“O.K., fellow citizens. Keep fighting the good fight. It makes no sense to insist on guns being checked in baggage where they are of no use to anybody. If the good guys can’t have guns on planes, only the bad guys will have guns on planes. We get this done and then we move on to our goal of co-sponsoring with the N.F.L., helping it improve player safety with our suggestion that the offense and defense be armed during games. And remember, air guns don’t kill people, air people do.” – Nicholas Dawidoff in More Guns in the Sky [at nytimes.com]
This fool is in need of a Mental Health Assessment.
And he needs to find his Banana Republic receipt. I’m sure I could probably read his thoughtful comments more thoroughly and appreciate his nuanced, witty satire if he didn’t look like a complete douchebag in that photo.
I can barely type, I’m laughing so hard at ND’s commentary.
I almost feel bad for making fun of kids like him in high school. Almost.
What an ignorant douche.
????
Was this some kind of joke? As if TSA would be uphanded by “civil” enforcement. ..
I do not disagree with ccw holders CCing on planes.
I do. Unless we start making antipersonnel ammo that’s safe in an aircraft, its a bad idea.
‘Planes are special, for purely physical reasons. A pressurized, stressed hull, miles of wire and lots of hydraulics – AND eight miles up.
Literally one particularly unfortunate shot and you’ve got an aluminum rock with a couple hundred people inside making for the dirt at seven miles a minute.
No, air marshals are the way to go – and they shoud be checked ou on the particular type of ‘plane they’re to guard, so they have at least some idea where not to shoot.
I’m also in favor of the pilot having a panic switch that fills the cabin with a contact sleep agent.
That whole depressurization thing is a bunch of malarkey. Created by Hollywood to make for some “good” movies.
Sir, I am a pilot.
Yes, depresurization has been overly dramatized, but there are aspects that have not been shown at all.
Have you ever even through an actual depressurization? Thought not.
When the pressure drops rapidly to six P.S.I. or so, certain things happen to the gut. The results can range from seriously embarrassing to literally incapacitating cramp. This can take a pilot out of the picture. Seriously.
Also, I’m referring to structural stresses; with the new glue-it-together construction, certain types of structural failure are more plausible than in th “good ol’ days.”
Also, control systems.
As I said, it’d have to bea particularly unfortunate shot, but again – ‘planes are just different.
A ‘plane away from dock (evenon te ground) is, by the way, akin to a ship at sea – the pilot is one of the few absolute monarchs left, with total authority. If the pilots – and airlines – say no guns, the Constitution is irrelevant.
Contact sleep agent.
You may or may not be a pilot, we cannot know that. What we do know is that the whole “explosive depressurization from a gunshot!” deal is a Hollywood myth that has no factual basis at all.
All modern passenger planes are fly-by-wire with redundant control systems. A commercial jet headed for Hawaii lost an upper panel of fuselage and, except for one person flying out into the void, did fine. The Air Marshals? If you look into it you’ll find their original shooting proficiency standards had to be lowered because they couldn’t find enough applicants that could pass the practical. They don’t use frangible ammunition, because it’s more important to take out the perp. Before flight school I was a gunner and then crew chief on a Huey: We often took lots of rounds without (luck) losing our controls, engine, or transmission. And what does an aircraft commander’s authority have to do with the issue? It didn’t help much on 9/11, eh?
What happens to the ‘gut’ is trivia. It’s what happens to the brain that’s critical. The instant-on oxygen is enough to cope with that. A number of airliners have been brought from 38K down to 9k without disaster. There are reasons to keep guns off planes, but depressurizing isn’t one of them. The key problem is the lack of medical services for gunshot wounds. Six hours over the Pacific with a sucking chest wound is problematic. Worse, bombs are the issue, against which guns are of little use.
Ever fly armed while on duty? We use the same ammo – .40 Smith 180 grain Barrier penetrating style JHP Golden Sabre, Winchester PDX, etc. A 747 is not going down with a single handgun round, just like handgun rounds don’t easily disable cars. Heck, 5.56 M855 and Mk 318 have a hard time disabling standard cars and trucks.
