[ScentCone]

So, basically, you're just BS-ing, and trying to wish away a culture that has been doing exactly this same stuff since before the US ever existed. That's not very effective, as it turns out.

Re:Unfortunately

[thegarbz]

While flying without nail clippers might be debatable, 15 years ago you could not fly with a gun in the cabin.

15 years maybe, but not much longer before you could. I've seen a photo from 1996 that showed 3 people (one of which was my coworker) sitting in a cabin each with a rifle.

It couldn't be loaded though and the ammo had to be stored separately.

Re:Unfortunately

[shutdown -p now]

Why are you repeatedly conflating gun violence with violence in general? USA is very much distinguishable from a Third World nation in terms of overall violent crime rates, and is closer to other First World nations in that regard (albeit an outlier in that group).

Re: Unfortunately

[shutdown -p now]

Explain the fact that these allegedly intelligent gun owners, even owner who have used guns for years, do stupid things like mixing firearms with alcohol, firing guns in populated areas, accidentally kill their friends, etc.

There are almost 400 million guns in USA, and something on the order of 100 million households with them.

When you're talking about scales as large as this, you'll have all parts of the bell curve represented quite nicely. And, of course, it's the ones that do spectacularly stupid things, like microwaving a loaded Glock, that will make the front page.

Re:Unfortunately

[angel'o'sphere]

No, I'm not.

You are BS-ing by neglecting your countries responsibility for the many situations we have right now.

I emphasize again: the Taliban would not exist without the US interferences. The Iran regime would not exist, the Saddam of Iraq regime had not existed etc. p.p.

I would suggest to read some books ...

Re: Unfortunately

[Sardaukar86]

Good point. From the little I've read, anti-poachers are encouraged to use shoot-to-kill as a last resort. It does happen though. According to this article they may even receive a bonus in their pay for wounding and killing a poacher.

I appreciate you probably weren't thinking about anti-poaching efforts but having just read a little about it I'm a little intrigued by the topic.

The job itself might be quite a bit better than working as an infantry grunt. At the very least you wouldn't be facing quite the same level of danger a state-armed and trained military opponent presents. Some military experience would probably be a necessity but as I have none myself I cannot speak with any authority.

Besides, there's always the opportunity to capture poachers for information regarding their operation, perhaps even with a view to identifying the figures behind the detainees. I think it is a job with the potential for significant occupational satisfaction if you're passionate about protecting endangered species.

Re:Unfortunately

[ScentCone]

You don't know the cause why crime rates dropped (if they at all dropped, to lazy to check numbers).

Yes, you're lazy. But the pattern repeats itself everywhere such a transition takes place. Likewise, where guns are completely banned, there are immediate jumps in the rate of violence.

On the other hand: I really wonder why no one asks (or asks himself) why the crime rate was so high before.

It's only high in some places. The reason is cultural.

I doubt hard core criminals, especially rapists, "think" at all about anything regarding the "crime".

Yeah, you keep thinking that.

Re:Unfortunately

[Sardaukar86]

Thank you for your courage in writing this post. Too many view the truth as a statement of politics rather than a statement of fact.

There will be no 'one event or 'series of events' that bring the West to its senses; it will never happen. The cost will be the decay of our society.

Re:Unfortunately

[Sardaukar86]

Well then, what violence should we commit against those who cannot spell, mein Führer?

Re:Unfortunately

[Sardaukar86]

You and your kind is what is desperately wrong with the West.

But by all means keep screeching "Racist" whenever you come across an opinion you do not agree with. It does that whole freedom of speech thing a huge favour, and we all know that shouting down your opponent is the best way to win intelligent debates.

By God I hope the revolution comes soon enough because I want to be there with a Kalashnikov when pricks like you are finally up against the wall.

Re:Unfortunately

[ScentCone]

Just for fun, by the way, see this week's news from Detroit, where the police chief has been praising law abiding citizens' carrying and using of personal weapons for self defense, in that it is helping to reduce violent crime in the city. He's endorsing it because he's watching it do the same thing there that it did in places like Miami.

Re:Unfortunately

[Sardaukar86]

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

Well said. It's all to easy to armchair speculate but when the fat hits the fan - and no matter what bravado I might conjure up from my comfortable chair - I can imagine being utterly gripped by terror to the point of uselessness. What these guys did was heroic.

Re:Unfortunately

[Zak3056]

I'm pretty sure he meant knives, which pre-9/11 were allowed on aircraft.

Re:Unfortunately

[Pieroxy]

petrol and a match. A bomb. A truck driving through a crowd.

Can't easily carry any of those in your pocket though.

Re:Unfortunately

[amiga3D]

If he turns and runs before I get the weapon fully up and aimed....no, certainly not. At that point I'd consider the confrontation over. How likely is that though? Far more likely is that he'd try to shoot first. I'd never try to run from a guy with a gun. That's just stupid. No one can outrun a bullet.

Re:Unfortunately

[chihowa]

Most people get excited and snatch the trigger spraying bullets around and hitting everything except what they're aiming at.

While Marshall's claims are still a bit contentious, a counter to your single youtube data point would be the large number of conscripted soldiers in WWII and Vietnam who never fired their weapons even when faced with the enemy.

Hollywood movies and drunken bar brawls aside, it takes a lot of nerve to pull out a gun and start shooting at people. Training is of course essential to the proper and responsible use of guns, but a dearth of training isn't likely to lead to bullets flying everywhere.

Re:Unfortunately

[Uberbah]

Is North Korea publicly beheading a hundred people a year, the way Saudi Arabia is? Is North Korea executing people for engaging in sorcery, the way Saudi Arabia is?

If they are, they aren't doing it with the help of tens of billions in arms sales from the United States.

Re:Unfortunately

[chihowa]

So the bad guy is "brandishing" his weapon first, to get what he wants. If the good guy tries to pull his he gets shot.

This is a great example of how the simplistic "good guy"/"bad guy" labels make rational thought about a scenario difficult. A "bad guy" may be fine with waving around a gun in order to scare his victims into giving up their stuff, but may not be ok with murdering another person in the commission of a crime. Just because he's a "bad guy" doesn't mean there is no bad thing that he will not do, both for moral reasons (few people are alright with actually murdering another human in cold blood) and for practical reasons (a life of crime can be somewhat stifled by homicide detectives on your trail and crimes in your past that don't have statutes of limitation). The mugger may have no intention of actually shooting his victim with the gun, even if it is loaded or functional. Mugging to murder is a pretty big leap.

Re:Unfortunately

[hucker75]

All you need to do is ban people with beards.

Re:Unfortunately

[angel'o'sphere]

And? How would the good guy having a gun to, change that? IMHO not at all.

Re:Unfortunately

[angel'o'sphere]

Likewise, where guns are completely banned, there are immediate jumps in the rate of violence.
In the US ...
Not in the rest of the world.

So the pattern behind crime and violence clearly has something to do with US life style and not guns.

Re:Unfortunately

[SuricouRaven]

So you now have a scenario in which you pull your gun, and no-one gets shot. That wasn't too hard to settle.

Re:Unfortunately

[chihowa]

Most people may not be willing to kill another person in cold blood, but shooting someone who is pointing a gun at you and threatening to murder you is quite a bit easier and not much of a moral dilemma.

Criminals who want to use a gun as an empty threat would be considerably less likely to point a gun at someone, not intending to actually murder that person, if there is a high probability of their victim shooting them in self defense.

I think that changes things quite a bit. How do you see it not changing anything at all?

Re:Unfortunately

[Boronx]

The total number of homicides has declined somewhat. The homicide rate has dropped sharply, due to population increase I'd guess.

Re:Unfortunately

[amiga3D]

Sure, anything is possible. Damn sure unlikely, but possible.

Re:Unfortunately

[angel'o'sphere]

I think that changes things quite a bit. How do you see it not changing anything at all?
Because the logic makes no sense?

I'm a criminal and pointing a gun at you. I have no intent to really kill you. Yu draw a gun with the attempt to self defense yourself. I shoot you in self defense, without any moral quarrels. The judge and the jury might see that different, however: your gun did not help you in any way.

Seeing it different is IMHO just idiotic, sorry.

Why do you believe your gun counts more than my gun, just because you are the "victim with a gun"?

Re:Unfortunately

[PseudoCoder]

It is a real problem. If there is enough pressure delta the ruptures of the metal skin (if the round manages to penetrate all the way through) would introduce cracks that would continue to propagate under pressure until the whole hull opens up. Kinda like with Aloha Airlines 243.

Re:Unfortunately

[chihowa]

If you're a criminal who uses a gun to intimidate unarmed people into complying with your requests, but there is a good chance that the "good guy" also has a gun, you'd be a fool to point a gun at the good guy (leaving aside the fact that most petty criminals are pretty foolish to begin with). Why would you voluntarily put yourself in a position where you need to murder somebody or get shot in self defense?

I'm addressing what you said many levels up:

Sorry, that is just nonsense.
In an area where "good guys" may legally carry a gun, every bad guy most certainly has a gun. So the bad guy is "brandishing" his weapon first, to get what he wants. If the good guy tries to pull his he gets shot.

