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No-draw Magaw (un-elected and unaccountable )
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
No-draw Magaw
Posted: May 27, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern
c 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
With a stroke of the pen, one un-elected and unaccountable federal bureaucrat ? whose name may not be familiar to you ? recently ruled that airline pilots may not keep firearms in their cockpits.
His name is John Magaw, or, as I call him, "No-Draw Magaw."
Magaw's newest job is Transportation Security Administration director.
Last week, Magaw told the U.S. Senate that pilots don't need guns. He told the Senate pilots would be better off concentrating on flying their planes. He told the Senate he is considering allowing pilots to carry stun guns or collapsible metal batons.
Sen. George Allen, R-Va., asked the obvious question about how the tragic and devastating events of Sept. 11 might have been recast without such restrictions imposed on responsible airline pilots, most of whom are trained in the military.
"If they had firearms, if they had a pistol to defend themselves or their plane, would that have made a difference?"
Here is the incomprehensible, elusive, nonsensical response from Magaw: "Well it may have, but that's a lot different today than it was then."
Hello? Earth to No-Draw: Don't the American people deserve a slightly better explanation than that? Don't the victims of Sept. 11 deserve a slightly more thoughtful response? Don't the families of those victims in both the planes and the buildings deserve some straight talk?
Let me tell you a little more about No-Draw Magaw and his career path to what has become a critically important post in this security-conscious age of international terrorism.
On April 19, 1995, Magaw was director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. You may remember that date in history. It was the day the Oklahoma City federal building was bombed.
"I was very concerned about that day and issued memos to all our field offices," Magaw explained. "They were put on the alert."
As a result of that alert, no ATF field agents in the Murrah Building were killed or injured ? even though they were the apparent target of the bombing. No one else in the building got any warning, so 168 men, women and children were killed. But no ATF agent got a scratch. Magaw did a great job of protecting his own that day, but he didn't do much to protect innocent civilians.
The next time I heard about John Magaw was a year later. In 1996, Congress passed a contemptible piece of legislation known as the "Gun Free Zones Act." It created a 1,000-foot "gun-free" zone around every school in America ? thus ensuring the Columbines to come.
But No-Draw Magaw, still the ATF director, interpreted this law in an amazingly broad fashion ? one that betrayed his persona as a gun-grabbing activist rather than a responsible public official serving the best interest of the taxpayers and under the authority of the U.S. Constitution.
Magaw expressed the opinion in writing to at least one member of Congress that "schools," in the case of the "Gun Free Zones Act," included "home schools" that are operated under state law. In other words, Magaw decided it was against the law for home-schooling families to own guns and equally illegal for gun-owners to home-school.
That wasn't the end of the No-Draw Magaw saga. In 1999, President Clinton appointed Magaw to another powerful and sensitive position ? coordinating domestic terrorism efforts for the federal Emergency Management Agency. In other words, No-Draw was instrumental in planning national policy to prevent terrorism two years prior to the biggest terrorist assault in world history.
We know now, of course, that Clinton's anti-terrorism efforts were all devoted to rooting out an imaginary threat from Christian, right-wing, anti-government militia types. Islamist threats were systematically overlooked.
Why did Magaw keep getting these big jobs during the Clinton administration? No-Draw was a favorite of the former president. Before getting the job at BATF, he served as director of Clinton's Secret Service. Imagine the secrets such a man will take to the grave.
Of course, that may explain why he got such posts during the Clinton years. What else explains his continued prominence as a virtual dictator of command-and-control-style national security policy during the Bush administration?
Americans may elect new members of Congress. They may elect new presidents. But they can never, it seems, change the names and faces of the permanent federal bureaucracy, which, ultimately has more negative impact on our rights and liberties than all three of the supposedly accountable branches of government combined.
That's the sad state of American self-government today. As many as 95 percent of Americans may back the common-sense idea of guns in the cockpit, but the permanent government can simply flout the will of the people. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27753
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Posted: May 27, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern
c 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
With a stroke of the pen, one un-elected and unaccountable federal bureaucrat ? whose name may not be familiar to you ? recently ruled that airline pilots may not keep firearms in their cockpits.
His name is John Magaw, or, as I call him, "No-Draw Magaw."
Magaw's newest job is Transportation Security Administration director.
Last week, Magaw told the U.S. Senate that pilots don't need guns. He told the Senate pilots would be better off concentrating on flying their planes. He told the Senate he is considering allowing pilots to carry stun guns or collapsible metal batons.
Sen. George Allen, R-Va., asked the obvious question about how the tragic and devastating events of Sept. 11 might have been recast without such restrictions imposed on responsible airline pilots, most of whom are trained in the military.
"If they had firearms, if they had a pistol to defend themselves or their plane, would that have made a difference?"
Here is the incomprehensible, elusive, nonsensical response from Magaw: "Well it may have, but that's a lot different today than it was then."
Hello? Earth to No-Draw: Don't the American people deserve a slightly better explanation than that? Don't the victims of Sept. 11 deserve a slightly more thoughtful response? Don't the families of those victims in both the planes and the buildings deserve some straight talk?
Let me tell you a little more about No-Draw Magaw and his career path to what has become a critically important post in this security-conscious age of international terrorism.
On April 19, 1995, Magaw was director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. You may remember that date in history. It was the day the Oklahoma City federal building was bombed.
"I was very concerned about that day and issued memos to all our field offices," Magaw explained. "They were put on the alert."
As a result of that alert, no ATF field agents in the Murrah Building were killed or injured ? even though they were the apparent target of the bombing. No one else in the building got any warning, so 168 men, women and children were killed. But no ATF agent got a scratch. Magaw did a great job of protecting his own that day, but he didn't do much to protect innocent civilians.