That would have to be a one a billion shot because with all the redundant systems on board a commercial passenger jet, you’d have to have a magic bullet to take them all out for there to be a catastrophic failure which causes one of them to turn into an aluminum rock.
CCWs would in theory, identify themselves to the TSA, as LEOs do now, and board via a check in/verification process.
I know it’s highly unlikely, but was married to a Murphy.
My main concern is the controls for the tailpane.
I like to err on the side of caution.
“I like to err on the side of caution.”
Said every gun grabber, everywhere, all the time.
(I know you’re not a GG, but it really seems to be a poor choice of words.)
Mythbusters busted the whole depressurized air craft thing.
There was a plane in Hawaii several years ago that lost a large portion of it’s hull. It landed safely, the only death was a stewardess who was not strapped into her seat when the top of the plane blew off.
As for the controls, hydraulics, and miles of wires, that is why every commercial airplane system is built with a primary, auxiliary, back-up, and emergency system (four systems). But if you are really worried, issue every passenger carrying a weapon a loading of Glaser Safety Slugs.
That I’d go for. As I said, ‘plane-safe ammo.
Still, the airlines are in a special place; they trump the Constitution, even in U.S. airspace.
Nothing trumps the Constitution.
While worded backwards, that is adequate. The Constitution is designed to Protect property rights, and commercial Airplanes are the property of the owner. There is no ‘special place’ constitutionally, If an owner says “No guns on my property” it is the law, and enforcible under trespassing law. Boats, Airplanes and other mass people movers are essentially mobile real estate.
Of course, all of that is for a world of logic and reason where a thing like the Constitution is actually used as a beginners guide to the law.
@Barbicane:
My home is private property; I can choose who I allow to enter it, and for what reason.
The various public parks near my home are public property; There are very few constraints on how, or by whom, they may be used.
Businesses which are open to the public really fall into a special category all their own; On the one hand the law stipulates that transactions must be voluntary, but on the other hand there are laws which mandate certain levels of accessibility, and laws that mandate non-discrimination with regard to certain classes of persons.
As a practical point, the problem largely stems from the fact that companies invite the public to patronize their businesses. So, simply put, anytime you invite the general public somewhere, you invite them to bring their firearms along with them.
” Unless we start making antipersonnel ammo that’s safe in an aircraft, its a bad idea.”
Shows me just how stoopid you are. Frangible ammunition, suitable for use everywhere including inside an aircraft in flight, has been available for years. When it comes to aircraft I doubt you know much more than how to get in one and then off at the estination.
Best
Chuck
Airline Pilot
Captain, Boeing 757, 767, 777
P.s. the story line that has Goldinger being sucked out of the window of Lockheed Jetstar after depressurization is pure bullshit.
Should’ve said issuing, rather than making. I’m aware of he stuff, and with that I’d be comfortable.
I am experienced, and having the reservoir spring a big leak at a questionable weld left me somewhat paranoid about bullets and hydraulics.
The big birds are quite safe, but they are still just not like a mall or bus.
“Goldinger being sucked out of the window”
Nitpick: blown out.
Calm down Chuck. There is no need to start calling Russ Bixby “stooped” or saying that he doesn’t know how to get off at the “estination”.
Russ is a good person and part of our TTAG community.
#1
Make the bullhead and door to the pilots bullet proof up to 50 bmg, just like shooting ranges have in the stalls, and there really should be no complaints.
But they won’t even let tweezers, so….
Weight consideration would mean a few less passengers on the plane. Sounds great to the rest of the passengers, sounds like lost revenue to the airlines.
Ceramic armor ain’t that heavy.
To Russ…
Compared to the cardboard-like material they use, ceramic anything is incredibly heavy.
As a practical point, it wouldn’t mean fewer passengers, it would just mean using more fuel. It’s the same reason they’ve been charging such ridiculous fees to discourage passengers from bringing multiple bags.