No idea in what world you think you live that only the good guys have guns and the bad ones run away (*facepalm*)

In an area where "good guys" may carry a gun, carrying a gun as a bad guy who doesn't intend to use it greatly increases your chance of being shot. A mugger who doesn't want to engage in a shootout is not going to start murdering people because his victims carry guns. He's going to not brandish a gun and, when faced with armed opposition, run away and try to mug people without guns.

Why do you think that just because a person is willing to mug someone, he's also willing to murder someone?

Re:Unfortunately

[angel'o'sphere]

Because the mugger has his gun already drawn.

It is not like you believe: a mugger has a gun (which he has not drawn yet), tries to mug a poor victim, and suddenly the victim draws a gun.

Sorry, your idea how mugging works is utterly distorted.

If I wanted to mug you, and I had a gun, the last thing you would do is drawing your gun.

That is a no brainer ... no idea why you think otherwise.

Re: Unfortunately

[david_thornley]

How many school shootings happen in the US? They're national news when they happen, and they really don't happen that often, considering that there's about a hundred thousand K-12 schools in the country. I suspect school bus accidents (which are not national news unless they're really gory) kill a lot more kids.

Re:Unfortunately

[chihowa]

Fortunately, as illustrated by the stats and interview listed above, the real world doesn't seem to operate like you imagine. Muggers don't point guns at people who may also have guns.

The point that you still can't seem to grasp is that the real-life mugger doesn't want to have to murder somebody for the money in their wallet. If pulling out a gun while mugging someone is likely to escalate into a kill or be killed situation, the mugger will leave the gun at home.

You speak as though you'd be pretty at ease with murdering people, but most people don't want to do that for various reasons. It sounds like you think that all criminals are cartoon or Hollywood villains.

This illustrates what I was originally saying about using the silly "good guy"/"bad guy" descriptors. A threaten-you-for-money-bad-guy isn't necessarily ok with killing people in cold blood. "Badness" is a continuum and attributing maximum badness to every "bad guy" is silly and shortsighted. Raising the risk involved in committing a mugging does seem to reduce the number of muggings instead of just increasing the number of murders.

I'm at a loss for why you can't seem to make this simple connection.

Re:Unfortunately

[Schmorgluck]

You fail at Law forever.

Re:Unfortunately

[LienRag]

Obviously you're unaware that the actual and current bombing campaign is targeting the very people who fight efficiently AGAINST the Islamic State...

Re:Unfortunately

[Anubis IV]

No, it was not illegal back then. What was illegal was carrying an unlicensed firearm, which, if you had read the article you linked, you'd have realized was the reason he was arrested and charged. Moreover, I believe it was also illegal to carry a loaded firearm on the plane. Your ammunition needed to be stored separately, but it was quite common for people to carry properly-licensed, unloaded guns on planes just a few years ago.

Re:Unfortunately

[angel'o'sphere]

Yeah, and you are an idiot.

The world wide stats clearly show that countries with gun control have a far far lower crime rate and homicide rate than the US.

The point that you still can't seem to grasp is that the real-life mugger doesn't want to have to murder somebody for the money in their wallet. If pulling out a gun while mugging someone is likely to escalate into a kill or be killed situation, the mugger will leave the gun at home.
And you don't grasp that this idea is nonsense. But keep your illusions. I live in a safe country and don't plan to visit the US ... perhaps what is true for you in your country is true for me in mine ... who knows.

Re:Unfortunately

[RockDoctor]

What makes you think that your American solution would be acceptable in Europe?

(Oh, and as the actual news reporting points out, while two off-duty US marines were involved, there were at least as many civilians involved in tackling the gunman too. Of the two classes of people, I'd posit that it took more balls for the non-military personnel to go to the attack, precisely because they aren't trained how to kill people with their todgers and a rubber band.)

they weren't marines: one USAF, one Oregon NG

[Anonymous Coward]

No idea where the marine story everyone is printing came from. US Govt identified them only as service members, but Oregon newspaper figured out who they were:

http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2015/08/oregon_national_guard_member_h.html

Re:they weren't marines: one USAF, one Oregon NG

[Fire_Wraith]

According to the sources I read, they were (mis)identified as marines by French police in earlier news reports.

Re: they weren't marines: one USAF, one Oregon NG

[Etherwalk]

Whoever they are I hope they get the highest metal available. It sounds like they stopped what could have been an extremely bad attack.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: they weren't marines: one USAF, one Oregon NG

[CaptQuark]

The Medal of Honor is only awarded for actions involving combat with an enemy of the United States. They might be awarded other medals (and the photo in the story suggests they have been awarded at least one) but not the Medal of Honor.

As Etherwalk suggests, read the history and criteria of the Medal of Honor in the link he provided.

--

Re:they weren't marines: one USAF, one Oregon NG

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Here in Europe, everyone knows that all American soldiers are Marines. Duh!

Re: they weren't marines: one USAF, one Oregon NG

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Presumably, they might get this. (But what if the terrorist actually turns out to belong to one of the organizations that the US is currently at war with?)

Re: they weren't marines: one USAF, one Oregon NG

[Boronx]

It'll be a French medal.

Re: they weren't marines: one USAF, one Oregon NG

[Gryle]

If the service personnel in question get a French medal, their US commanding officers can still submit award nominations for US decorations. While the Medal of Honor is going too far, this is certainly worthy of at least a Bronze Star for Valor.

Re: they weren't marines: one USAF, one Oregon NG

[Anonymous Coward]

(But what if the terrorist actually turns out to belong to one of the organizations that the US is currently at war with?)

They weren't on-duty, so that may not count.

I think there are medals for actions while serving, but not on-duty, however I'm not sure.

There are, of course, plenty of commendations they can receive, assuming Congress assents.

Re: they weren't marines: one USAF, one Oregon NG

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Government Officials here and in the White House: "Oh? Was he Muslim? I hadn't noticed."

Re:they weren't marines: one USAF, one Oregon NG

[sgt_doom]

Exactly, according to local and int'l news, one was former USAF, another a National Guardsman, and the third non-military experience. Regardless of poor or misguided reportage at /., hail to the three valiant men.

Re: they weren't marines: one USAF, one Oregon NG

[rmdingler]

(But what if the terrorist actually turns out to belong to one of the organizations that the US is currently at war with?)

They weren't on-duty, so that may not count.

I think there are medals for actions while serving, but not on-duty, however I'm not sure.

There are, of course, plenty of commendations they can receive, assuming Congress assents.

Yes. And, maybe, since there's been no formal declaration of war to cover the last several U.S. military incursions, combat itself may be open to interpretation.

They gave William McGonagle a MOH for a combat situation the US wasn't formally at War in.

nerd news?

[iggymanz]

How is this related to slashdot's supposed themes, this is just general news

Re:nerd news?

[Fire_Wraith]

Considering the deleterious impact that acts of terrorism have had on civil liberties, and how that bleeds over into the tech/internet/etc space, I'd say that it's certainly within the realm of news of interest to nerds when something takes place - especially when it's not any official TSA nude body cavity search type stuff, or NSA type vacuuming up of all data and metadata, that prevents a bunch of deaths, just a couple of well-trained people in the right place at the right time.

Re:nerd news?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"How is this related to slashdot's supposed themes, this is just general news"

I don't necessarily agree, but some would argue that this is "Stuff That Matters". If the tagline was "High Tech News / Stuff That Matters" you would have a point. You'd do better to ask how which finger you press the "6" key with is in keeping with the supposed theme. (It is neither news, nor does it matter)

Re:nerd news?

[quax]

General news it is.

Nevertheless it's nice to get such good news for a change.

True American heros.

Re:nerd news?

[fustakrakich]

Considering the deleterious impact that acts of terrorism have had on civil liberties

The greatest impact on civil liberties came from from the gross hysterical, overreaction to 'terrorism'.

Re:nerd news?

[ttucker]

How is this related to slashdot's supposed themes, this is just general news

It seems like a good thing for whiny neckbeards to bicker about...

Re: nerd news?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the guys who took down the terrorist was a IT Consultant.

Re:nerd news?

[Calydor]

I would argue against that.

People that fight for freedom have a tendency to die young, and depending on the circumstances, having their families killed in retaliation by the powers that be.

The cowards that don't fight for freedom live longer and keep their families safer, thus their genes are more likely to survive.

Re:nerd news?

[fustakrakich]

Humor me, and read what I was responding to. You didn't see me talk about this particular case, which is sure to become more intriguing as time goes on.

Re:nerd news?

[MrL0G1C]

How was this particular case overreacted?

Like this:

Hopefully, every train will have some trained military passangers who can subdue an armed attacker by hand.

Re:nerd news?

[MrL0G1C]

How was this particular case overreacted?

And my first though when I read the headline is if this happens much more then the gov'ts will want to pay their crony friends billions to install a few millions worth of metal detectors and xray scanners and we will all end up queuing for half an hour resulting in wasting a total of trillions of man hours because some c**t decided to get on a train and shoot people.

I'd rather take the risk of being shot thank you.

Your idea: armed guards - how many? 2 at the end of each carriage and two in the middle? How much would that cost for a ten carriage train?

Re:nerd news?

[Barsteward]

When i come back from Paris via eurostar, everyones' bags are scanned because the return journey is controlled by british customs. it won't take that long to scan everyones bags as its not like an airport where you have to get luggage stowed in the hold, virtually everything on the Eurostar is hand luggage. there is no reason not to have a scanner next to the passport control so the passenger can have his bag scanned as his passport is checked, it takes about the same time.

