So, a friend of mine went to India. She is from there. Usually, she brings me pepper, and other Indian stuff. She asked me especially what I would like this time. Whenever someone I know is going somewhere, and wants to bring me something, I always say, “Yes. Bring me a rock.” I have a whole bowl of rocks. I like rocks.
Usually I have to explain this all. It’s OK, I don’t mind. This isn’t a post about my rocks, or even about my friend. This is a post about security frenzy. My friend brought a rock with her, for me, in her purse. It was confiscated at the Airport. India is on very high alert for possible terrorist activity.
. . .
India is on very high alert for terrorist activity.
. . .
So they confiscated a rock.
Are they expecting armies of terrorists invading and throwing rocks? Are they clearing up all the rocks already in India? Is it rocks outbound from India that have them worried? Perhaps they thought she would rise up to her full five feet one inches, and fling that rock at someone and demand to be taken to Cuba? Uh, folks it was one rock, surely less than a quarter pound, maybe less than two ounces. If she actually threw it at someone, and killed them, she would be effectively disarmed. (Well, she does have a one inch Kirpan on her bracelet.)
They took her tea, too. Thank God she didn’t try to bring in pepper this time. (Weapons of Mass Destruction, I bet.)
Tris, if I was an airport security person, and saw someone carrying a ‘rock’ in their luggage, I’d be pretty curious ya know?
Like, it’s not quite the same as duty-free perfume or smokes or anything. A ‘rock’, escpecially a boring rock, is quite hard to justify as a ‘gift for me’ weird mate back home’ if you know what I mean.
Dunno about the tea though. Was it thought to contain other sorts of herbage perhaps?
You can use a rock as a close combat weapon as well. You don’t need to throw it. I’m not exactly first in line to increase restrictions on airplanes, but a rock seems to me like a fairly sensible object to forbid.
I still want to challenge someone at TSA to a duel to the death, I have to use bear hands, and no weapon whatsoever. But HE must fight with a pair of nailclippers.
Anyone who thinks that isn’t idiotic, is obviously an idiot.
I imagine you could do just as much damage with a book as with a small rock.
Of course, there’s any number of potentially dangerous items that haven’t been banned yet. You could whack someone over the head with a laptop or garotte them with your ipod earphone cord. Or grab a wine bottle from the drinks cart and smash it.
Hmmm…if it was one of those small, polished stones–say maybe the size or a quarter or half-dollar, sure, rant away. On the other hand, it it was the size of a baseball…it could be used as a weapon in close combat. Why didn’t she put it in her checked luggage instead of trying to carry it on?
Well, my own rant along this line is when traveling a few months after 9/11 my cigar cutter was confiscated. It was a rather NICE cigar cutter, made of steel, finely polished, ect ect. The only way I could figure out how you could use it as a weapon was maybe to attempt to hold someone hostage by putting their pinky in there and threatening to chop it off…or something like that. Of course, as I said, it was a rather nice cutter…so I figure that they probably just destroyed it. :dubious:
A rock though…hm. I guess I’d need more details on how big a rock it was. The OP is a bit vague (leading me to think he probably doesn’t actually know how big it was), saying “surely less than a quarter pound, maybe less than two ounces”. Taking the top end of that…yeah, I could probably kill someone with such a rock. And yeah, I might be a bit suspicious of someone trying to board with a quarter pound rock (as someone else asked, why didn’t she simply check the thing?). At the low end however, unless the ‘rock’ was, say a piece of flint or maybe obsidian I can’t see why they wouldn’t let it go…2 ounces after all doesn’t exactly constitute a clear threat to the plane (as opposed to several pounds of laptop, as someone else pointed out above).
I’m torn on this issue myself. When I am traveling a lot I tend to get VERY annoyed by what I consider mostly stupid bureaucratic bullshit. Other times I suppose that I can understand…after all, who will be blamed if some mopes bring on, say, a rock and manage somehow to take control of the aircraft with it.
In the end only one thing is really clear to me…I wish I had my cutter back.
Rocks are the most common weapon used by terrorists.
Rocks are used by those Palestinian terrorists that fight against Israeli soldiers and their tanks. Since all Palestinians are terrorists and rocks are the most common weapon used by Palestinians, the chances are that you too are a terrorist for smuggling a rock on board.
You definately should be disarmed and have your rock confiscated … even if it is only an Indian rock.
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