The next time I heard about John Magaw was a year later. In 1996, Congress passed a contemptible piece of legislation known as the "Gun Free Zones Act." It created a 1,000-foot "gun-free" zone around every school in America ? thus ensuring the Columbines to come.
But No-Draw Magaw, still the ATF director, interpreted this law in an amazingly broad fashion ? one that betrayed his persona as a gun-grabbing activist rather than a responsible public official serving the best interest of the taxpayers and under the authority of the U.S. Constitution.
Magaw expressed the opinion in writing to at least one member of Congress that "schools," in the case of the "Gun Free Zones Act," included "home schools" that are operated under state law. In other words, Magaw decided it was against the law for home-schooling families to own guns and equally illegal for gun-owners to home-school.
That wasn't the end of the No-Draw Magaw saga. In 1999, President Clinton appointed Magaw to another powerful and sensitive position ? coordinating domestic terrorism efforts for the federal Emergency Management Agency. In other words, No-Draw was instrumental in planning national policy to prevent terrorism two years prior to the biggest terrorist assault in world history.
We know now, of course, that Clinton's anti-terrorism efforts were all devoted to rooting out an imaginary threat from Christian, right-wing, anti-government militia types. Islamist threats were systematically overlooked.
Why did Magaw keep getting these big jobs during the Clinton administration? No-Draw was a favorite of the former president. Before getting the job at BATF, he served as director of Clinton's Secret Service. Imagine the secrets such a man will take to the grave.
Of course, that may explain why he got such posts during the Clinton years. What else explains his continued prominence as a virtual dictator of command-and-control-style national security policy during the Bush administration?
Americans may elect new members of Congress. They may elect new presidents. But they can never, it seems, change the names and faces of the permanent federal bureaucracy, which, ultimately has more negative impact on our rights and liberties than all three of the supposedly accountable branches of government combined.
That's the sad state of American self-government today. As many as 95 percent of Americans may back the common-sense idea of guns in the cockpit, but the permanent government can simply flout the will of the people. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27753
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
Comments
Posted: May 27, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern
c 2002 WorldNetDaily.com
"If hijackers are able to force themselves into the cockpit, all that pilots have to prevent the plane from being turned into a cruise missile is a crash ax, a flashlight and a flight manual."
That's what David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association had to say while endorsing pilots carrying guns in the cockpit. Oh, now I feel safe.
I say, give the pilot an "armed seat." If the cockpit door is broken open, the pilot pushes a button and the back of the seat would let go with a fatal blast, killing the terrorist SOB.
Never mind that thousands of lives are at risk from air terrorism. John Magaw, undersecretary of transportation security, with Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta hiding behind him, told a senate committee that pilots don't need guns. In fact, Magaw said he decided they will not have them.
I repeat what I said last September: If pilots are denied this one last chance to save lives, they should strike. Now. There's no requirement they sacrifice their lives for their job.
Remember, the same government refusing guns for pilots has decided that if a terrorist does get into the cockpit, the government will order the plane shot down, killing everyone!
Please explain where it says on my ticket that when I board the flight, I put my life in the hands of a Washington bureaucrat with his finger on the "fire" button.
I hope intrepid trial lawyers are loading their legal ammo for the lawsuits with Magaw's name on them the next time a plane is hijacked.
And there will be a next time if you listen to Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al. It's one doomsday headline after another from these men telling us it's not if, just when, and we can't prevent it.
They speak for the government. But it's the primary job of government to protect citizens, first within our borders and then beyond.
The warnings we're getting, with all the gloom and doom of Armageddon, is that when this apocalypse happens, it will be here, on our home turf.
OK. If that is the case, then what's wrong with taking all means to protect ourselves?
How safe are we?
Despite all the hoo haa, ever since Sept. 11, people have gotten past airline security with guns, knives, swords and all other kinds of possible weapons.
Bolstered with their new importance as "government employees," airport security workers feel free to search people arbitrarily, practice rudeness, get too personal with body searches, waste time on the wrong people and manhandle personal belongings.
Airport employment checks across the country have shown high numbers of employees who weren't American citizens, lied on their applications, used false ID's and had criminal records. These were people doing security checks and maintenance people with access to planes. Any of them could hide a weapon or bomb onboard, if that was their intent.
They should have been fired, but no! Excuses were found. As for citizenship, it's in the works now to speed up legalizing them. Wait a minute! Why the special treatment?
Just what is the line between us and terrorists who may try to pull another hijacking horror similar to 9-11?
If you listen to the administration ? Well, if you listen to the administration, what you hear is that "we just don't know."
So what's the problem with Magaw and Mineta?
You have a plane filled with people, cargo and fuel and flying at high altitude and speed. Terrorists take over. It doesn't matter whether they have box cutters, guns, bombs or nail clippers. At some point, they get into the cockpit.
If they get that far, clearly the rest of the people in the plane couldn't stop them. At that moment, life and death are in balance between the terrorist at the door and the pilots.
What do they do? According to the guys safe on the ground and protected by armed security people ? "just fly the plane."
Are those pilots ? educated, trained, experienced, responsible and with a desire to live to get home to their families ? able to defend themselves and the hundreds whose lives they have in their hands?
No. Because John Magaw has decided ? no guns.
It makes as much sense as police without guns or a disarmed Secret Service. In fact, it makes as much sense as telling citizens they can't defend their homes with a gun.
It's not about stopping terrorism ? it's about guns and the attempt to disarm all Americans. It shows how little value bureaucrats put on our lives and how pitiful is the war on terrorism.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27756
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878