The other thing they NEED to do is have the cockpit crew board first and LOCK THEMSELVES IN before anyone else boards.
The last time I flew was PHL to FLL (IIRC) in late January of 2011, and when I boarded as a passenger, the cockpit door was wide open. From where I sit, it would be VERY easy for the baggage handlers (or people impersonating them) to smuggle firearms onto the tarmac and then force their way onto a plane shortly before it was to leave the terminal. At that point, the only real challenge would be to get it into the air, which would be significantly easier if they had direct access to the cockpit.
Law enforcement with guns good, private citizens with guns bad…this sounds familiar, somehow.
It’s the opening line to the hit song (and dance) “To Protect and Serve”
Look, all the gun haters have left is ridicule. We all know they have no facts to argue.
I laughed so hard I almost peed myself…..
And even if I had pissed myself in public, at a podium in front a huge crowd of people, on a day where I forgot to wear pants, I’d be less embarassed than this guy should be about that pathetic attempt at satire……
What a douchebag. The only people who will even remotely think this is witty, are the most ardent anti-gun statists and their cronies. They’re so smug in their assurance that the GOV will take care of them and all their security needs, it is to laugh. Anyone who is pro-gun must be the “helicopter” crazies they keep reading about in the Times. I spend A LOT of time in NY and yes, I have personally heard them use that term as in, “they/he must be one of those (black) helicopter people we keep hearing about.”
The irony lost on this hair brained intellectual is that we could create an exceedinlgy “safe” state as has been done many times in history. Take the airport security template and duplicate it at the local, state and federal level, we usually refer to this as a “police-state.” Some people are so smart, so educated, so intellectual they can’t see how vacuous and ill-conceived their ideas are. Or maybe they do and they just don’t care because their real agenda is something else. I am betting the latter. Nobody smart can be that stupid.
The only way for the government to ensure you are completely safe is for each person to have a cop follow them around with a gun to their head, in case they do something illegal. And each cop would have another cop with a gun to his head, just in case. And that cop would have a cop with a gun to his head…
So essentially society would be a circle of cops holding a gun to the head of the person on their right, and having a gun held on their head by the person to the left. Note that everyone in this society is armed too.
Hey, it worked for Judge Dredd.
I’m for concealed carry on airplanes. Can you imagine someone choosing to hijack a plane knowing that the passengers are armed?
What it comes down to is that people who don’t trust others with weapons are projecting their distrust of themselves and/or their fear of the notion of taking personal responsibility for their safety.
I’m not. Unless we start making antipersonnel ammo that’s safe in an aircraft, its a bad idea.
‘Planes are special, for purely physical reasons. A pressurized, stressed hull, miles of wire and lots of hydraulics – AND eight miles up.
Literally one particularly unfortunate shot and you’ve got an aluminum rock with a couple hundred people inside making for the dirt at seven miles a minute.
No, air marshals are the way to go – and they shoud be checked out on the particular type of ‘plane they’re to guard, so they have at least some idea where not to shoot.
I’m also in favor of the pilot having a panic switch that fills the cabin with a contact sleep agent.
I’ve been down this avenue of discussion before with NUMEROUS friends and professional contacts over the years who are the engineers designing, building, and most importantly… testing today’s aircraft. Bullet holes causing catastrophic depressurization or failure like you describe is pure BS by their unanimous estimation. There isn’t a single critical system on a modern airliner that can be taken out at a single point of failure, including the pilot.
A bullet hole, will cause depressurization, although _probably_ not catastrophic, it will force the pilot to emergency dive the airplane to below 10000ft, lest anyone not be caught properly securing their oxygen mask or in the lavatory.
There’s also news of the recent idiot that tried to open the emergency exit: http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/passenger-open-emergency-exit-door-alaska-airlines-flight/story?id=19265714
Mace and pepper spray on planes; also not ok by me. Tasers, stun guns, and pocket knifes, I think are perfectly acceptable unless someone can give me a reason otherwise.
