This statement is irrelevant largely for two reasons. The language is so weak that even the Second Amendment idealogues in the libertarian evidently cannot correlate Vermont’s low crime rate with its open gun laws. Second, the statistics were certainly calculated before the WTC attack, the creation of the volatile situation. Using Vermont’s pre-WTC statistics to argue that Waverly missed the point is nothing but post hoc ergo propter hoc.
…which evidently Waverly pointed out moments before I did. 
Now, hold on…are you saying that 4 perps with boxcutters + 30 passengers without guns doesn’t equal a lot of dead people? Perhaps a short refresher is in order…
No, I know what you’re saying: in light of the 11 Sep attacks, passengers are not going to allow some one with knives to take over an aircraft, regardless of the weapons (or lack thereof) on their person. The problem with this reasoning is that it took such a serious act of violence against a number of citizens before the average citizen decided to take the responsibility of defending the aircraft upon himself. Perhaps this newfound sense of responsibility will extend to other forms of transportation as well. I hope it doesn’t take a busload of explosives being driven into the local nuclear power plant before bus-passengers decide to defend their transportation, but complacency is part of human nature. I guess we’ll see.
The object of the legislation described (allowing everyone to pack some heat) centers around deterrence: those with no regard for the law will be less apt to perpetrate crimes if they believe everyone around them is A) packing and B) not going to put up with their criminal behavior. I don’t think this reasoning is unsound.
You’re argument seems to center on the presumption of escalation. Where, assuming two guys with guns, it is inevitable that some one will start shooting. Certainly, this is not desirable. I’ll agree you’ll certainly get the occasional “hell or high-water” type that’s going to start shooting, which (in these circumstances) will require the citizens to shoot back. But, overall, I think you’ll end up with less violent crime, simply because the average person is not the “shoot-first-ask-questions-later” type.
I don’t know that I agree with Libertarian about having guns on planes. I think that, had the average citizen been allowed to “pack” on that day, the best we could have hoped for would have been crashed planes, and the most likely would have been exactly as it is, due to complacency. People would probably have let the hijacker have his way than be involved in an armed confrontation.
However, I do agree with the press release at this point:
But, that’s just me
I’ll bite. Maeglin, how do you see the WTC attack as having changed the gun-control debate? I’d have thought that it tended to strengthen the argument in favor of carrying guns.
This is rich:
A basic course? That’s supposed to make us feel safer? I’d feel much less safe. If I’m going to be around people bearing firearms, I want them to be people who’ve handled and used them for years, who’ve proved they’re mature and responsible, and who have been in tense confrontations with them many times in the past.
Just because I can load a revolver and put on the safety doesn’t mean I won’t jump to the wrong conclusions when a shabbily-dressed young twentysomething reaches for the blood sausage in his brown paper sack.
Well first of all folks, lets have a show of hands to see who thinks ANYONE, ANYTIME in the next ten years will be allowed to bring a firearm onto a commercial jet. NO WAY.
And furthermore, how would having a nationwide concealed weapons permit be a good thing? Don’t you think a terrorist who happens to be an American Citizen or a Naturalized citizen could just as easily carry a concealed firearm to the places afore mentioned in this thread.
I have lived in both Vermont and Arizona, and whilst in Rutland VT I would rarely see anyone carrying a gun [granted I have not been up there since Sept 11.] But I would rarely see anyone carrying a weapon. More recently whilst in Phoenix, I can’t count on both hands or toes how many people I see with a gun walking around. In Wal-mart, Safeway, Blockbuster, just to name a few. This state is definitely armed. To be brutally honest I think thats alright, as long as people don’t start capping other for pissing each other off.
Arming the public is actually nothing new, this has been going on, on an incline for years. As a matter of fact Gun sales from as recently as the Oklahoma City Bombing has increased. [I’ll find a cite]I can not and do not condemn the NRA for anything after the Sept 11 attack they have said. Arming America actually did not need any help from the media or NRA people have bought enough on there own. I do beleive that the average schmo who went out and bought a gun should have a course on how to shoot it, and basic gun safety. Because an ass with a firearm can easily kill an innocent bystander if he doesn’t now what he’s doing, or would we rather show him how to cap a terrorist trying to dump anthrax up river from a major City? Neither I say. I say show him the safety aspects of the weapon and let him use it in self defense…ONLY.