This "non-scanning becasue it will delay" idea with within what they call the Shengen area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re:nerd news?

[MrL0G1C]

You can't be serious, where does it end? Buses, Coaches? Checking Taxi passengers? Cordons around city centres?

The last thing I want when rushing for a train is to have to stop and queue.

Airports - advice is to arrive 2 hours before your flight.

Trains - No particular advice, I cycle to the station - 10 minutes is plenty spare.

The last time I was at an airport leaving Britain there was a long queue for the scanners and all pockets had to be emptied, the process was slow.

Re: nerd news?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

That must have been Bill Joy. I heard he was a badass.

Re:nerd news?

[drinkypoo]

That's not so much an overreaction as an idiot reaction. How about we unfuck the world a bit so that we create less terrorists to begin with? That would take more work than stationing soldiers in every car, but it would pay more dividends. To the public, anyway...

Re:nerd news?

[MrL0G1C]

That would mean less wars, less bombing campaigns, less drone attacks and less demonetisation of muslims and arabs.

It'd be nice but I can't see it happening anytime soon whilst so much of the US economy is related to military might. Until Americans wake up and realise that waging war is an extremely cruel and immoral thing to do to against other countries then nothing will change.

Re:nerd news?

[Pharmboy]

Yes, because everyone knows that war didn't exist until the United States was created....

The US has done plenty of stupid things, but war has always existed and always will. The US is the whipping boy only because it is the biggest. Go look at the atrocities committed by Russia, Japan and Germany (and others) over the last 100 years, then see see how much you still cry about America. There are plenty of crimes to go around, saying America is the "worst" just shows you don't know how to crack open a history book.

Re:nerd news?

[tompaulco]

How is this related to slashdot's supposed themes, this is just general news

Because people are going to get into a big debate about whether or not the heroes should have had guns, and that will lead to lots of ad impressions for Dice. Nobody will click on any ads, because nobody ever does, but Dice will still get some money for impressions.

Re:nerd news?

[MrL0G1C]

Do you know any history? Take another look:

Timeline of United States military operations

I very much doubt any other country in the world has had military operations against so many other countries in such a short amount of time.

Re:nerd news?

[Applehu Akbar]

"That would mean less wars, less bombing campaigns, less drone attacks and less demonetisation of muslims and arabs."

Grammatical terrorism aside, "demonetisation" would be the most humane approach if you don't like bombing and droning, and leads to the big nerd tie-in on this issue.

Who funds terrorists, ultimately? We do, whenever we stop at a gas station. We need to stop buying anything whatever from the jihadist region. Build the reactor fleet it will take to move us away from fossil fuel, while transitionally maxing out our own remaining oil and gas production. If there proves to be anything to that carbon warming hypothesis, we would thereby have that covered too.

Re:nerd news?

[kackle]

When I started reading this site in the late 1990s, I took "News For Nerds - Stuff That Matters" as "News For Nerds, Stuff That Matters", as in "This is technical news, stuff that doesn't matter to most people but does to us nerds (wink, wink)..."

"News For Nerds - Stuff That Matters" meaning "News For Nerds AND Stuff That Matters" doesn't make any sense (since hundreds of outlets already cover general news), and this was not how the site was run back then if I recall correctly.

Re:nerd news?

[Bing Tsher E]

Stuff that matters because it's news for nerds "wink" is the deal, actually.

I learned about the Twin Towers bombing first by reading about it on Slashdot early in the morning on 9/11. But I read it in an early off-topic comment. I quickly opened another browser window to 'mainstream news' to learn more.

We need more stories like the one about TIP (but nobody mentioned the TIP31 for some reason ??) transistors. That turned into what I classify as a nerd topic. We need more topics about things like grinding your own lens to make a telescope, and welding. Less articles that are links to 'astronomy' articles on the NYT and articles about Tesla that mainly dwell on the business side.

Re:nerd news?

[iggymanz]

it was France and the guys were off duty. No guns for them, nor will there ever be guns for guys in their situation. Not remotely relevant to issue of gun ownership in America. We already own guns in America and can carry them.

Re:nerd news?

[Barsteward]

For normal non-international trains there is no scanning/passport control, its just the international Eurostar which pretty much operates like an airport so you get there an hour or so before to clear passport control anyway.

Re:nerd news?

[fustakrakich]

Who funds terrorists, ultimately? We do

*Who controls the British crown? Who keeps the metric system down? We do! We do!*

Maxing out production? At less then 40 bucks a barrel, that's not bloody likely, unless they're crashing the price intentionally.

All those little wars help to keep out competing 'investors'. Business is what could be called brisk , don't you think?

Re:nerd news?

[Applehu Akbar]

If we stopped buying from the Middle East, our oil costs would rise somewhat, probably enough to encourage the exploitation we need.

Re:nerd news?

[fustakrakich]

*sigh* You're playing a different game. Jihad is not war, it's business. Saudi Arabia bought 60 billion dollars of goods from Hillary while she was working at the state department. You think they buy that stuff to decorate the harems?

Re:nerd news?

[Zero__Kelvin]

I absolutely agree with you. Slashdot has slid so far down hill it isn't funny. I am not arguing for a lot of these kind of stories, only that Slashdot has always included politics and major national and worldwide events as well. Just because we are nerds, it doesn't mean we cannot discuss things besides quantum computing and the subtleties of Big O notation.

Re:nerd news?

[Talderas]

It's a very loose definition of military operations. A significant number of these operations are evacuation or rescue of US civilians and personnel or troops sent to guard US property, such as embassies.

I was particularly amused by the one that was three cargo planes with crew sent to Congo to support them as they needed.

Way to go, guys!

[Dutch Gun]

It's awesome that these guys (the two marines and a civilian, from what I read) had the courage and presence of mind in a highly stressful and unexpected situation to charge in and ultimately save a lot of people's lives. Their actions do them a hell of a lot of credit.

I hope that in addition to whatever medals or awards they're presented with, they at least get something practical out of this, like some fine wine and/or champagne on the house.

Re:Way to go, guys!

[riverat1]

Latest news is they were not US Marines but one US Air Force and one Oregon National Guard plus the civilian. But you're right, their actions are all to their credit.

Re:Way to go, guys!

[Dutch Gun]

Good to know. I bet the Marines wish they could claim these guys. Reading more, they apparently spotted the guy acting suspiciously as he went to the bathroom, then heard the sounds of the clips being loaded. Amazingly heads-up. The perp apparently had 300 rounds in total. This could have been a major bloodbath.

The real message is lost on you

[SuperKendall]

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.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[AK Marc]

Why is it that all the fun nuts *like* crime? They want an excuse to haul a gun everywhere, and lock up everyone they don't like. An actual ordered society with mutual respect and such is inconceivable. You choice is, you get raped every night, or you carry a gun. Yeah, great false dichotomy there. Why not crack down on the causes of crime, rather than encouraging crime so we have excuses to throw so many in jail and run around armed for our own safety?

Re:The real message is lost on you

[deviated_prevert]

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.

The whole good guy with a gun bullshit you argue here falls apart in one hell of a hurry in the real world. IN THE REAL world the guy busting into a room has the gun at the ready and guess what sucker? HE HAS THE DROP ON YOU. Better still your move to get a gun in another room in a lockup so your kid does not blow his brothers brains out by accident, is not going to cut it.

What you are suggesting is having granny sitting on the porch 24/7 with a shotgun for security to keep the trespassers out. HERE are the real facts about why arming the hell out of the public is not how to stop crime; ASK ANY experienced police officer and they will tell you that over 60 percent of guns that wind up on the street are stolen from property crimes and that most bad guy incidents like home invasions and burglaries are not helped by the home owner or any resident using a firearm to either scare off or defend their life and property. AMERICANS are stupid idiots when it comes to fire arms, the truth is unless you are packing 24/7 and it is loaded and at the ready a handgun is useless for protection. So essentially the NRA is correct lets get rid of the morons, let every one pack a piece and make it mandatory. BANG BANG SHOOT SHOOT happiness is warm gun OOH OOH.

The moronic comments here do not surprise me at all but they are an insult to the courage and skill of the Marines that put their lives at risk stopping another idiot with a gun! Idiots with guns confronting idiots with guns is not the answer here, never has been and never will be.

I HUNT and use firearms and have done so since I was a little kid. Most citified morons that worship the almighty hand gun can't even shot a grouse in the head with a 22 short the way we did when we were kids. I am Canadian and the American attitude towards guns is one very good reason why all of you should have your vehicles searched at the border. Like an American uncle of mine that took pride in showing off his 38 that he packed in his glove box loaded all the time just in case some mad trapper or savage wild man attacked while he visited us in our igloos, we all laughed like hell at him cause with a real gun he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn and the hand gun he had and shot off all the time was so far beyond his abilities that I would duck when he blasted away because you never knew if he was gonna double on the trigger and pop two off on recoil! So PEOPLE WHO do nothing but watch movies and tv and think they can use firearms should not be allowed anywhere near them and this especially goes for most arm chair Clint Eastwoods which is what most NRA members and supporters are!

Re:The real message is lost on you

[mi]

Why not crack down on the causes of crime

Wow, didn't you just accuse an imaginary strawman of a "false dichotomy"?.. Or are you trying to show us, how to commit the same fallacy better?

