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10.26.09 - 11:40 AM
This Should Boost Ridership Way Up
Gun lovers are threatening to stall a transportation spending bill if they can't get approval for an amendment allowing Amtrak passengers to bring their favorite firearms on board, even though some of us can't begin to fathom why they'd want to. Unsurprisingly, this particular brilliant idea brought to you by a Republican from Missisisippi.
"Amtrak opposes this at their own peril," said a spokesman for Sen. Roger Wicker. "This is a very pro-gun Congress. "It has proved that multiple times."
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118 Comments so far
Show AllMaybe they're afraid of the trains being robbed by bandits on horseback?
Gotta love you NON-STEREOTYPING, UNPREJUDICED, SENSITIVE-TO-OTHERS lefties!
Huh?
Exactly.
Exactly what? Who's stereotyping who?
It's the 'liberals' [sic] and 'progressives' [sic] who regularly denounce stereotypes, prejudice, and 'insensitivity' towards the beliefs and cultures of others (I take it on myself to include the gun culture in this instance) and they are quick to accuse their political opponents of those faults and vices. But here on a progressive site are comments that stereotype with prejudice and insensitivity, gun-owners and southerners as backwards and bad people. More hypocrisy from those on the left is my point.
Interesting. I am both a gun owner and from the south. I have been frequenting this site since before commentary from readers was allowed. Since that time, the number of those you describe as being insensitive to gun owners and southerners have indeed been present, but to an extremely miminal extent based on observation on an almost daily basis. I hold this especially true given the diversity of topics and number of comments posted.
Can you say the same about "Free Republic" or Townhall.com?
Don't know. I don't read them.
Yes. And I read both (and CD) regularly.
Your lack of troll humor is not astonishing.
WTF ???
can i wear my dynamite vest in the clubcar??
So they can shoot buffalo from the Club Car? How retro.
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats
Will Mississippi's Mussolini let me bring my Swiss Army knife through the TSA line if I agree to support his demand to allow Amtrak passengers to pack heat ?
At least you could blow your brains out if a redneck wingnut sat next to you.
Yes, I support that cuz' I wanna bring my bazooka on my train rides. That's my darn right and I feel safer that way!
My favorite is a General Electric XM134 Minigun which fires 3,000 rounds per minute and is a FAVORITE of the mercenary corporations that can buy them by the hundreds. Let's ridicule the woman who carries a revolver because ex-hubby threatens to cut off her head while the corporations arm up to slaughter by the thousands.
The self-protection argument is over, done, a relic of the past. Gun possession increases your chances of being shot in an assault: http://www.uphs.upenn.edu/news/News_Releases/2009/09/gun-possession-safety/
Really? http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2009/10/23/CASTLE.html
Good thing she ignores your 'notions.'
Is there some subtle irony I am missing here, or are you genuinely that ignorant of the most basic mathematics? Why do you even post a comment at all? Do you have some sort of a masochistic need to embarrass yourself publicly? I don't get it.
And I suppose you have beachfront property in AZ to sell me, too?
Really, troll? That's it? Not even going to try at a valid counter argument? Well, I suppose I don't blame you. After all, you have nothing.
Not that it is in anyway relevant, but if you are that desperate for beach-front property in Arizona, you might ask your real estate agent to approach the owner of this land: http://www.panoramio.com/photo/5363905
I am worried they will start allowing crazy Arabs to carry box cutters on board. We know how dangerous THAT combination is on public transportation . . . or so they tell us.
LOL that cracked me up, good one.
I wonder how many have read this item at alternet, http://www.alternet.org/workplace/143485/after_the_billionaires_plundered_alabama_town%2C_troops_were_called_in_..._illegally
There are some very serious problems in the South as this item points out, and I suspect this idiot Mississippi wingnut's behavior is somehow related.
If this article was seen on the [alleged] liberal site The Huffington Post, many if not most people commenting there would be condemning Amtrak for having the temerity to oppose that bill which would allow passengers to bring their weapons on board a train. It would seem that only in a country like the United States is there more concern for gun rights than there is in making sure that every single person in the US does not have to worry that their health care concerns are met. The motto of this country seems to be: Kill 'em rather than keep them alive and well.