I think you missed a pretty obviously demonstrated point here. In the past, the worse a plane hijacker could do was to blow up the plane. So, if a guy on a plane says he has a bomb, you shut up and do what he says so he won’t blow it up. Now, around 10:00 am EST on September 11, 2001, that changed. Suddenly, everybody realized that it could be a lot worse than just the plane blowing up. I thought this point was especially demonstrated by the adaptability displayed by the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93.
It wasn’t that people were cowards, just that nobody could have ever even conceived that such a plan was possible. Now we know.
Yes, Maeglin, I never miss an opportunity to display my dead language proficiency in all it’s yawn-inspiring glory.
These concealed weapons / ‘arm everyone’ debates all seem to orbit around the same feeling of helplessness. A fear for personal safety that someone believes can’t be alleviated by an extrinsic force. Is this a correct assessment? Why or why not? [not intended as a hijack, but to increase my understanding of where the OP and others are coming from] To me, it conveys the chilling message: “I’m just not going to feel safe again unless I have the means to take another human life in my possession; to be used as I deem necessary.”
I don’t, actually. While I may want to pack heat, largely due to my own feelings of powerlessness, I would argue that the WTC attack doesn’t change the gun control debate at all. Even though I don’t think the terms of the debate should change, the situation has; therefore, using “antebellum” figures to justify a liberalization of gun control laws is unconvincing.
You and me both, Waverly. 
And why, pray tell, ought I to use it as you deem necessary. Would you cotton to my deeming on your behalf?
Surely you are not unaware of the irony in this, Libertarian.
Maeglin, I see no irony. I see only a man who presumes that he can make better decisions on my behalf than I can make on my own. I consider such a presumption to be more dangerous than any weapon. A weapon is a lifeless and helpless thing. It is a man who will pick it up and use it. I fear most the man who believes that God did not give me at least equal good sense as He gave to him, and that God gave him more rights than me.
Nobody is talking about repealing the laws against violent crime. This argument, raised often, is just silly. Anyone who uses deadly force will be held to the same high standards they always have. Libertarian would simply give more access to deadly force to law-abiding citizens.
Those who already flout the laws regarding murder, assault, rape, and robbery (not surprisingly) are undeterred by laws against firearms. Ergo, EVERY time a nut brings a gun to work, a box-cutter on a plane, or a gun to school only poor defenseless law-abiding citizens are there to meet the perpetrator, time and time again. Yet, somehow the obvious–criminals don’t obey laws, by definition–never sinks in.
Must everyone carry a gun? I sure hope not. The anti-gunners who talk about the “power” and “parking space altercations” really scare me. Maybe they should not carry guns. Myself, I find guns to be a big responsibility–haven’t even been tempted to shoot someone over nothing yet. But, of course, I obey the “big” laws. In my state (FL) people predicted carnage when the concealed carry laws went in. Yawn Hundreds of thousands of permits later, practically nothing. Statistics? Scroll down for Florida.
Bad news, they already do. But, as for airplanes, I agree with the “antis.” This is the place where the possibility of an accidental discharge is the most risky. I think it is a very close call, however.
I find this whole Vermont argument odd. The argument goes “guns cause crime.” When statistics are shown that indicate guns don’t cause crime, and may prevent it. The argument shifts to, “prove the guns reduce the crime.”
The millions of times guns are “used” (not fired) in self-defense.
Not I, Lib, we. As in: our elected officials will set the law as they believe best fits our wants and needs [in a perfect system anyway]. We are merely debating what the content of said laws should be; or am I mistaken and there are people who wish to operate outside the law?
I’m just kinda boggled by the irony of Libertarian, who believes that anyone ought to be able to take their tenth of an acre of private property and secede from all governments, advocating that states be compelled (by whom - the tyrannical Feds?) to honor each other’s disparate laws in this instance.