Re: The real message is lost on you

[cyber-vandal]

Why wouldn't Mr Rapist also be armed with a gun? Why wouldn't the three guys that burst into your house be armed? Would they be nice enough to let the victim grab their gun?

Re:The real message is lost on you

[AK Marc]

An armed society is a polite society- Robert Anson Heinlein

"An armed society is a polite society" A character from fiction

Seriously, when the only support for your insanity is fiction, shouldn't that give you a hint of reality?

Re:The real message is lost on you

[AK Marc]

What dichotomy? I didn't make it an either-or.

Re: The real message is lost on you

[cyber-vandal]

Nope all I'm saying is that a gun isn't a guarantee of safety unless you have it in your hand at all times.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[DNS-and-BIND]

Wow, yet another Canadian who heartily enjoys looking down on Americans. You know, if I didn't know so many Canadians in real life, I'd think most of them were douchebags like you. You prejudiced types are very vocal and visible online, and it gives your country a bad name.

Hint: in the future, avoid the "citified" insult, it sounds a hell of a lot like you're racist against inner city African-Americans.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[Opportunist]

Rather, an armed society is a society afraid to piss someone off by speaking the truth. With a lot of built up rage waiting to break to the surface.

If you need proof for that, take the internet and its perceived anonymity, and compare to the behaviour of people in societies with lots of guns in it.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[SuricouRaven]

Because a lot of those gun nuts view the government as the enemy, a violent oppressor bent on destroying their individual freedoms, and they need a gun ready for when the revolution comes.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[dfenstrate]

Why not crack down on the causes of crime, rather than encouraging crime so we have excuses to throw so many in jail and run around armed for our own safety?

The root causes of crime? Poverty, misery and violence is the default human condition. You might as well crack down on the root cause of falling to the earth.
What you ought to be interested in spreading is the 'root causes' of peace, prosperity and cooperation. That means spreading a constructive culture, and having pride and confidence in that culture.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[Electricity Likes Me]

Also speaks volumes to the mental stability of the gun owners in said fictional society.

It's polite because...what, someone who didn't like what you said might decide to murder you for it? Seems surprisingly incompatible with freedom of speech.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[Electricity Likes Me]

You do understand how the global climate varies with latitude right? Do you also frequently wonder why so few people live at the north pole?

Re:The real message is lost on you

[drinkypoo]

Seriously, when the only support for your insanity is fiction, shouldn't that give you a hint of reality?

It's been noted that in spite of the high gun ownership and limited law enforcement, the so-called "wild west" was actually not significantly less lawful than the rest of the country. That doesn't actually speak to whether the presence of guns promoted that atmosphere, because we'll never know what it would have been like without them. Anti-gun advocates still seek to paint it as a lawless time, but they are quite a bit off the mark. Their anecdotes favor more local law enforcement as a solution, not the elimination of firearms.

The best support for the argument that people should be able to legally carry firearms, perhaps with some background checks and licensing (which is the case in at least some of the states which permit carry, and AFAIK true of all the states which permit concealed carry) is that the people who legally carry firearms within these programs very rarely use them to commit crimes. They should not be required to justify themselves by claiming that they will protect you. All the justification that should be required is that they are not doing harm. You and I and everyone else here does a dozen things a day or more that cause harm to other people. We drive, we use the internet, we throw stuff away that has a high percentage likelihood of being disposed of improperly and which was typically produced with little concern for the unwanted outputs — nearly no industry on earth would be profitable if it had to account for its externalities.

I'm not against reasonable gun control. I have concerns regarding the government's qualifications in deciding what constitutes mental fitness, however. That's something that can easily be wielded awry. The latest DSM can be read such that if you ask questions about your health care, you may have something wrong with you. We're one fine red hair away from criminalizing dissent, and don't think it can't happen here. It can, and it can happen in tiny steps that are nearly imperceptible to the average citizen.

There is plenty of support for the notion that a responsibly armed society is a polite society. When Heinlein imagined the majority of people acting responsibly of their own accord, he engaged in works of fiction, and he knew that. While it's not the current state of affairs, there's no particular reason why that cannot eventually become reality. But there's far more people than you notice carrying weapons legally, and you don't notice them because there's no reason why you should do so.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[drinkypoo]

Like an American uncle of mine that took pride in showing off his 38 that he packed in his glove box loaded all the time just in case some mad trapper or savage wild man attacked while he visited us in our igloos, we all laughed like hell at him cause with a real gun he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn

Your uncle may have been a tool, but in spite of being an alky my father packed a .38 special around with him and never abused it... but it came in handy a couple times here in Lake county CA where they literally imported a bunch of criminals and nutcases what, thirty years ago? I forget what they got out of it, what I got out of the story was I need to get up out of this county. And my father was a marine unlike the dudes on the train in this story, he liked to shoot, and he could about shoot the fleas off a dog's nuts without waking it up. And ironically, he did about nothing with his free time but watch movies and TV, but he had no illusions about violence. He regretted joining the forces, though he appreciated the discipline and the training.

I don't carry my handgun, although I can imagine some circumstances where I would. And while I'm not the shot my father was, I'm a fair one. I'd like some time on a range with moving targets, though, before I ever had to use my weapon in a real situation. I certainly hope that never happens. It's a horrifying idea, though not as horrifying as being in a situation like that without a firearm.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[mi]

Of course you did — and the Anonymous' posting pointed it out to you even before I did. You suggested, that "cracking down on the causes of crime" and allowing citizens to arms themselves are two mutually exclusive things.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[LVSlushdat]

An armed society is a polite society- Robert Anson Heinlein

"An armed society is a polite society" A character from fiction

Seriously, when the only support for your insanity is fiction, shouldn't that give you a hint of reality?

Umm.. Robert A Heinlein is NOT a ficticious character.. He's one of the most famous science-fiction authors of all time... And he is ABSOLUTELY
right about an armed society being a polite society.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: The real message is lost on you

[cyber-vandal]

So that's why the US has much less crime than everywhere else?

Re: The real message is lost on you

[cyber-vandal]

Try reading the content I replied to genius.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[ClickOnThis]

An armed society is a polite society- Robert Anson Heinlein

"An armed society is a polite society" A character from fiction

Seriously, when the only support for your insanity is fiction, shouldn't that give you a hint of reality?

Umm.. Robert A Heinlein is NOT a ficticious character.. He's one of the most famous science-fiction authors of all time... And he is ABSOLUTELY right about an armed society being a polite society.

You miss the point. Robert A. Heinlein did not say "An armed society is a polite society." A character in his fictional novel Beyond This Horizon said it. A writer is not responsible for what his fictional characters say.

It is often claimed that Shakespeare said: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." No, a character in Henry VI, Part II said it. A criminal, in the context of overthrowing the government.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[deviated_prevert]

Wow, yet another Canadian who heartily enjoys looking down on Americans. You know, if I didn't know so many Canadians in real life, I'd think most of them were douchebags like you. You prejudiced types are very vocal and visible online, and it gives your country a bad name.

Hint: in the future, avoid the "citified" insult, it sounds a hell of a lot like you're racist against inner city African-Americans.

Trouble is not with inner city youth in the states in fact that is where I feel most comfortable traveling. The trouble with the States is the rich moron white red neck gun lobby that is prejudiced as hell against the African-Americans and always has been sucker! Same as our local branch of the redneck KKK up here in Canada, they veil themselves as being patriotic but in reality it is just a veil for blatant racism. UP here they call themselves the extreme right "Conservatives" by and large. They are usually the ones that fail to advance if they go into the military and are pissed off at "Liberals" all the time but by and large seem to succeed in business because they learn how to kiss ass early on in life. These are not the type that could have become a US Marine because their life is far too self centered and they have coward like personalities.

You know the type I mean, the classic red neck that much like the villain in Animal House wants to be a George Patton but in truth does not have the balls to pull it off! No the trouble is that the US gun lobby is the only industry that produces product in the States that still makes money and the production of that product is still over valued. What needs to happen to help stabilize the crime situation and fight terrorism world wide is to have all our hand gun production sent off shore where labour is dirt cheap that way we could easily have good cheap hand guns in Walmart for a 1/4 of the price of what the good quality ones cost! TELL THIS TO AN NRA lobby artist and watch them squirm! The American fire arms industry would just love to be able to pull a RubberMaid and get their product produce for a tenth of the price it does right now.

The gun lobby in the states is a huge problem and Mr Obama is completely correct in stating that it causes more problems than it solves when it comes to a sensible set of rules regarding fire arms!

What are you going to tell your children and grandchildren about why they are required have to wear bullet proof vest when they go to school. This is what is going to happen to the all american family if the NRA continues to cloud the issues, "Johnny DON"T FORGET to practice your grade one marksmanship and gun cleaning, your teacher tells me that you are getting behind in military training, I don't give a rats ass if you are doing well in your quantum physics classes but a six year old that can't even shot straight is a real embarrassment to the family name!"

Re:The real message is lost on you

[AK Marc]

Just because you agree with AC that you don't like my message doesn't mean it was a false dichotomy. I said it was silly that the gun-nuts are more interested in things that increase the crime rate, while complaining about it, rather than reducing the crime rate.

