Or weapons class. See you out on the range after history.
You make it sound like teaching children effective methods of unarmed and armed defense is a bad thing.
I think if every kid had a real idea about what a firearm could do, they’d respect them a lot more, and we wouldn’t be having the occasional Columbine.
By and large, the kids who perpetrate these crimes are not Johnny Farmboy who’s spent his whole life around guns and treats them with the respect and reverence they deserve, but rather McDonald’s fed sociopaths out of touch with reality, who’ve never handled a firearm in their life.
One of my acquaintences, who’s an avid firearms and sword collector, told me a story about when he was 6 years old.
His father took him out into a field, set a watermelon up on a tree stump, and fired a single .357 magnum round into the watermelon, immidiately obliterating it.
“That’s what a gun does when it goes off,” his father said. He then learned the 4 golden rules of gun safety and hasn’t had a mis-fire or shot up any schools yet.
I’d love to see kids learning Tae Kwon Do and marksmanship in school. The former would teach them self-discipline and keep them in good physical form, and the latter would teach them respect for life and proper armed self-defense skills. Combine that with a revamping of the study curriculum, eliminating the constant repetition of the same boring classes a dozen times, and putting more emphasis on world history, foreign language skills, and career selection, and I think we’d be on our way to a greater next generation.
But I could be wrong. I’ve been known to have some pretty wacky ideas.
Addendum - I’d expand the art and music programs, too, especially at the elementary level. Art, music, and writing aren’t necessarily skills used by many, however, utilizing them earlier in life has a drastic effect on the way the brain is wired, in a VERY positive way.
Have you guys seen that new show on Comedy Central, Reno 911? It’s from the folks that brought you Viva Variety! Funny stuff.
S.A.F.E:
Steady.
Aim.
Fire.
Everyone’s okay.
Yes, I hear it is similar to the effect of obliterating fruit with a high caliber weapon at a young age.
I have no real opinion either way on teaching children about guns, but I don’t think the columbine killers really match your description. They had a history with guns, right?
If playing Doom constitutes a history with firearms, then yes.
But as far as I know, they purchased their guns (illegally) at a gun show prior to the shooting, and didn’t have any past use of them IRL. Not even a trip to the shooting range to work on their accuracy.
They chose semi-automatic Tec-9’s. That tells me a lot about their knowledge of firearms; namely, they didn’t know anything. The gun is prone to jams, notoriously difficult to clean, and cost them much more than a 1911-style pistol.
I won’t bother to detail the advantages of such a gun to a Tec-9, because it’s fairly irrelevant.
Fact is, simple that enforcement of the current laws would’ve stopped them from getting the guns, and parents who recognized the warning signs of teenagers who want to die and kill people could have prevented the whole thing.
Exactly.
The Tec-9 is a piece of shit and in the hands of an untrained shooter you are hitting mostly nothing but putting lots of lead downrange. This is why I hate these types of weapons because they tend to hit EVERYTHING but what you are aiming at and since its cheap and cheaply made its a gangbanger favorite.
Not to mention, the Columbine kids fired upwards of 900 rounds that day and only killed 12 people, had that been 2 farm boys out there and they had expended 900 rounds you’d see a body count upwards of 100+ instead of 12. Maybe the Columbine kids were firing just for effect and not to actually hit but from the videos that I saw they were indeed trying to hit targets and just didn’t have the training to do so. Farmboys would have turned that into something far more horrible.
Contrary to popular opinion, computer games teach you approximately nothing about hitting a target with a real firearm. I can almost always tell “computer game kids”, they come into the range every now and then and beyond about 25 feet with a pistol they are lucky to hit the paper at all much less a ring. Effective pistol shooting takes years of practice.
If them being inexperienced reulted in 12 kills nto 100+ wouldn’t it be a good idea then to NOT teach kids how to shoot. I’d like to see more Kung Foo in schools though… … Everybody was kung foo fighting! HUH! those kids were fast as lightning HOO!