Not to mention, this seems like some bizarre introversion* of the idea of the Nanny State. Bad stuff happens - so we’ll pass a law to keep it from happening again. If that turns out to be insufficient, we’ll pass more laws - e.g. requiring all adult citizens to carry.
*[sub]It’s an introversion in the sense that the laws in question would theoretically be dealing with the problem by giving greater empowerment to the citizenry - although they would deprive the citizens of one state of the right to decline to honor another state’s laws, so it’s a bit of a mix. But it’s still: something went wrong, so we need a law.[/sub]
Is that so, Libertarian? Whom are you looking at then? Surely not me, for I don’t believe that God gave either you or me anything at all.
The fact that you wish to overturn laws, promulgated by “good sense”, because you believe that God gave you more good sense is highly ironic.
jmonster
Actually, I do believe you missed my point entirely. Allow me to elaborate:
No.
The worst a plane hijacker had done was etc.
**
This is the point that I was making. Suddenly, it was worse, and it took such a catastrophe before the possibility was acknowledged. It was the complacency of the average passenger which made these attacks possible. There was nothing special about 11 Sep that made these attacks any more likely or any easier than they had been in the past twenty years. Your presumption that these events somehow could not have occured before is incorrect.
**
Actually, you’re wrong. People have certainly “conceived that such a plan was possible.” The fact that such events did not occur before 11 Sep is not an indicator that said events were impossible, nor that people believed them to be impossible. I thought this point was especially demonstrated by the terrorists who hijacked said planes.
Which brings me again to my point: the average citizen is more likely to decide the safety of the aircraft and the passengers is his personal responsibility, and it’s a shame that it took this catastrophe to cause this reaction.
This leads into my response to waverly, who says:
**
Well, I don’t know that I really fit the description of those you’re addressing…I don’t want to arm everyone. As far as “safety by extrinsic force”, though, I feel that my safety is my responsibility. I feel this responsibility extends to others under certain circumstances, such as the safety of my wife and children, or that of fellow passengers in planes, or that of co-workers, etc. I don’t want to rely on others for my safety, to the greatest degree that it’s possible. It’s not that I don’t feel safe, it’s more that this is my responsibility, and I take it seriously. As such, I’d like access to those tools which have been deemed necessary for the “extrinsic forces”, such as police officers, etc.
I don’t want to see people carrying guns on planes. I don’t want to see every single person armed. However, if a concealed carry permit is to be necessary (which it is), I would like for ONE permit to be valid in ALL states, as stated in the OP.
I disagree with the idea that potentially armed opponents will prevent sincerely determined terrorists, and as such I believe that the best scenario for 11 Sep (given armed passengers) would have been four crashed planes. However, I do support the idea that the safety of every passenger on the plane is the responsibility of every passenger on the plane.
Hope that helps…
[quoter]
Suddenly, it was worse, and it took such a catastrophe before the possibility was acknowledged. It was the complacency of the average passenger which made these attacks possible.
[/quote]
The events of September 11 undermined 20 years of established hijack doctrine.
“If you cooperate, the demands will be met and you will be safely released.”
I would not be so quick to blame the passengers, who had the tables turned on them suddenly and mortally.
But RTF, hasn’t this been happening for the last 30 years? Replace “requiring all adult citizens to carry” with “no one can carry except the police.” The Brady Bill, Columbine, et al. After each calamity, more laws have been submitted and passed, all supposedly aimed at preventing this or that from happening again. Yet, from where I sit, all that these laws have done is restrict the 2nd Amendment rights of law abiding citizens, with no corresponding reduction in crime or horrific calamities.
Were I looking at you, I might have addressed your remark. Since I addressed Waverly’s remark, I rather suspect I was looking at him. But whether you attribute rights to God or to nature, it’s all the same. You arrive with an epidermis encasing only you.
Who said anything about overturning laws promulgated by good sense?
Oh, well, excuse me. That’s different then.
So long as there’s a whole gang of you, and so long as you call your gun collection an army, and so long as you call your opinions laws — hell, I feel better already.