I never said it was either-or or a single choice. I was pointing out priorities. Nothing more. But hey, make up anything you want. The next on the list is "strawman". Go on. Beats having to think about what others say.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[pigwiggle]

IN THE REAL world the guy busting into a room has the gun at the ready

Maybe. Or maybe not. I've used a gun in self defence. A man was trying to break into my home. I called the police, then confronted him and told him to leave. When he didn't, I brandished my gun. And then he left. I doubt that's all that unusual. Likely more so than the type of home invasion you describe.

ASK ANY experienced police officer and they will tell you that over 60 percent of guns that wind up on the street are stolen from property crimes

And how would your average police know that? They hardly know the laws they're tasked to enforce. The US ATF has, surprisingly, looked into this. They believe stolen guns account for 1 in 10 guns used in crimes. The largest source is straw purchases. Then corrupt federally licensed gun dealers.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[gnasher719]

"An armed society is a polite society- Robert Anson Heinlein".

So if I see an armed person somewhere in the USA, and I tell him that in my opinion only idiots who try to compensate for their sexual inadequacies would carry guns, should I expect a polite answer?

Re:The real message is lost on you

[deviated_prevert]

IN THE REAL world the guy busting into a room has the gun at the ready

Maybe. Or maybe not. I've used a gun in self defence. A man was trying to break into my home. I called the police, then confronted him and told him to leave. When he didn't, I brandished my gun. And then he left. I doubt that's all that unusual. Likely more so than the type of home invasion you describe.

ASK ANY experienced police officer and they will tell you that over 60 percent of guns that wind up on the street are stolen from property crimes

And how would your average police know that? They hardly know the laws they're tasked to enforce. The US ATF has, surprisingly, looked into this. They believe stolen guns account for 1 in 10 guns used in crimes. The largest source is straw purchases. Then corrupt federally licensed gun dealers.

You are the exception. And indeed gun trade shows have become a nightmare. But equally the recent movement to reward those who turn in unlicensed guns shows that the majority of Americans in the inner cities would rather eat than buy bullets and do shit crime for a living. So I am not at all completely down on the future of the US cities. As for poor officer training well that is certainly a problem as is the military taking recruits that only join so that they can learn how to play at bang bang shoot shoot. As in all fields in life the bad can overtake the good if we turn and close our eyes to what is happening. "When constabulary work is to be done, to be done a policeman's lot is not a happy one, happy one" is a truism that many forget and unfortunately our leadership can also be corrupted, but the more educated the public becomes the more difficult it becomes for the inferior to reach the heights of leadership. The exception to that rule might happen if Trump gets elected though.LOL

Re:The real message is lost on you

[AK Marc]

No, you should be more polite to him because anyone who has a gun is a murderous thug. At least that's what the background of the quote means.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[shutdown -p now]

ASK ANY experienced police officer and they will tell you that over 60 percent of guns that wind up on the street are stolen from property crimes and that most bad guy incidents like home invasions and burglaries are not helped by the home owner or any resident using a firearm to either scare off or defend their life and property.

I have to ask - have YOU tried to ask an experienced police officer about these things? Because I've asked quite a few, and they were all very much in favor of the notion of citizens being armed, and proficient in the use of these arms, to defend themselves in precisely these kinds of situations.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[Sardaukar86]

Why not crack down on the causes of crime

Well, that's a sensible idea and I couldn't agree more, but we are not living in sensible times.

Researching the causes of crime reveals uncomfortable truths, leading to deflection, projection and plenty of blame levelled at everything but the actual causes.

I would love to provide evidence to back my claims but we are simply not permitted to have this conversation in any depth. Things will become very uncomfortable if we try.

Re:The real message is lost on you

[trout007]

Exactly. Billy the Kid became famous for killing less then 10 people. How many people in gangs do we have today that are completely unknown with death counts higher?

Re:The real message is lost on you

[Schmorgluck]

The American man who was shot in the neck, Mark Moogalian, isn't a marine (none of the people involved are, by the way, but this has been covered by other comments), but a professor of English at La Sorbonne university in Paris. By the whay, he would probably have died if Airman Spencer Stone hadn't some medical training and hadn't know where to put his finger to stop the hemorrhaging. According to recent medical reports, he'll live, but he suffered nerve damage and may have lost some use of his left arm.

Error in title and summary

[geogob]

The shooting did not happen in France. It was on a train travelling from Amsterdam to Paris. The events happenend in Belgium.

Re:Error in title and summary

[DogPhilosopher]

The gunman boarded in Belgium (Brussels South), but the attack happened on French soil. Hence the French police is in charge of the investigation.

FTFY

[jklovanc]

And yet the NRA thinks that the " properly trained average person" with a firearm is the solution to the problem.

The NRA advocates proper training for anyone who owns or carries a firearm.

Re:FTFY

[SuricouRaven]

Sort of. The NRA advocates proper training, but they strictly oppose any legislative effort to ensure proper training. They fear the great American tradition of 'indirect lawmaking' - any form of regulation of guns, however well-intentioned or slight, could open the door to government abuse. If the government requires people go on a two-hour training and certification course to own a gun, what's to stop them from cutting the funding so they can only hold one course a year in western Alaska?

Re:FTFY

[jklovanc]

There are other factors involved as well;
- The government can keep track of who has training which creates of list of people who probably have guns.
- The government could require certification on each type or model of firearm which basically makes the license an inventory of weapons.

Remember the basis for the right to bear arms is that the populous should be able to rise up against a despotic government. If the government knows exactly who has what guns a despotic government can easily come and take them away. The US was founded through a revolution which probably could not occur under many of the proposed laws. I realize that the current government is not despotic but laws have to last for a long time. Who know what could happen in 100 years. Do you think a despotic government will repeal laws that will help them?

Gun laws in the US are a political feel good issue anyway. There are so many illegal guns out there that any law would only effect the law abiding citizens and have little effect on criminals.

Re:FTFY

[SuricouRaven]

"Remember the basis for the right to bear arms is that the populous should be able to rise up against a despotic government."

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

I don't see anything about uprising there. What was that bit about 'well-regulated' and 'necessary to the security?'

Re:FTFY

[jklovanc]

I don't see anything about uprising there.

While it is not written in there that was the thought at the time. The Constitution has very few words and covers many broad area. The issue is with the last clause. It states "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." Notice it states "people" and not "militia" and uses the word "State" and not "federal government". States rights are very important in the US. The "people" must have the arms so that they can form a militia to protect a free State from a despotic federal government. The militia needs to be regulated the people not so much.

Re: FTFY

[rfengr]

See the preamble: THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added:

Not marines, just passengers

[bradley13]

I woke up this morning to all the news stories about the terrorist in the train who was taken down by three passengers. It’s a great story, but I wish the news services would stop referring to “American marines”. First, as far as I can tell, the three central figures were: one guy in the Air Force, one guy in the Oregon national guard, and a Brit who wasn’t a soldier at all. Plus other passengers who were involved, also not soldiers.

Second – more importantly – we need to encourage any bystanders to take down attackers. If you have a train full of hundreds of people, the only right answer is to swarm the lone gunman. If you’re close to him, you’re gonna get shot anyway, so you’d just as well make it count for something. Easy to say from my armchair, of course, but I’d like to think I would react that way in reality as well.

Of course, the SJW press is busily trying to not call him a terrorist, despite the plain evidence that he was, and was even known for his previous involvement with jihadists.

Re:Not marines, just passengers

[ThatsMyNick]

Of course, the SJW press is busily trying to not call him a terrorist, despite the plain evidence that he was, and was even known for his previous involvement with jihadists.

Blame the European counterterrorism officals for that. "The train attack has not officially been classified as an act of terrorism, although the senior European counterterrorism official indicated it could be." -- CNN. Also blame the right, for jumping the gun and calling it a terrorist attack immediately .

Re:Not marines, just passengers

[JeffAtl]

First, as far as I can tell, the three central figures were: one guy in the Air Force, one guy in the Oregon national guard, and a Brit who wasn’t a soldier at all

That is incorrect. Three american military personnel subdued the attacker and the Brit joined to help restrain him.

The confusion mainly comes from the repeated photo of 3 men getting medals. The american who actually led the action by charging down the aisle, Spencer Stone, was injured and in the hospital, so he wasn't pictured.

Re:News for nerds?

[bmimatt]

Today:
Apparently a guy with a gun, on a train from Amsterdam (possibly still quite high) == terrorist.
Military guys (regardless of branch) are Marines, if they happen to do something interesting.

Tomorrow:
A homeless guy with a knife sleeping under a bridge == terrorist
Navy cook == Navy Seal (as long as seen outside of kitchen). ./ is dropping in quality not by day, but by the hour these days. Get a grip @timothy

**including** U.S. service members?

[BenderTheRobot]

Looking at the dailymail account, this spencer airforce guy charged the moroccan, tacked him and while other passengers helped to disarm. Then he took box cutter slashes before they all beat the fsck out of the moroccan.

No wonder it is said Obama dislikes individual achievement.

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[Karmashock]

Its all about narrative for the progressives. They like to play with language, redefine words, ban words, rephrase things... and its all to misrepresent situations, hide inconvenient realities, or otherwise push their preferred narrative no matter how irrational or baseless it is...

You see it everywhere on anything they really care about it. Look at the terms they use for things. Its all weird terms that were clearly concocted to avoid using another term that is actually more descriptive.

