If we had had battleships, cruisers, destroyers, airplanes and anti-aircraft artillery at Pearl

Harbor, the Japanese attack wouldn't have happened!


Oh wait! We DID have have all those things, and the Japanese STILL attacked us.

Oh well. If only the soldiers and sailors posted in Hawaii had fought back, the attack would not have been a success.

Oh wait! They DID fight back, and the Japanese attack still succeeded.

Why do the gun-nuts seem to think that Virginia Tech is somehow different? :shrug:

!

will we?

the U.S.,,,never mind

they might not have been able to take over the planes.

Because they are brainwashed to say those things!!!

A 3rd wave was planned but was cancelled because our forces were well spun up by that point.

I understand your point and agree with it, but its not really a good analogy.

I suspect that if Choi had attacked a marine barracks he would not have gotten nearly as far.

Nonethless I don't agree with arming kids.

Marines don't usually have ammo in their barracks as far as I know.

I think a person entering a marine barracks with one 9mm semi-auto pistol and several clips could kill or incapacitate at least 5 to 10 marines before the rest even figured out what was going on.

At that point he could still kill several more depending on how fast the rest could get out or hide under bunks.

Any one person attacking him would probably die. It only takes about 6 to 10 seconds to reload a fresh clip - if you are slow. Guys on TV do it in 3 or 4 seconds.

To take him out it would take a half dozen or so agreeing to jump him at the same time - knowing that most of them would die in the process. Someone who wanted to organize that effort that would have to have enough time to convince the others to help him.

That would be a tough meeting to hold while people were falling and screaming all around. And if it was held - how many do you think would agree to help? Marines or not?

Id say that anyone at rest is vulnerable to a suprise attack. People cant be on "alert" 24x7.

You are right though, proably 5 to 10 would be incapacitated before awareness sets in with the remaining.

IMO, I think that a bunch of marines would spin up faster than a bunch of college kids. Your right, they proably wouldnt be armed (unless they were in a war zone), but I suspect it would only take 1 or 2 to tackle the attacker (proably at the cost of their lives), then the rest would follow and pile on.

Fight or flight is what we are talking about...and they wouldnt have a meeting to know where they stand on that instinct, some would fall into the fight mode, some into the flight mode.

. . I'd bet that a bunch of unarmed marines awakened to the sound of a semi-auto 9mm going off in their barracks and guys dieing around them - would head for the door furthest from the shooter. And most would die from the traffic jam at that door. The shooter could hardly miss hitting someone.

Did you see United 703? Did you see how long it took them to organize an assault on the cabin?

*******************************

A weakness of a democracy is that the ability to make it all work depends a great deal on social pressure and a feeling of support for and from the great majority of fellow citizens. Everyone, especially those on the margins with few social skills, need to feel like we are all part of the bigger family. A successful democracy requires that pretty much everyone senses that they belong and have stake in that family.

(I don't know if you've been to Canada much but when I go there I sense that all my Canadian friends fell much more a part of the Canadian family - and identify positively with that family - than most Americans I know identify with any American family. Our family has been pretty much disfunctional since the time Clinton was elected IMO.)

Even most crazy people don't go around killing if they sense that they would be greatly hated by virtually everyone else in society.

When those social bonds break down - when a crazy guy senses that there would be a sizeable number of other alienated people who would see him as a hero, that he'd be a big buzz in the blogs where many would make outrageous and sick statements about him no matter who he kills - when they already feel that they are not part of any protective family - then crazy guys become ticking bombs. It's just a matter of time then IMO until the circumstances and their own demons align for very bad things to happen.

I think that's one of the significant changes in our society that I pretty much lay at the feet of Republican/conservative/RW ideologoes - and the Reagan / Bush I, Bush II administrations.

We've seen a steady separation of Americans into two hostile camps where one continually calls the others pagans, unAmerican, welfare cheats, Nappy Headed Hos, whatever). I mean even the leadership and the president now does that with no pretense of civility. The drug war is probably the greatest example of incivility to fellow Americans that has ever occurred. Look at all the talking heads making Imus an issue of freedom of speech - rather than an issue of civility. Look at all the rapper lyrics that are outrageously uncivil - just because outrageous is what many of our lives have now become - and because outrageous sells better.