I’d like to force Dawidoff to stay in one of the bad neighborhoods of Chicago for a week…
A bullet hole may not depressurize an airplane, but it may depressurize the good guy sitting behind the bad guy.
I favor handing out steel pipes to all capable passengers as they board.
Pointing out a possible issue with “CC guns on planes” as a safety concept: 10 terrorists all get a CCW (a stretch, but playing in mind theater here anyway) thye book a flight cross country, and all get on the plane with their loaded Polymer wonder pistol plus 2 spare magazines. No big deal. then they all hand their 3 magazine to one guy, he takes it all to the bathroom, and decaps all the bullets to get about (15 rounds x 3 x 10, 450 rounds, 8gr of powder per load) 3600gr of powder (half a pound)… Could a pipe bomb made in such a way take down an airplane?
The 1st amendment gives him the right to say pretty much anything, but if the 2nd amendment is destroyed, the 1st amendment will meet its demise as well. I am sure when this whole Bill of Rights thing falls apart, he is going to do what the Germans did at the end of WWII: He will claim he didn’t know and was just following orders.
I can’t help but feel he is not being sincere.
and this clown has a college degree??? from where back of a box of cap’n crunch
A college degree hasn’t meant anything for about 40 years now.
Speaking of the NFL…
What’s up with the “OMG! Athletes have guns!” stories I’ve seen occasionally over the last few years?
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2012/12/06/jovan-belcher-kansas-city-chief-nfl-guns/1752195/
http://fifthdown.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/the-nfl-gun-culture/
As per the last story, the NFL officially discourages players from owning firearms:
In some circumstances, such as for sport or protection, you may legally possess a firearm or other weapon. However, we strongly recommend that you not do so.
I’m not at all into sports myself, so does anyone have some insight as to why pro athletes owning firearms is even an issue, as opposed to, say, plumbers?
Player demographics perhaps?
Owners, agents, and NFL executives don’t want their beef injured – bad for business – unless it happens on camera. Same reason they forbid extreme sports, motorcycles, etc.
The late Sean Taylor, could he speak, would remind us all that he was disarmed by a court, and died because he was forced to take on four armed intruders with a machete.
In the eyes of every criminal, every NFL player is as rich as Croesus, and a potential source of loot.
In reality, many rookies and special teams players only make a little over $500K.
NFL disarmament issues aside, even if such a rookie/special teams player only has a 4 year career, he’s made $2 million. Properly managed, that should have him at least decently well off for the rest of his life.
Perhaps, for limited definitions of “decently well off” and an exceptional definition of “properly managed”. And if he paid no income taxes on those $2M in earnings…
Presuming:
* $2M principal
* 10% annual earnings, every single year
* 25% paid in income taxes (withdrawn earnings only, of course)
* $125k spent the first year
* 2% annual inflation
That $2M is gone in about 42 years. If he plays for 4 years right out of college (starting at 21?), his money is gone by age 63.
I certainly wouldn’t call that “decently well off”. At best, I’d call it “comfortable middle class, flat broke at actual retirement age”.
Oops – the above isn’t quite right. It presumes that the pre-tax amount principal drop is always 133% of the annual spending. That’s not right, of course, once we start eating into the principal. The taxes should only be calculated on the minimum of earnings and withdrawn amount.
With that fix (all other things the same), you could take out $130k in 2013 dollars until age 76.
And what if he tightens his belt and gets by on a paltry $100,000/yr?
Guess if all else fails he’ll have to break down and get a job like the rest of us losers.
Another one: this guy has the soft urbanized metro-sexual male look to his face and of course he is anti-gun.
There’s not much use to quoting anyone from the New York area (according to Wikipedia, Dawidoff was born in NYC, raised in New Haven – which is the same thing, politically speaking – and returned to NYC after college). 95 out of 100 are political idiots, especially on topics like guns.
Parts of New Haven are at least as dangerous as any NYC hood, but it’s obvious that dipshit was never mugged.
I found a better picture of Mr. Dawidoff .
