Sometimes Good Morning America serves as the bane of my positive outlook on Americans in general.
All my Christmas shopping is finished, I don’t have to be in my office for a month, and I woke up generally feeling good this morning. Then I see the Good Morning America Camera man stopping people in Central Park to ask how they feel about the Terror alert being raised. Most say that they don’t feel anything…“It goes up every Christmas” one man said.
Then the camera man caught this young woman yelling at an armed police officer.
“<snip>…Why do you have a machine gun? This isn’t Israel! Fascist!..<snip>”
I almost spilled my coffee! Why on earth would you say something so blatently ignorant, so obtuse! I wish I could play over and over the replay of the planes smashing into the twin towers for you so you could remember that we are still at war little miss! We have not defeated those who are still out for your and my blood! Do you not understand that?! I know you just walked out of Macy’s and are a little shell shocked to see a man with a machine gun patrolling the streets, but seriously! Come on now!!! He is carrying that machine gun for YOU!
YOU SHOULD BE THANKING HIM, HE IS RISKING HIS LIFE TO SAVE YOUR SORRY UNGRATEFULL ASS!!!
People like this Piss Me Off!!! ERRRRRRRRRRR!!@!!!@%#^#%
In my experience people with machine guns rarely have a sense of humor. I would never yell at them. Never mind the fact that this person is there for her protection.
In 1996 I traveled to Europe and saw many police officers in the Zurich airport with machine guns. All this time I thought they were there to deter hijackers. I didn’t realize they were fascists. Learn something new every day.
As an Israeli, I don’t know whether or not I should feel insulted.
Although if I saw soldiers walking around with actual machine guns - and not assault rifles or sub-machine guns - then I guess I’d feel nervous myself.
I used to work on Old Bailey (the street) in London, in an office building opposite the Central Criminal Court. Due to the number of high-profile trials there, security was taken very seriously, with armed officers halting all traffic in the surrounding streets while prisoners were brought in.
One afternoon I was walking to the office from St Paul’s station, a few feet behind a very well-dressed gentlemen having a conversation (no, not loud and rude) on his mobile. Clearly one of the directors or partners at my company, I thought.
Anyway, the street had been sealed for a prison van to deliver someone (don’t know who). Police with nasty looking Heckler & Koch submachine-guns were holding back passers-by and traffic. This partner/director glances contemptuously at the scene, and attempts to stride through.
At which point three SMG-armed police officers appear in front of him, haranguing him loudly about common sense and not disobeying the instructions of police officers, particularly those with submachine-guns.
Had to have been a tourist–New Yorkers have been used to gun-toting officers in the subway for the last two years. Heck, I’m a little annoyed because we don’t have a visible machine-gun toting cop presence in the DC metro, but we do have searches and harrassment at the Smithsonian museums.
[the Onion] When are we going to stop calling it the Mideast Crisis and just start calling it the Mideast Culture?[/the Onion] Alessan, you shouldn’t feel insulted. The woman was clearly ill informed on several fronts. [ul]1. They were most likely AR-15’s or H&Ks
2. Someone should sit her down and give her a short history lesson as to why Isreal and Fascism don’t blend.
3. The next history lesson would be 9/11
4. As stated above, don’t yell at the well armed.[/ul]
I really hope a video link shows up on the net.
Like **crusoe[/]b said, even here in little old Britain there are police armed with sub machine guns in the city, airports etc. I don’t have a problem with it - they are there to protect, and they carry a lot of responsibility along with that gun.
Exactly! I think maybe she was a student…Not sure of course, but I know the anti-war groups at my school get pretty robust. I had a student just before the Iraq war ask my why I had an American Flag up in my Office.
Actually, this gives me hope for our freedom. A woman feels unthreatened enough that she yelled at an officer holding a machine gun. Sadly, she doesn’t realize just how good she has it that she can do that.
For some reason this reminds me of an idiot protester I saw on MTV once. She was rambling on about whatever cause she was supporting and then yelled, “We need to get Congress and the Senate to vote for this!!!” Oh god, what’s the point of being a political activist if you don’t even understand how your government works?
NurseCarmen, I agree with what you said. However, I would like to think that any well trained police officer would be level headed enough to deal sensibly with a woman yelling at him… I doubt the lady was in any danger
Some cops carry shotguns, rifles, and/or submachine guns. When I was in Europe (leaving Amsterdam) I met two nice police officers armed with H&K assault rifles and a BIG German shepherd. That was almost 20 years ago. Smart me: “sorry, doggie, nothing is in there.” My eyes and general demeanor said “yes,” but my luggage and physical person said “no.”
Back then, they wouldn’t blood test you to make an arrest.
That’s not exactly true, to be honest. I travel quite a bit around Europe and the US. The only place where visible machine gun-toting characters can be found is the US, in my experience. I’m not saying they’re nowhere to be found in Europe, but most blatant display of weapons I see on this side of the pond is airport security personnel with holstered hand guns. In the US, the national guard is quite visible at some airports, carrying machine guns (though I’m not sure if this is any longer the case, or perhaps it’s again the case, what with the code orange and all). For understandable reasons, and I have no problem with it, mind you. But the notion that the situation in Europe is comparable is not accurate. I haven’t traveled through Switzerland in a while, so it may very well apply there - the Swiss are a touch more millitant than the rest of Europe, in my experience ([sub][sup]Don’t hurt me, Noodles![/sup][/sub]).
As for the OP: yeah, the girl was clearly an idiot.
Missed Beagle’s post, there. Apparently, even the meek Dutch were millitant fascist bastards at some point. Err, some point within the past 50 years, that is. God knows we did our fair share of millitant bastardism before that.
Coldifire The very first place I ever saw personel carrying sub machine guns was in Schiphol Airport back in late 1998 early 1999.
The officers were dressed all in black and carried HK’s. They traveled in pairs with one carying his weapon at port arms the other slung behind his back. About every 100 yards they would switch, the guy at port arms would sling his weapon and the other guy would go to port arms.
When I was back there later, during the NATO bombing of Kosovo, the officers were traveling in threes two had their guns at port arms, and often with a dog.
Did I mention that they gentlemen all had to be the tallest guys in all of Yurp? I don’t think I saw a single one under about 6’2" and they all projected a don’t fuck with me attitude.
I recall thinking at the time if a terrorist was dumb enough to start something at the airport, I was going to find a nice piece of floor title to hide under as there would be a lot of lead flying about.
At US airports we had National Guard troops at the airports for sveral months after 9/11 armed with M-16s Now we are back to just police officers with side arms.
Well coldfire, you are right! That was quite the carpet generalization wasn’t it. As and American I will say, I had never seen our guys with a machine gun in public pre-9/11. I have only been to Europe a handful of times, and it was those times I was basing my carpet generalizations. The one time I spent a long while in Europe was back packing with my wife close to ten years ago…(can’t do that stuff any more)
And we both commented on how many law enforcement types had HK’s and such, especially in Spain, then again we were going to the El Grecko museum and they were guarding it.
I know better than to make broad generalizations though…
