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Fear and loathing at 30,000 feet
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Fear and loathing at 30,000 feet
Ken Hamblin
Sunday, July 21, 2002 - If the American anti-Second Amendment movement has achieved anything at all, it has been the ability to malign entire groups of people by painting them as unworthy to have access to legal firearms.
Decades of bombastic dialog with members of fanatic gun-control organizations have impressed a basic truth on me.
That is that members of the all-knowing anti-firearms coalition don't believe any individual or group of Americans, from sports hunters to police officers, are to be trusted with guns.
Over the years, Americans have looked on in amazement while anti-firearms campaigners like the Million Moms marchers have coagulated in cities across our nation for what they believe to be a good cause.
No one can convince me their cause is anything but a complete ban on every American's constitutional birthright to own firearms.
The newest group of people to fall under the propaganda of fear and loathing so masterfully used by the anti-Second Amendment clique are American commercial airline pilots.
Desperate to keep legislation from becoming law that would authorize airline pilots to arm themselves as the last line of defense in the event of another Sept. 11-type attack, the anti-firearms contingent has sought and gotten help from a powerful benefactor: The New York Times.
Carl Limbacher, writing for NewsMax.com, recently reported a story under the tag "The story behind the story." It was headlined, "Times Continues Spin Against Arming Pilots."
"The New York Times has found a reason to oppose the bill arming airline pilots," Limbacher wrote. "It would (gasp) upset trial lawyers.
"Not satisfied with its attempt to manipulate public opinion against arming pilots
... the fanatically anti-gun New York Times went back to the well again
... with a so-called news analysis aimed at the bill calling for arming airline pilots in cockpits, citing concerns by trial lawyers, of all people, that the legislation might limit their ability to sue both airlines and pilots.
" "The House-passed bill,' the Times whines, "would drastically limit the legal liability of airlines, for example, shielding them even from negligence not involving guns or terrorism, said some critics of the bill.' "
The Times noted the bill would deputize pilots who volunteered to be federal law enforcement officers.
Times reporter Adam Liptak drummed home the point that pilots who volunteered themselves as the final line of defense between the flight deck and the next crazy man seeking to commandeer it would receive free training and firearms from the government.
Imagine that.
Obviously the intention of people like Kristin Rand of the anti-gun Violence Policy Center is to try to discredit commercial airline pilots by using every means of disinformation possible.
Rand was quoted by The Times: "The airlines' liability waiver is incredibly broad and could be read to relate to circumstances not related to guns, even if it's forgetting to set the * at takeoff."
While it is easy for me to attribute Rand's remarks to her ignorance about the automated systems and human skills involved in getting an airplane into the sky, it is impossible for me to forgive The Times, with its pool of aviation experts a telephone call away, to allow such a nonsensical statement.
A hard truth for Rand, and the opinion makers at the venerable New York Times as well, to face is that the legacy from Osama bin Laden is either salvation or death in the sky.
For if the best-laid plans of our government fail to rise to the occasion, and control of the passenger cabin falls into the hands of another gang of terrorists, the conclusion would most certainly again be death for all souls on board - either death by the actions of the terrorists, should they achieve their goal, or perhaps worse yet, death at the remorseful hand of an American military pilot following the president's order to bring down the commandeered aircraft.
Either way you cut it, it could be another grim scenario.
However, instead of praising those pilots willing to step up to the plate to offer themselves as a last desperate line of defense, The Times has given credibility to alarmists like Rand who seem to believe the passengers in the above situation will be able to appeal to the milk of human kindness in the terrorists, or better yet, the president would somehow be dissuaded from giving the order to shoot down an American aircraft.
For what it's worth, I think it's a liberal scenario up there with "Goldilocks and the Three Bears."
Ken Hamblin (bac@compuserve.com) ; www.hamblin.com writes Sundays in The Post and hosts a syndicated radio talk show.
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~10431~742881~,00.html
"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
Ken Hamblin
Sunday, July 21, 2002 - If the American anti-Second Amendment movement has achieved anything at all, it has been the ability to malign entire groups of people by painting them as unworthy to have access to legal firearms.
Decades of bombastic dialog with members of fanatic gun-control organizations have impressed a basic truth on me.
That is that members of the all-knowing anti-firearms coalition don't believe any individual or group of Americans, from sports hunters to police officers, are to be trusted with guns.
Over the years, Americans have looked on in amazement while anti-firearms campaigners like the Million Moms marchers have coagulated in cities across our nation for what they believe to be a good cause.
No one can convince me their cause is anything but a complete ban on every American's constitutional birthright to own firearms.
The newest group of people to fall under the propaganda of fear and loathing so masterfully used by the anti-Second Amendment clique are American commercial airline pilots.
Desperate to keep legislation from becoming law that would authorize airline pilots to arm themselves as the last line of defense in the event of another Sept. 11-type attack, the anti-firearms contingent has sought and gotten help from a powerful benefactor: The New York Times.
Carl Limbacher, writing for NewsMax.com, recently reported a story under the tag "The story behind the story." It was headlined, "Times Continues Spin Against Arming Pilots."
"The New York Times has found a reason to oppose the bill arming airline pilots," Limbacher wrote. "It would (gasp) upset trial lawyers.
"Not satisfied with its attempt to manipulate public opinion against arming pilots
... the fanatically anti-gun New York Times went back to the well again
... with a so-called news analysis aimed at the bill calling for arming airline pilots in cockpits, citing concerns by trial lawyers, of all people, that the legislation might limit their ability to sue both airlines and pilots.
" "The House-passed bill,' the Times whines, "would drastically limit the legal liability of airlines, for example, shielding them even from negligence not involving guns or terrorism, said some critics of the bill.' "
The Times noted the bill would deputize pilots who volunteered to be federal law enforcement officers.
Times reporter Adam Liptak drummed home the point that pilots who volunteered themselves as the final line of defense between the flight deck and the next crazy man seeking to commandeer it would receive free training and firearms from the government.
Imagine that.
Obviously the intention of people like Kristin Rand of the anti-gun Violence Policy Center is to try to discredit commercial airline pilots by using every means of disinformation possible.
Rand was quoted by The Times: "The airlines' liability waiver is incredibly broad and could be read to relate to circumstances not related to guns, even if it's forgetting to set the * at takeoff."
While it is easy for me to attribute Rand's remarks to her ignorance about the automated systems and human skills involved in getting an airplane into the sky, it is impossible for me to forgive The Times, with its pool of aviation experts a telephone call away, to allow such a nonsensical statement.
A hard truth for Rand, and the opinion makers at the venerable New York Times as well, to face is that the legacy from Osama bin Laden is either salvation or death in the sky.
For if the best-laid plans of our government fail to rise to the occasion, and control of the passenger cabin falls into the hands of another gang of terrorists, the conclusion would most certainly again be death for all souls on board - either death by the actions of the terrorists, should they achieve their goal, or perhaps worse yet, death at the remorseful hand of an American military pilot following the president's order to bring down the commandeered aircraft.
Either way you cut it, it could be another grim scenario.
However, instead of praising those pilots willing to step up to the plate to offer themselves as a last desperate line of defense, The Times has given credibility to alarmists like Rand who seem to believe the passengers in the above situation will be able to appeal to the milk of human kindness in the terrorists, or better yet, the president would somehow be dissuaded from giving the order to shoot down an American aircraft.
For what it's worth, I think it's a liberal scenario up there with "Goldilocks and the Three Bears."
Ken Hamblin (bac@compuserve.com) ; www.hamblin.com writes Sundays in The Post and hosts a syndicated radio talk show.
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~10431~742881~,00.html
"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