… uh yeh… anyways
For the plane safetly thingo. No, I wouldn’t arm the pilots. The gas idea would be cool, but then you get the terrosits smuggling gas masks aboard and you’d probably only end up taking out a few asthmatics.That and with every body asleep you wouldn’t have panic.
“give me the plane or I’ll kill this here unconcious person!” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
I’d have the door re-inforced. To remain locked at all times. For the toilet and drink issue, extend the cabin to accomodate another toilet and maybe a water machine thing… surely it wouldn’t be that hard to do (fuck, if they can put that shit in trains they can put it in planes). And maybe it’d cost a bit to re-furnish the plane , and maybe youd have to sacrafice a few seats… but what would the ailines prefer? A few seats not filled during a flight, or having more people lost due to unsafe aircraft design and management.
I’d also have civilian dressed units randomly seated in a flight. I’m sure it wouldn’t be too hard to figure out.
OR
you could go in a COMPLETLY DIFFERENT DIRECTION.
Instead of handing out headphones at the start of the flight. Hand out fully loaded Desert Eagles. If a terroist pops up. BAM! old grand-dad neo in seat A2 pops the mother fucker before he gets a chance. Awesome.
I think all planes should have equipment on board that could flood the cabin with sleeping gas at the touch of a button in the cockpit.
Also: robots armed with lasers.
Yes, because we all know how perfect the knockout gas worked for the Russians in that theater debacle.
::cough::
And fuck robots. We need sharks with lasers. They’d be in aquariums located in each section of the plane, so they’d have to be tiny, foot-long sharks. With lasers, of course.
Nothing stops terrorism in its tracks like sharks with lasers attached to their heads.
I can see this accidentally going off on a mundane flight and the airline getting sued to the moon. Other than that and smart terrorists bringing gasmasks the idea sounds fine.
Perhaps a waiver… “The airline shall not be held responsible for malfunctioning or mistaken use of the sleeping gas system…”
Hey, I know, let’s allow people to carry nail clippers and sewing needles on planes again. That way, if anyone tries to wrest control from the pilot, the passengers can arm themselves and retaliate. :roll:
- Alan
What a fucking dumb idea. Robots with buzzsaws for hands, now that would rock.
I think trapdoors might be a good idea… “These are our demaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuughhhh!” <sniggers from the cabin>. Well i guess they might smuggle parachutes onboard. Back to the drawing board…
Trapdoors and underbelly turrets, then.
My mother has one of those robot vacuum cleaners. Last time I visited, I really wanted to reprogram it to chase her dog around the house (he’s already pretty wary of the thing). Possibly, this technology could be adapted to combat terrorists aboard an aircraft. The ones that are afraid of vacuum cleaners, that is.
I like the idea of an armed air marshall on each flight but the cost is probably too high. I think the thing that struck me about the whole issue is it was just going to go forward with no real debate as to if it were a good idea or not.
– Xaroc
It’s not just that, although there is no way there is ever going to be enough funding to have one on every plane, or even a third of them. What’s even more glaring as a defect in that solution is the difficulties in keeping what few of them they have. Their job is awful, and even with pay raises the job retention is abysmal.
The trained stewardess would seem to be a better choice, but again the cost factor and the practicality factor are not in favour of it. Why not go with the pilot, who is far more likely to have prior military experience? If they don’t want it, fine, but at least give them the chance, since they will be the primary decision makers anyway.
The big advantage is that the pilots are on the plane anyway. At the very least, I can’t see providing the pilot with more options as a bad thing.
I think the thing that struck me about the whole issue is it was just going to go forward with no real debate as to if it were a good idea or not.
Considering the pilot’s union’s wholesale support for it, I find it amazing how little progress the idea has made. While Israeli foreign policy is nothing to emulate, certainly their handling of El Al’s security bears some thought.
I was talking to my father about this issue again last night, just to make sure I had a clear read on his position. Not only was he fully in favor of having a loaded handgun with him at all times when flying, every pilot he knows had the same position.