There were at least some responses that were fairly detailed, but I’ll agree with you that there is a faction of folks in this country, and probably in that thread, who would indeed attempt to use a slippery slope to completely remove guns from our society, although I have no idea how large that group is. I’m certainly not one of them, even though I do advocate gun control. The slippery slope status of gun control is probably closely aligned with the abortion debate in this respect. Both have people that fall at various places in the spectrum, but some are grabbing inches and hoping to turn them into miles, while others are perfectly happy stopping once a few inches have been reached.
I still don’t understand the reluctance of the proponents of these searches to answer the question. Since it’s already a slope (first airports, then stadiums and other large get togethers, now NYC subways, and almost definitely whatever the next target might happen to be), it seems like people would be willing to state where they’d draw the line.
To be fair, it’s not really a “hot-button” topic for me, so I often avoid gun-control threads, but if I see one with your name as the OP, I’ll happily come in and let you know my stance in full detail.
Likewise, but next time we’ll have to fly into New Orleans ourselves for that dinner. We moved to Atlanta a couple of years ago, and while the food here is good, it’s not New Orleans good. That was also my first and only get together with a group of dopers, and even though it was a small gathering, it was quite enjoyable.
Place an NRA member and a gun-control advocate on either side of the entrance, arguing with their usual passion. Anyone walking through the argument would either have their explosives detonate sympathetically, or would decide it wasn’t worth it and abort. For added effect we could position a Creationist-Secularist pair a few feet along…
As a point of curiosity, how interconnected is the Subway with the other systems (metro rail, PATH and so on)? Is it possible to switch from one system to the other without going through a turnstile, and are there turnstiles between the different Subway lines? It’s been five years since I was there and I only made a couple of trips up and down Manhattan…
While I realize this was tongue in cheek, UncleBeer and myself prove it wrong. We probably agree on maybe 1% of major political issues, tops, yet I had a wonderful time talking to him over dinner at a get together a few years ago.
I’ve only ever taken the subways when there, as most of my business is in a fairly localized area, but if memory serves there are indeed stations where you can transfer from subway to rail (and vice versa), for example, without having to exit and reenter.
We seem to agree on the topic of this thread - and I almost certainly the larger issue surrounding it. Government usurpation and circumvention of an individual’s right to privacy is to be abhored.
There are no turnstiles between lines – once you’re in the system, you’re in for as far as you want to ride it, since it works on a flat fee regardless of distance traveled.
Commuter rail including PATH, NJ Transit, LIRR and MetroNorth all link up with the subway at various locations (Penn Station, Grand Central Station, and Atlantic Avenue, for example). You do have to exit the light rail and then enter the subway through a turnstile when tranferring between these.
you’re ignoring the most important thing-* no suicide bombing attacks occurred during the test* Obviously the system worked!
I should also note for the record the following also did not happen there:
no pink unicorns were able to get on,
Elvis did not leave,
the Pope did not have his funny hat stolen
and there were also no attacks from rare white Siberian tigers on the subway.
Are you guys kidding? It was a complete success, all its goals were reached. Some people had the feeling of safety, and another precedent was set for removing civil liberties from a scared public willing to give them up.
As long as you are going to use one week as your readout, at least don’t cherry pick statistics:
(1010 WINS) (NEW YORK) The increase in security checks on New York City subways has had a side benefit. Police say subway crime is down 23 percent this month - compared to the same period last year.
I see your crime decrease stat, and point out two caveats: 1) July was damn hot compared to last year, and when it’s that hot, even the criminals stay at home; 2) crime has been decreasing on the subway for the past year with the notable exception of ipod thefts.
I have never ridden a NY subway, so this might be a stupid post. But if I were intent on carrying a bomb to blow up the train or station, and I saw people being searched ahead of me, wouldn’t I just turn around and leave? Do they herd people into a closed space without warning before beginning a search?
You could, but that would certainly stand out, according to a week’s worth of data:
Samuel J. Plumeri Jr., the superintendent of the Port Authority Police Department, said that his officers had inspected the briefcases, backpacks and purses of 8,010 commuters in PATH train stations and bus terminals this week without making a single arrest. Only five people had refused to cooperate, and each of them walked away without any incident, he said.
“We really had, I would say, no issues at all,” said Mr. Plumeri, who described the rate of refusal as “remarkably low.”
I don’t recall anyone in this thread denying that it might stop other, non-terrorism-related crime. But that was never what the argument was about in the first place. Of course placing hundreds of cops in the subway is going to reduce subway crime.
The question is, and always was, whether it was going to discourage or prevent a terrorist attack, and the simple fact of the matter is that the very rules under which the system of searching works means that a terrorist can choose to avoid detection and simply move to another station.
And what happened to those five people? That’s right. Nothing. There is no way of knowing why they refused the searches, or whether or not they were carrying anything illegal or dangerous.
Your whole argument seems to be based on a belief that refusing inspection will somehow get you targetted by the police, and yet this position directly contradicts the clearly-stated policies of the New York Police Department and the Mayor’s office with regard to these searches.
And I never denied that possibility, merely advocated waiting for data, and in the admittedly preliminary data cited above, only 5 of more than 8000 people refused searches. If one of those people were suspicious, I’m certain that they would have been tailed by the police if they attempted to enter at another point.
Also, it should be pointed out (from the same NY Times article):
“Not even the New York Civil Liberties Union, which is considering filing a lawsuit to stop the searches, had documented any serious conflicts caused by the new policy.”
You keep saying this. But there is no data you could gather, short of actually showing me the arrest of a man with a backpack full of bombs, that would provide convincing evidence that this strategy is having any beneficial effect whatsoever in the area of terrorism.
You’re not especially convincing when a key aspect of your “argument” is that the erosion of civil liberties have been accompanied not by a bang, but by a whimper.
As the woman from the ACLU also said, in the Times article you linked to:
That was also my first and only get together with a group of dopers, and even though it was a small gathering, it was quite enjoyable.