Its part of why whenever you see a crime happen that feeds into a narrative they don't like, they'll start suppressing the bits of information that allow you to make the obvious association. You typically need to do a search, go through four or five articles just to finally see the mask slip somewhere.

The internet is a wonderful thing though. The progressives can't control it which means they can only control the narrative in their little echo chambers and hug boxes which are increasingly turning into mental straightjackets that serve only to leave the progressives unprepared for addressing the public argument.

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[Epeeist]

Its all about narrative for the progressives. They like to play with language, redefine words, ban words, rephrase things... and its all to misrepresent situations, hide inconvenient realities, or otherwise push their preferred narrative no matter how irrational or baseless it is...

Projection much?

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[Karmashock]

In what way was I projecting?

You're saying that I play with language, redefine words to suit my narrative, manipulate the media, ban words, misrepresent situations to suit my narrative, hide inconvenient realities, or otherwise push my preferred narrative no matter how irrational or baseless it is?

is that what you're implying?

Because these are falsifiable arguments.

Did I redefine language anywhere or would you like to associate me with some other group that does that? Lets see your argument. We can see on the issue of islamic terrorism that the progressives like to call it anything but terrorism and like to underplay the role of islam in the incidents when they're clearly central. But I'm open to your argument.

As to redefining words, no one outside of the old soviets is as likely to redefine words simply to misrepresent situations than the progressives. Its their go to solution to any political problem. They label a box of shit a box of apple pie and then call the problem solved. Its how they operate.

As to manipulating the media... I'd love to see your argument there. I can give many examples of the progressives manipulating the media. But if you think any group I might be associated with has done that, hit me with your best shot.

As to banning words... again, like the redefinition thing... its the progressives that are the arch censors of the 21st century. The nonsense coming out of them these days is pretty much to the level of book burning at this point.

I could go on... but you get the gist. If you want back up your argument then come at me, bro. A cheap comment followed by you running away is about what I expect from you. Surprise me by holding your ground.

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[Karmashock]

So... you say I am projecting... lets see where you back that up... anywhere.

First sentence... conservatives do X... well, I'm talking about progressives here... not everyone on the left. Most people on the left are not progressives. Progressives are to liberals what sister fucking red necks are to conservatives. Just so we're clear.

Second, you say I didn't learn the meaning of words? I got a near perfect score on the English portion of my SAT's, chump. I know what the words mean.

Third, to conservatives being all about divisiveness... no. Its not the conservatives trying to create class wars, gender wars, race wars, wars between labor and business, and basically divide and conquer everywhere. You're actually the one projecting there, cupcake.

Fourth, as to projecting inadequacies... that doesn't even make sense in this context. I think you're just repeating insults you heard somewhere that you think sound "smart". Word to the wise, when you use an insult in the wrong context you sound stupid. Just for future reference.

Fifth, jumping to conclusions? Can you name one instance where a mass shooting my a muslim in Europe or America was not religiously motivated? Just one. And furthermore, what is the harm in jumping to conclusions? Look, if I open a door and smoke pours out... is it reasonable for me to jump to the conclusion that there is a fire? Because smoke doesn't have to come from an active fire. The smoke could be stale from a burned out fire. Or the smoke could have been blown into that room from another location. Or it could just look like smoke but it isn't actually.

See, you use this "don't jump to conclusions" argument when the conclusion I'm going to jump to is inconvenient for your narrative. Reverse the situation... lets say a guy covered in confederate flags shoots a bunch of black people. Would it be presumptuous to assume the attack was racially motivated? See, you have no problem jumping to conclusions when it serves your narrative. But when it doesn't... then suddenly you think it is "irresponsible". You're so full of shit its funny. And the funniest part is that you're so brainwashed you don't even realize what a fuckwit you are.

People are going to assume. Everyone is going to assume Assuming is something done everywhere by everyone and the more you know about anything the more you assume... not the less. Because you know enough to make an informed and intelligent assumption. If I hear a pitter patter on my roof... I assume its raining. Assumptions. We all make them. You for example assumed I'm a conservative. I'm not. But you assumed that because in your experience most people that attack progressives for being the slackjawed fucktards that they are... are conservatives. But you're wrong. I'm not a conservative. I'm also not a christian. I'm also not religious. And frankly I doubt you'd even begin to understand anything outside of your pathetic binary US vs THEM progressive shitshow.

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[Karmashock]

No I'm not.

Every citation I threw out was progress retards.

Choke on it.

If you want to have a more substantive discussion on how right I am... login. I can't keep the ACs straight. One AC says X, another AC says Y... I respond to either X or Y and the AC i'm talking to invariably says "I didn't say that"... login. Or you're just going to get a onesided lecture out of me. I can't engage in dialog with ACs because they don't label themselves.

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[Anonymous Coward]

NationalReview.com is a KNOWN SATIRE SITE, you DUMBFUCK.

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[Karmashock]

hey AC shithead, was ONE thing on that list inaccurate?

Fucking one?

Drowned in horse smegma. ;-)

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[SuricouRaven]

"Its all about narrative for the progressives."

s/progressives/people/

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[SuricouRaven]

Those are all things which one progressive, somewhere, said were racist. Assuming the stories are accurate, and didn't come from the sort of email that starts 'FW: FW: FW:'

I used to know a real nutcase on a blog - the exact opposite of a progressive. Flag-waving uber-Christian patriot type. He believed that anyone who supported Obama should be executed for treason, as they had provided aid and comfort to the Moslims (He always used that spelling), enemies of the US.

So there exists somewhere, on the far-far-far right, a person who believes approximately one-half of the population of America should be executed for treason. Does that mean I can go around saying 'Conservatives want to execute heretics?' No, because that would be taking an extremist fringe and claiming they are representative of a much larger group. Just like you are doing.

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[mi]

Projection much?

In denial much?

Here is a very recent example... Here is a local newspaper's report of somebody named Jesus Deniz Mendoza killing a couple, that stopped to help him on a road. The police mug-shot of the accused is also attached, as is perfectly normal for a simple-minded newspaper, that has no particular agenda — yes, he is obviously a Latino, which might increase "anti-immigrant backlash", but the journalist ethics requires factual reporting....

Now here is the New York Times report of the same crime — posted on the same day, an hour later. Note, how it:

• identifies the man as simply Jesus Deniz — Señor Mendoza became Mister Deniz,
• omits his mug-shot,
• but fails not to point out, that the victims were Crow Indians.

Voilà, instead of an article about a Latino-immigrant murdering Americans, we get a report about violence against a long-suffering minority committed by somebody named Deniz. No, we didn't say he was a White Supremacist, but if you thought so based on his last name and choice of victims, we aren't going to correct you — because in our progressive opinion, White Supremacy is far more dangerous than illegal immigration.

That was a very recent example — less than month old — of how a flagship newspaper of record "plays with language" and "rephrases things" to misrepresent situations, hide inconvenient realities and otherwise push their preferred narrative.

Oh, an pointing this all out has made me a racist, has it not? Please, don't hate...

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[Karmashock]

Its all sourced. If you want to debate any one of them we can do that. And if you think I don't have fucking hundreds more where that came from you're in for a treat.

My next move will be to cite the University of California list of Micro Aggressions. They're awesome.

And no, it isn't one fucktard. Its an entire culture of fucktards. You don't get policies charge in universities around the country to make this garbage policy if its just one person.

As to some guy on a blog that was a nut case... did he try to redefine words, censor you, or police speech? Yes or no? Because saying "other people are stupid tooooo!"... is not relevant. Progressives are stupid in a specific way and that's what I was referring to. I was not saying that no one else in the history of the world has ever also been a fucktard. That would be silly.

As to one dude believing something crazy... sure. We're not talking about one dude. We're talking about maybe 20 percent of the country who are progressives... of them... maybe half are seriously progressive where as the other half are sort of guilted into it and don't take it that seriously.

If that 10 percent can be shamed back into the anus they climbed out of... and by all means... shame 10 percent on the right that are equally odious for their own reasons. Then the remaining 80 percent might have a reasonable dialog. But so long as people keep redefining words whenever they lose an argument, or censoring their opposition because they can't handle a debate... we're never going to get anywhere.

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[Karmashock]

Login, Troll and we'll continue this. If you don't then I don't even know who I'm talking to. I have neither the patience nor the inclination to keep your AC fucks straight.

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[Karmashock]

Nuuuup.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion...

Its a thing, kitten. It is trivially easy to cite systemic example after systemic example after systemic example.

Not an individual... but rather... individuals... individuals in places of power, authority, and with the respect and support of millions of tweedle dees and tweedle fuckwits.

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[Karmashock]

*laughs*
Okay, shithead. Tell me what it would take you to admit you were wrong?

What bit of evidence would I need to provide to make you just say "oh... I was wrong... sorry."

What would that take. Tell me so we can end this farce.

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[SuricouRaven]

I'd require a survey showing some of these views are endorsed by a reasonably large, representative (not self-selected) sample of a group that might be classed as 'progressive.' Individuals do not count - that's just a selection bias. Perhaps a poll of the student body of some university, or at least a petition signed by at least, say, 5% of the students.

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[Sardaukar86]

Not according to the mods. FWIW I've had a gutsful of this sort of progressive bullshit, it's the worship of "my feelings" over the often-inconvenient reality of the situation.

I say this as a liberal; a live-and-let live person who believes in the golden rule (thank you Jim Jeffries): try not to be a cunt.

