Yesterday, I went to pick up my tickets for Dope-A-Ween. I had to go to Hobby Airport, because that’s the closest Southwest ticket agent.
I don’t have a television, nor do I go out of my way to find a place that has one, so what I know comes from the newspaper or the radio. I’d read in the paper that Gov. Perry had ordered National Guardsmen to patrol the major airports to ensure safety. I understood that.
I was not prepared to actually see these men. They were wearing full camoflage and carried M-16 rifles on their backs. They walked in between the check-in and security check lines single-file. They walked purposefully and seriously. When I saw them, a frisson went through my spine and I knew that what happened on Sept. 11 was real.
When you don’t see something, it’s easy to get into a kind of denial and admit that something happened, but that it doesn’t affect you. Being forced to watch soldiers in camo with rifles in my hometown airport affected me. This is an event that I saw on CNN, in third-world countries with insurrections. This is not supposed to happen in MY country.
I know exactly how you feel. There are Guardsmen in eight Oklahoma airports and it’s just weird/eerie/wrong to see them patroling Will Rogers World Airport or Tulsa International.
Even more surreal to see the ones in Stillwater’s airport, where the only big planes we get are Fed Ex.
IMO, they should have silenced MP-10s. Smaller, less power to go through walls (and multiple targets), and quieter. Or maybe MP-5s, if they 10mm ammo is too much trouble.
Just a thought…seeing trained military personnel carrying weapons in a public place is alot less disturbing to me than thinking about the millions of hoodlums carrying concealed weapons, due to our nation’s ludicrous gun-craze. No other developed nation has the love affair with guns that the U.S. continues to have.
Sorry about the hijack. I can relate to your feelings, MsRobyn. I keep wishing I could wake up and find that 9/11 was just a nightmare. I simply cannot deal with the scope of the misery associated with the 9/11 events. It will take years for much of that horror to “sink in”.
I think that if you ran the numbers, less than one percent of the firearms in the U.S. are used criminally. I ran the numbers provided by Time back in the 80s (who got their numbers from the government) and at the time 99.987% of the privately owned firearms in the U.S. were not used criminally.
It’s not the tools, it’s the people who use them. The American culture is different from other cultures. Even if all of the guns in the world suddenly disappeared, there would still be violence. The murders of September 11th were not carried out with guns. The Oklahoma killings were not carried out with guns. Most mass-murderers do not use guns to commit their crimes.
You want to reduce crime? Then increase hope. Educated people tend not to commit crimes. Increase education and people will be equipped to make an honest living. They’ll have hope. Crime will go down.
Being Pro-Choice, I support your choice not to own firearms. I expect others to support my choice to do so.
Trappings of a police state rarely bother socialists. What about racism?
The leftist obsession with gun control is little more than casuistry. It is misplaced outrage at a “problem” that does not really exist. Guns are one of the few things that, when properly utilized, can help keep you safe. The recent knifings in California should have slowed this irrational liberal drumbeat somewhat, but no.
I won’t bother with the Second Amendment, tyrrany, riots, rape, feminsism, or any of the other arguments militating for private gun ownership.
<<IMO, they should have silenced MP-10s. Smaller, less power to go through walls (and multiple targets), and quieter. Or maybe MP-5s, if they 10mm ammo is too much trouble.>>
All well and good, but impractical on short notice. Speaking as a unit commander of one of the units directly affected, we had less than a week to call these guys up, ensure they were all currently qualified on their personal weapons, had their Civil Defense training requirements up to date, get them in front of FAA trainers for two or three days of classes, arrange for transportation to the airports, arrange for lodging for soldiers who lived more than 50 miles away from the airports, and contract with local vendors all over Florida to provide meals. The MP 10s and MP 5’s are simply not in the system in sufficient numbers to be practical, even if they could be transported to the units in time for us to contract for a firing range, and run a qualification. There are few qualified instructors on these weapons. The NCO’s don’t know how to zero them.
I wasn’t too comfortable with putting the M16 rifle in that context because of the penetrating power of the weapon. But in the end, we had to go with what we had. I don’t want to put troops in the field with weapons with which they’re unfamiliar.
If there should be an attack, I don’t want them trying to remember how to perform immediate action on a hastily zeroed weapon. I want them concentrating on a good sight picture.
Despite the fact that I haven’t been to a airport since 9/11, I do know exactly the feeling you’re describing. A couple of years back, I went to Israel. This was between periods of terrorisim, and at the time, Israel was judged to be just about as safe as it was ever going to be. It’s one thing when you hear from friends that soldiers just sort of hang out in uniforms and with guns all around the place, it’s a totaly different thing to see it. At first, it was a bit awkward having the guy in front of me in the buffet being in army fatigues who looked like he could kill the rest of the people in the room even without that enormous gun he was carying. You see, people who are in active duty in the Israeli Defense Forces are required to keep their weapon(s) with them at all times. This means that every Israeli man between the ages of 18 and 21 was carying around a gun. Ok…perhaps not ever man, there are some situations where people aren’t required to be in the army. But most Israeli teens grow up knowing that they’re going to be in the army after they finish high school. After a while I got used to the people with the guns. They were nice people, and they were there serving their country, to make it save for everyone who lived/visited it.
I went to Haifa, Israel when I was in the Navy, and I saw soldiers on every corner with Uzis. I actually felt safe.
But the point is, this was to be expected. Israel has always been in the difficult position of having to defend themselves against terrorists. The United States, prior to 1993, had not had this problem. We’re not used to soldiers living in our midst. So to see these men in the airport was pretty jarring.
Is insulting, wrong, and pit-worthy. You have just labeled millions of law-abiding citizens as criminals. You are part of the reason why so many people consider gun-control advocates to be dangerous fanatics.
I agree. I’m presumably one of the “hoodlums” of which you speak. I own more than one gun, and can shoot each of them quite competently.
Just because you don’t approve of guns is no reason to characterize millions of people who are perfectly within their rights to carry a gun as “hoodlums.”
Listen, you think it’s weird seeing the National Guard posted at Tulsa’s airport? You oughta see the National Guardsmen posted at Decatur’s airport–all three of 'em.
Tulsa’s is disconcerting. It’s Stillwater’s that’s weird.
We don’t even have daily shuttle flights. Private planes and stuff like Fed-Ex. At least they posted a couple of guards. That has to be a dull ass detail. For which I’m sure they’re both grateful and bored with.