It is this. *
Reminds me of my cat when it is walking away.
Thank God for the First Amendment. It helps us easily identify the complete idiots as soon as they open their mouths.
True, true.
I saw a bumper sticker the other day: “If only closed minds came with closed mouths.”
I’m sure that Dawidoff wonders why flyover country despises him and everything he stands for. Maybe he should read his own writing. Smug, smarmy and petulant — the stench of New York rising up from him is overpowering.
You can be sure he never even thinks about what people in flyover country are thinking. And if he tried to imagine, he wouldn’t be able to. There’s no more provincial place in the country than NYC.
I doubt it. More likely is that he wonders why us stupid, uneducated rednecks just don’t “get it”.
The ‘fly over’ bit amuses me. Since nearly all the food production, minerals, railroads, petroleum, military units, skilled engineering researchers, manufacturing, medical research, and and secure data storage are somewhere else, we could quarantine NYC over a three-day bank holiday and just keeping on keeping on. We wouldn’t even need to fly over NYC. NYC could disappear and Google, Amazon, Apple, and MS would be fine. It doesn’t work the other way around. I wonder if they’ve noticed? Other than the banks (which can be ported electronically) we don’t need NYC for anything. Securitizations would take a hit, but who cares? It would just eliminate the big skim.
Snarky comments are not arguments.
Quips do not equal relevant points.
Show me your facts of STFU.
THIS.
Then just let me put an apple on your head & shoot it off with a Benjamin Rogue, I’m sure I won’t miss, maybe. The beauty part of all this is he’s not packin, Randy
Regarding his NFL idea, gun grabbers don’t want offense and defense armed. Just offense. I wonder in whose favor the game would always go. Sucks being on defense.
Excellent point.
Gungrabbers can’t even make sarcastic comments without losing the argument.
we could have the A/C issue approved fragmenting ammo to all CCW holders….
Lets Face it, No one totally trusts civilians with weapons.
just a fact
wonder if he’s ever complained about TSA cavity checks.
I’d imagine he thinks TSA gropedowns keep him safe from yokels like us. Plus it’s FREE SEX.
I don’t mind the patdown as long as they buy me a couple of drinks. And a guy likes a little sweet talk.
I think you guys may need to lighten up a little bit, It’s an obvious farce and it’s a decently funny one at that. I think the perceived lack of a sense of humor kind of alienates people who aren’t with us and it’s something we should be willing to laugh about when they aren’t just flat-out being a douchebag saying “Nice Mossmaster AR33 machinepistol faget now that’s what I call a compensator hahaha I’m so better than you scum kill yourself.” If everybody starts insulting people who make jokes, then the entire pro-gun side will come off as cold, crotchety old men that nobody has much of a reason to like other than they have cool stuff at their house. That’s not exactly how you win hearts and minds in a massive sociopolitical debate.
“If everybody starts insulting people who make jokes, then the entire pro-gun side will come off as cold, crotchety old men that nobody has much of a reason to like other than they have cool stuff at their house. ”
Lighten up? You’ve got us all wrong. We know he’s only kidding. We’re just joking too–trying to return a little of the light-hearted levity oozing from the core of Dawidoff’s piece.
He’s not kidding. He’s a Progressive. Fvck him.
Insult a Southerner or country cousin and you get NYT op-ed space. Insult a NYC minority and you lose your job, chance at tenure, promotion. Sure, nothing wrong with some culturally bigoted snark, right? One-way streets are so New York. I’ll save my sense of humor for tomorrow, when I read the plan to work off our National Debt. The mavens at the New York Fed can’t even figure out how to keep markets alive without QE X, but guns are funny? When finance tanks, NYC sends the bill to fly-over country. When fly-over country tanks, NYC says, “sure I’ll help… for 10% of all aid and priority in bankruptcy court!”
We will ‘keep fighting the good fight’, Nick Dorkn’dork, we will.
Please control your emotional GHAY responses!
Wussy Face is just another momma/cat raised slow soakin drownin type one hold down fewr 12