I don't always succeed, but it's a guiding principle. Right now I'm writing a cunty e-mail to my landlord so I'd better be off.

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[Karmashock]

So you don't accept state wide university policy from a state that is dominated by progressive politics? You need a survey?

Who would have to do that survey? I assume not just anyone, right? I mean... so we'd literally need a Pew poll?

Your criteria are unreasonably limited. Would you say that white southerners during slavery were racist?

Did you take a poll? :D

Your criteria is idiotic. good game... I just wanted to see what it would take to make you drop to you knees. But even if I provided that, I really doubt you'd accept it.

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[Karmashock]

Yale professor:
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/...

From the Rutgers Dean of Students:
"There is no such thing as Free Speech"
http://deanofstudents.rutgers....

Santa Clara University is telling students to call 911 over "bias incidents".
http://www.scu.edu/provost/div...

Idiot progressive says that computers can be racist as well:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci...

Idiot progressive accuses people of being racist when in fact the stupid bitch confuses her own search history for racist topics suggested by twitter. The cow was LOOKING for racist stuff about herself... didn't find it apparently... then saw her search history and said "oh there's the racism I was trying to find"... Morons.
http://www.independent.co.uk/n...

You think this is hard, shithead? Easiest thing in the world. All I'm doing is walking outside and pointing at the Sun. Its right there. See it?

You're wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[Karmashock]

I never said they were part of california... I was giving another example of the same thing... twit.

We're talking about idiot progressives... not california specifically and exclusively.

You're officially too stupid to have this discussion...

Why is it that nearly all ACs are completely brain dead? Its a mystery.

Re:**including** U.S. service members?

[Karmashock]

These people:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Training, and right place at right time

[billstewart]

They happened to be outside the restroom when they heard somebody loading their AK47. And yeah, a couple of people got shot before they subdued him, but fortunately not killed.

Soldiers everywhere!

[mi]

Let's see:

• TSA mentality — bad
• NRA mantra — worse!
• we just need more trained people — good!

Pinochet and other adherents of using military to keep internal order laugh from their graves.

I wish he succeeded. Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Because:
1) when you (France) create problems you should face the results. France supports marxist multiculturalism. Without clearly seeing the results they will not do anything about it.
2) France started this disease of multiculturalism. Because of this they should be the ones experiencing the results before the disease spreads to other countries. The sooner they say they had enough of this marxist ideology, the better for the entire Europe.

Re:I wish he succeeded. Why?

[Opportunist]

Dude, if you consider France "Marxist", I guess your position on Hitler is that he was too soft on the Jews...

Re: Statist/leftist news

[cyber-vandal]

Are you saying we don't need a police force or the military?

Re: Americans save the day

[cyber-vandal]

With the help of a Brit. Bit like Iraq and Afghanistan.

Re: News for nerds?

[cyber-vandal]

I guess you've never heard of Casey Ryback.

merci

[bkmoore]

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.

Re:merci

[Fragnet]

"beating their chest" - what a disgraceful thing to say. These guys are being rightfully applauded for their act.

Re:merci

[Barsteward]

". The guys spotted the suspect while on the street in Brussels, and followed him to the train station, and then followed him on the train, and followed him to the toilet (ca an hour after getting on the train), and only then 'threw themselves on a grenade'." - you'll need to post a citation for that claim

Re:merci

[drinkypoo]

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.

Obviously it does matter, because the Marines with the military training responded most quickly to a combat situation. Perhaps it is relevant? Perhaps military training is not the problem with militaries? Maybe that's the good part?

Re:merci

[DNS-and-BIND]

I wish my fellow countrymen would stop beating their chest about this.

Yeah, it burns you up inside when there's a legitimate story about American heroes, doesn't it? The press does a great job of burying stories on a daily basis, but when something big like this happens, all they can do is wait it out and try to find an angle to shit all over them. Rest assured, the media is aggressively investigating the backgrounds of the heroes right now and will soon be reporting every traffic ticket and high school fistfight they ever had.

Re:merci

[tompaulco]

This is not insightful. The guys spotted the suspect while on the street in Brussels, and followed him to the train station, and then followed him on the train, and followed him to the toilet (ca an hour after getting on the train), and only then 'threw themselves on a grenade'. All the people this guy had passed could have chosen to follow him. But only some american military guys did. I attribute that to guts, training and bravery.

And the fact that the military guys hadn't been through racial sensitivity training yet. If they had, they wouldn't have profiled him and everybody on the train would be dead.

Re:merci

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you missed his point. He is complaining about uninvolved American's "beating their chests" in saying that "All American's are awesome because of this", rather than doing what you say, which is rightfully applauding the heroism of the individuals (regardless of their nationality)

Re:merci

[urbanriot]

I'm guessing you have a specific hate-on for military people as I haven't seen anyone complain when people who are not members of the armed forces are credited for acting heroically while their jobs are referenced. Do you get upset when your fellow countrymen beat their chests about a pipe fitter that saves the lives of others?

Re:merci

[angel'o'sphere]

Yeah ... nice story.

Would have been much easier to call the police then to buy 3 $150 train tickets from Amsterdam to Paris ...

You are an idiot.

Re:merci

[bhiestand]

... except they weren't marines. I do wish people would at least get THAT right.

A train was a horribly good choice of target.

[Catmeat]

The attacker chose his target intelligently. If he hadn't have been stopped, this could have been horrific.

If he had attacked a cinema or a shopping mall with multiple exits, people would disperse and flee very easily and quickly as soon as he started shooting. Armed police would be on the scene in minutes.

On a train, hundreds of people would effectively be trapped in there with him until it could be brought to a halt and the doors opened. He would have walked the length of it, killing at will. This would have been worse than Anders Breivik's attack. The two that stopped him averted a nightmare.

Of course now, there'll be talk about airport security at railway stations. The UK has over 2500, including many small ones used by less than 100 passengers a month. So that's going to be a problem.

Re:A train was a horribly good choice of target.

[Sardaukar86]

Hi idiot,

Please read and understand the details of the situation before dilating the anus of your opinion above the rest of us.

Thanks,

- Those of us who are sick of fuckwits spewing nonsense.

Re:A train was a horribly good choice of target.

[JeffAtl]

No, a train is a really bad target, as proven by the lack of success this person had.

That was only due to very good luck of gun jamming while in a train car with military personal that were willing to charge a guy holding both a gun and a knife.

That being said, the staff did seal off the rest of the train, so an attacker wouldn't be able to do as much damage as on a plane. The attacker is also not able to crash a train like he would with a plane.

Re:A train was a horribly good choice of target.

[Talderas]

An attacker without access to the flight deck has very limited options for crashing a plane.

Re:Censorship fixed: gunman = Maroko muslim

[hcs_$reboot]

>A heavily armed gunman [...] Fixed: >A heavily armed Maroko muslim [...]

Please don't censor the truth, you liars.

Actually the attacker is of Moroccan origins. (Maroko => Nigeria...)

there was no other way for them

[Max_W]

If they were wearing US marines' uniform it was their best strategy to survive. It was the same during the WW2 for soldiers of Jewish origin. They knew that becoming a prisoner of war was not an option for them.

Re:there was no other way for them

[ph1ll]

Are you sure about this? I read somewhere that Jewish PoWs were treated like every other soldier by the Germans. The simple reason being that Hitler knew that for every Jewish PoW he executed, a German PoW would be executed by the Allies. Churchill makes it very clear he was prepared to do this PoW tit-for-tat in his book, "The Second World War".

Re:there was no other way for them

[drinkypoo]

Are you sure about this? I read somewhere that Jewish PoWs were treated like every other soldier by the Germans

I read somewhere that if you don't do what jebus says you'll burn in hell for all eternity. I read somewhere that you do not understand TIME CUBE. But I didn't read anything about Jewish PoWs being treated exactly like every other soldier.

Re:there was no other way for them

[Max_W]

I was talking mostly of the USSR soldiers. It was a bad news to get captured for anyone, but for soldiers of Jewish origin it was really the one way ticket. And they after a while kind of knew it and realized that there was just no sense whatsoever to surrender.

Re:there was no other way for them

[Bing Tsher E]

It was a bad deal for USSR soldiers who became POWs no matter what. After the war, they were considered 'disloyal' for having been captured or surrendering and most were sent to the camps.

Re:there was no other way for them

[Max_W]

The Soviet GULAG camps population after the WW2 was about 1.5 million prisoners and exiled https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... . It is much less than, say, current US prisons' population.

It is still too much, but it is not like almost everybody was to end up in a GULAG camp.

And there are people who were rewarded by the highest order of the Hero of the USSR, who had been POW, but were lucky to escape.

Re:there was no other way for them

[JeffAtl]

Churchill makes it very clear he was prepared to do this PoW tit-for-tat in his book.

How would the British know if that was happening though?

I did watch a documentary recently that had an interview of an American solider that was jewish. He was told that the Germans were executing captured soldiers that were suspected jews without even taking them to POW camps. He said that jews in the US military kept their dogtags in their gloves as a precautionary measure so they could dispose of them if captured.

Re:there was no other way for them

[Talderas]

That depends on which branch captured the PoW. In general, Luftwaffe PoWs were among the best treated and the Jews were not sorted out from the population. Wehrmacht and SS PoWs weren't as well off.

Easier? Like Charlie Hebdo easier?