Why don't you focus on Congress's complicity in global warfare killing and that waste of money which would certainly fund health care? I'd be inclined to move further to the left if I could trust them to allow me to keep my handguns just in case the tactics of right wing death squads emerges.
Ah, I just remembered why your user name is familiar, Trading Places, one of my favorite movies.
"keep my handguns just in case the tactics of right wing death squads emerges."
That's pretty much the only reason I'd want to own a gun. I've never felt unsafe as i go around town.
That's me. Remember the scene where Clarence is on the phone waiting for advance info on the crop report? His response to the impatient lady is the same I have for people who want to rescind my rights further.
"I've never felt unsafe as i go around town." Me either, until I was almost murdered.
"Me either, until I was almost murdered."
That's definitely a perspective-changing moment.
"The motto of this country seems to be: Kill 'em rather than keep them alive and well."
Close. Try Profit Over People.
There is no making profit without serving people, a fact socialist dogmatists cannot grasp. Or just don't want to, more likely.
264sendero bizarre declaration has to be one of the more obtuse statements that I have seen, not on, where one would expect, a conservative web site, but rather on a progressive one. When capitalists make a profit they are hardly serving the needs of the people. The opposite, of course, is true. They are exploiting the working class, as the recent Wall Street disaster has demonstrated, in order to further enrich themselves off the backs of the working class.
Right, because Marx's book told you so.
Just like earth is 6,000 years old because The Bible says so.
We don't need Marx to know the working class gets exploited. It's entirely possible for a culture to have its members engaged in serving each other without need for the "profit motive." In Fact, throughout the vast majority of human history, such cultures and behaviors were the norm because people lived and worked in communalistic gropus where their enterprises benefited all.
Leveling is a concept absolutely abhored by those unwilling to share, which is the rich as proved by their behavior.
"Leveling." Nice euphemism for "destroying."
Shame on you 264sendero. You've brought an intellectual gun to a knife fight!
Right wing. Nice euphemism for sociopath.
Karlof1
I believe that is also true as I just happen to wear a button which proclaims:
"Universal Health Care: Putting People Before Profit".
I also happen to think that that statement and the above statement that I had written on my previous comment are both accurate.
Coming next: American citizens allowed to carry hand guns on commercial aircraft.
News at 11.
Welcome back to the 1800's. Just where the republican party wants to take us. So much for THEIR great "ideas".
Honestly, I just don't understand why these people are so sure they need to carry guns to every place they go. What is it in their psychological makeup that makes them so fearful? What do they think is going to happen that they need a freaking gun? That level of fear is just not healthy. I fear for their children.
You don't NEED a gun in church. You don't NEED a gun on the train or bus. You don't NEED a gun at a political rally. You don't NEED a gun at the supermarket. To me, a gun in public is a sign that we are no longer a civilized society. If you want to live in a place where you NEED to carry a gun everywhere you go, then move to Somalia. There you NEED one. Here, you are just a sad statement about our society.
The 2nd amendment furor was conjured up by the Right as a WEDGE issue, just as abortion, affirmative action, birth control, and others were, to keep the various factions present within the commonfolk fighting amongst themselves while allowing their shared enemies in the Class War to rob them of their money.
For your edification, the American Revolution was started by 'liberals' of their time and most of them carried firearms. It is not the "Right" making this a 'WEDGE' issue, unles you consider AMY a right winger. I'll agree that there is 'class warfare' being conducted, but it really isn't right/left or conservative/liberal or even democrat/republican.... The wealthy are of many viewpoints, and their goal is, as you've pointed out, to keep the factions arguing amongst themselves.
NOW, the courts have ruled that the police are there to protect "society as a whole", and not individual citizens. In fact, a police officer is NOT REQUIRED to protect any individual citizen. The onus therefore falls upon the individual himself/herself. After Katrina, where the police disarmed many individual going into the shelters, there were numberous stabbings, rapes and a couple of murders. The police were NOT there to protect the population, but to imprison it. The courts have since ruled that the confuscation of arms during Katrina was illegal.
IF a person has a legal concealed carry permit, there should be no argument about carrying a weapon on an Amtrak or other ground conveyance (IMHO). I see MORE problems with checking the weapon into baggage than actually carrying it on the body. But that's just me. - peace
Why do you NEED to tell me what I need and don't? Answer that.