[denzacar]

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.

Re:Easier? Like Charlie Hebdo easier?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to your very own quote above "... although automatic and military-grade weapons are illegal." at least one weapon he had was illegal.

So tell me again how making it illegal would have prevented him having a weapon????

Tough when your own evidence directly refutes your point, eh?

Strongly doubt this is news for nerds...

[St.Creed]

... because unless the guy with the kalashnikov was planning a round of CS:GO, I think it's better to report the story on CNN. Oh, it already is.

Re:Where's the terrorist?

[ScentCone]

Some crazed nutjob is now a terrorist?

You're acting like those two things are mutually exclusive. Most terrorists ARE crazed nut jobs. The entire medieval theocratic impulse behind the expansion of Islam by force is a case study in crazed nut-jobbedness. And in this case, the attacker was known to, among others, the Spanish government as being a radical Islamist. So yes, is tactics were designed to instill terror, and he was acting in keeping with a large movement involving millions of people ... he's a terrorist, using violence against deliberately selected innocent people, intending to kill them specifically, in the interests of bolstering his movement's influence over world affairs.

and a French National as well

[Registered Coward v2]

helped stop the attack.

boots on the ground

[Limitless_Potential]

Perhaps the only way to secure a populous is to have a decent police patrol?

Re:Where's the terrorist?

[fnj]

But where is the terrorist? All I can see is a crazy person, armed and willing to cause pain and grief.

Yeah, well, the perp denies being a terrorist and claims he "only" wanted to commit an armed robbery and take the passengers' money. Maybe facilitating that was sufficient reason to be carrying an automatic rifle, 300 rounds, and a box cutter. It stretches my credulity awfully goddam far, but it's possible. What I'd really like to know is why does it mean so much to you to have this turn out to be non Islamic terrorist related?

We could rename the whole struggle to be a war on psychopaths instead of a war on terrorists. Would that set you at ease?

Re:Where's the terrorist?

[Opportunist]

That should do, yes. But that wouldn't limit it to one religion, would it?

Let's stick with terrorists. I doubt the Bible Belt would enjoy the name change.

Re:Where's the terrorist?

[drinkypoo]

We could rename the whole struggle to be a war on psychopaths instead of a war on terrorists. Would that set you at ease?

it would help; psychopath is better-defined.

America!

[Gravis Zero]

FUCK YEAH! coming to save the motherfucking day, YEAH! :D

Not Marines

[jchyip]

1 was Air Force, the other was National Guard

Re:Where's the terrorist?

[iggymanz]

oh, the Bible belt is slaughtering people and blowing things up to change political will?

Get a grip, your christianphobia is swelling up

For some reason this reminds me

[nbsr]

a joke about a Soviet news report:

(copy&paste) "A friendly communist agricultural tractor was intercepted by enemy group of seven Chinese battle tanks, while performing its everyday works on wheat fields along Soviet-Chinese border. Tractor has returned fire and after destroying all tanks it flew back to its base."

Moronic response

[SuperKendall]

I don't know if you were aware, but Robert Heinlein was in fact a very real person, and the quote was from him...

Such is the level of intelligence to be expected from those who coddle rapists and home invaders I guess.

Re:Moronic response

[ClickOnThis]

Robert Heinlein was in fact a very real person

Correct.

and the quote was from him

Incorrect. The quote is from a fictional character in his novel Beyond This Horizon.

The Real World

[SuperKendall]

Being a frothing anti-gun lunatic, I'm pretty sure you'll not even read the link - but here in the REAL REAL WORLD the police chief of Detroit is asking law abidining citizens to arm themselves to take back the city from criminals:

The Real World Of Detroit and Guns

Re:The Real World

[deviated_prevert]

Being a frothing anti-gun lunatic, I'm pretty sure you'll not even read the link - but here in the REAL REAL WORLD the police chief of Detroit is asking law abidining citizens to arm themselves to take back the city from criminals:

The Real World Of Detroit and Guns

Yes it is very unfortunate that our greed and stupidity has spawned cities that are on the verge of collapse. However a wild west show ain't gonna solve the problem. It takes one hell of a lot more courage to confront evil without a gun. If someone holds a gun to your head consider this fact very carefully. Perhaps you can tell the one who would kill you that they are the one that is taking the easy way out of their problems. It is very true that it is easy to kill but requires even greater courage and inner strength not to!

Very much the same as using nuclear weapons to decide wars is not a good idea, escalating an already dangerous situation to a point of critical mass will only cause an explosion not a resolution. Unless that very explosion of violence is the goal in the first place.

The gun lobby in the states as well as the tendency to rape and pillage the economy by legal means could very well lead to unstoppable inner city nuclear gun wars. The only way around this is compassionate governance and equally good human fellowship not a tribal like collapse. Non violent discourse founded upon enlightened social and private enterprise is the only way to finally advance beyond primitive tribal society.

The founders of the US understood this principle but some forget this fact or really do not believe in Government of the People by the People and for the People.

Here in Canada we greatly respect the founding principles of the US and the corollary that Lincoln observed, but absolutely deplore the anti government movement being promulgated by the right wing tribal KKK crowd that for centuries has hindered real progress in the US.

Things could get worse though the US could elect someone like Trump and really screw things up. "YOUR'E FIRED SUCKER!" And equally don't ever forget the ability to run for more than 2 terms of office is just a convention in the states and if someone with enough pull and unlimited ambition to create a new dynasty did take office it might be very hard to get rid of a dictator. The same thing that has happened in Russia lately!

Re:Where's the terrorist?

[Opportunist]

Nah. They're more pissed that they can't string up the gays like them Islamists. Oh well, the good ol' days are gone...

Re:Where's the terrorist?

[fnj]

Thought you might not want to know. Latest information reinforces the first thoughts about this guy.

Here is what I did not know when I made my post. It emerges he fought with ISIS in Syria - I'd say that for the vast majority of us that makes him ipso facto a terrorist. He was known to intelligence agencies in four European countries. Spanish authorities told French police last year that he was a radical Islamist. He had been in contact with the Charlie Hebdo terrorists before they perpetrated their disgusting horror. He was part of an Islamic terrorist cell which came within hours of carrying out a major attack in Belgium. The revelations go on and on. You can learn about them here.

Just a word about terminology which it appears you may be confused about. Islamic refers to militant Islamic supremacy, which involves terrorism, xenophobia, oppression, and psychopathy. Muslim is just a reference to a religion. Confusing the two is a bit like confusing someone with a psychotic personal saviour complex with someone who is merely a member of the Christian religion. It would be well to be clear on the difference.

Re:Do you realized that 15 years ago ...

[Sardaukar86]

Do you realized that it was the West who is responsible for unleashing the Islamic terrorism monster?

Conspiracy theories aside, the unintended consequences of the West's invasions have put its governments in a very, very profitable position for exercising control over their own populations.

Re:Where's the terrorist?

[fnj]

I find a "war on terrorism" indeed to be a concept that is lacking. Why focus against a tactic?

But I find the term "Islamic terrorism" quite well-defined. The problem is, though the vast majority of terrorism is Islamic, the term "Islamic" is unfortunately subject to being misunderstood; the vast majority of Muslims are not terrorists; also, why rule out religious terrorists of other persuasions?

I wrote above what the difference between Islamic and Muslim is.

Yawn. Nobody's talking about making guns illegal.

[denzacar]

Clearly, AK he had was already illegal.
And clearly, everyone knows where to get illegal guns.
And clearly, everyone knows that there are A LOT of illegal guns.
And clearly, Belgium has gun permits and other regulation.

The issue is that Belgian cops are not doing anything about it.
I.e. There is NO ENFORCEMENT OF REGULATION of clearly and obviously illegal guns.

Making guns illegal is a thing that exists in your head.
The article and my point are about easy access to guns (through lack of enforcement of regulation) making everyone LESS safe.

Re:Where's the terrorist?

[JeffAtl]

Some crazed nutjob is now a terrorist?

By your logic, there is no such thing as a terrorist - only "crazed nutjobs".

Re:propaganda alert

[BrokenSoldier]

Great point to bring up. Thank you. The headlines about this in the last few days have really pissed me off. The guys didnt do anything that heroic, and it sounds like the shooter himself had some issues with the weapon. Im not saying it couldnt be worse but 'foiled' would indicate stopping the shooter BEFORE he shoots.

Re: Statist/leftist news

[iggymanz]

do we need so very many police agencies and spending 750 billion dollars (defense spending plus war costs) on military?

Re:This is France not USA

[Schmorgluck]

According to recent reports, it was an AKM, not an AK47.

Re:Where's the terrorist?

[Schmorgluck]

I tend to agree with you on many matters, Opportunist (not that you should care) but in that particular case I respectfully tell you that you're talking out of your ass. The assaliant has ties to islamic fundies, even past connections to the Kouachi brothers, among other things. He's an example of "low key terrorism". Not really a lone rabid wolf, but also not part of a very structured organisation. A particularly dangerous bunch, because those are uneasy to detect before it's too late, since they aren't into any very structured "cell", but have access to better means than lone activists.

And here it becomes "news for nerds": this guy wasn't completely off the radar, he'd been watched as a potential threat for years, just like the Kouachi brothers. The proposed new legislation in France wouldn't result in any progress on how this was handled, only additional human means would, without the need to change laws.