In a civilized society under the rule of law free men can be trusted to carry arms for whatever reason they choose - precisely because they are civilized, law-abiding and peacable while being armed. That is a statement on our society to be proud of. It is people like YOU who utterly fail to understand this that should go to places like Somalia.
You remind me of a 6 year old child who keeps wanting to bring his favorite toy everywhere he goes. At some point, you NEED to grow up and leave the toys at home.
As to my "NEEDING" to tell you what YOU need, it's called voicing an opinion, and I don't see anything in your writing that refutes a thing I say, you just attack me. Nice try, but you might want to show me where I am wrong. THAT is a discussion.
I think that a quick look at the stats will prove MY point rather than yours, my point being that we are NOT a civilized society. Look at how many of us kill each other every year, with and without guns. We are the most violent industrialized society out there. NO ONE come close to our murder rates, to the point where people from other countries are afraid to come here. And those rates would most likely be lower if we didn't have such easy access to guns. Britain doesn't have it, and their murder rates are far lower. Australia? same thing, and every other industrialized country follows that pattern.
And BTW, your kids are FAR more likely to die in your own home if you have a gun there than if you don't. You can cost yourself a child by trying to protect them. Brilliant.
As to who should go to Somalia, what is it that I'm supposed to come away from that trip with? I had suggested it to those like you who sleep with your guns under your pillows that you might go because you would feel at home. I, on the other hand, know what I need to know about guns, I've been around them, got family that hunts, the whole thing, I just don't need to be around things whose sole purpose in life is to kill. So what exactly am I supposed to get out of that?
Try arguing with fact, and refute what I've said. Then we can talk like adults. If all you do is badmouth me and get defensive about everything, then we can't. So tell me, just why is it that you need a gun at the supermarket? The animals they have there for you to eat are already not just dead, but cut up, too, so you don't need that machete, either.
WJM
Intelligently and persuasively well stated. Attempting to discuss an issue rationally with 264sendero is reminiscent of the scene in the classic film Twelve Angry Men when Henry Fonda tells the eldest juror that it is no use trying to talk to another juror [played by Jack Warden] when he tells him:
"He can't hear you. He never will."
My point is I don't have to answer you.
Why I carry a handgun is nobody's business. It is my property and I have a right to carry my property with me for MY REASONS. It's called individual freedom. But I will answer you. I also have a right to use lethal force against someone who has initiated force against me and not knowing when, if ever, that will happen, it is sensible to be armed and competent at using a sidearm. If someone cannot accept and understand that, he doesn't truly belong in a civil, free country.
So the facts are that I have specific freedoms and carrying a handgun embodies them.
Your anti-gun stats are unfounded propaganda. There's no equal comparison between many countries and cultures. The problem here is the sociopaths who prey on the innocent, not the innocent who arm themselves so they don't become prey.
264sendero states that "My point is I don't have to answer you." That less than coherent statement again harks back to the film Twelve Angry Men when, toward the end of the film, Lee J. Cobb's character [juror #3, I believe], tells the other eleven jurors that he does not have to give them a reason why he believes the boy is guilty. "I don't have to defend myself", he proclaims.
264sendero claims that it is his right to carry a gun in public such as on a train. This sounds quite similar to when the right wingers would bring their guns to the health care meetings when it was quite obvious that their intent was to intimidate anyone who would disagree with their position.
264sendero would certainly have a right to use a weapon against someone who had entered his home. What he does not say is WHY he feels this burning desire to pack heat in a place where the public is traveling. Does he feel that all those people on the train are out to get him? Or does he perhaps think, like the people at the Town Hall meetings, that he also feels the need to instill fear in people for no justifiable reason? Paranoia, thy name would seem to be 264sendero.
I don't intend to 'instill fear' in anyone and I don't have a 'burning desire' to carry a gun. I suggest you stop your inept attempt to psycho-analyze me.
I observe, however, that people who make these same kind of speculations as you do cannot apparently concieve that there are people who own/carry guns that DO NOT get off on some sort of psychological power trip as you are describing and cannot seem to get beyond. In terms of character, such people are not fit to be armed and need to mature. Perhaps this is a case of self-projection?
"Why do you NEED to tell me what I need and don't? Answer that"
Do you support the war on drugs?
No - and that question doesn't answer my question.