You can't exclude people from the American family and expect them to do anything but hate other members of that family. The price we pay when that happens IMO is a steady stream of Columbines and what happened in VT.

I bought the video and its sitting on a shelf..waiting for a day when the time is right and I have the emotional stamina to watch it...I have a hard time with stuff like that, but I force myself to watch material like that to gain a better understanding of (whatever it is). Schindlers list was the same way.

Its a terrible reality, our country, really our extended family IS divided. I hope our nation can heal its wounds before things like this continue to happen and escalate.

Because we knew what bullets do to unprotected flesh.

BTW - I have the greatest respect for anyone in the military. It's a great sacrifice that they make for the American family. How sad that corrupt politicians use that honorable sacrifice for such ugly and selfish political ends.

Marines, and servicemen in general are no less human than any of us.

. . I just saw this:

On the one hand I feel great contempt for this man for unleashing such pain and devastation to others. He has left a scar on our country that will never really heal, and far greater on his victims and their families.

On the other, I feel for him and the great pain and confusion that he was obviously dealing with. If only someone had been able to reach him and get him some help.

Makes me want to cry.

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tools they need to exercise their natural, inherent, inalienable right of self-defense.

And then, if you're conceal and carry, after relieving you of your money, I'll have a nice shiny gun in addition to my knife. Further, if you conceal and carry, I can't know that you're armed. I'm just as likely to confront you as anyone else--the addition of your gun only adds to the potential lethality of the situation for you or for me. What exactly is this scenario you imagine of being "forced to submit" to a criminal? That somehow a criminal will accost you on the street in such a way that you have time to pull out and use a weapon?

of submitting to criminals and murder.

The founding fathers were scared of a standing armt but they were famously also scared of mob rule. Here in wikipedia is a blow by blow of changes in the second amendment as it was being written.
-----------------snip-------------------------------
The Second Amendment itself was debated and modified during sessions of the House on August 17 and August 20.<18> These debates revolved primarily around risk of "mal-administration of the government" using the "religiously scrupulous" clause to destroy the militia as Great Britain had attempted to destroy the militia at the commencement of the revolution. These concerns were addressed by modifying the final clause, and on August 24 the House sent the following version to the U.S. Senate:

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms shall be compelled to render military service in person.

The next day, August 25, the Senate received the Amendment from the House and entered it into the Senate Journal. When the Amendment was transcribed, the semicolon in the religious exemption portion was changed to a comma by the Senate scribe:

A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed, but no one religiously scrupulous of bearing arms, shall be compelled to render military service in person.

On September 4, the Senate voted to change significantly the language of the Second Amendment by removing the definition of militia, and striking the conscientious objector clause:

A well regulated militia, being the best security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed

The Senate returned to this Amendment for a final time on September 9. A proposal to insert the words "For the common defence", next to the words "Bear Arms" was defeated.<19> The Senate then slightly modified the language, and voted to return the Bill of Rights to the House. The final version passed by the Senate was:

A well regulated militia being the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

The House voted on September 21 to accept the changes made by the Senate, however the Amendment as finally entered into the House journal contained the additional words "necessary to":

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.<20>

This version was transmitted to the states for ratification.


<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution>

It's a non-issue...people wouldn't have reacted in time because maybe it was just a practical joke and people were shooting blanks etc, they weren't informed after all of any danger. They wouldn't want to be shot for carrying a gun, so better take it on good faith and BAM they're dead. People think that the danger of seeing a gun would still be there if everyone carried guns....it's a strange logic. Then what happens when someone shoots the criminal and others think they're the gunman?

People don't attend tech school to carry guns...it's why a tech school was a better target. A lot of techies are mild mannered. The only people who should have been doing their job that day are the police, who carry guns. No one would accidentally shoot a cop thinking they're a gunman...

No one would have known who the killer was, and it would have led to mass confusion... just like Baghdad, when you don't know who the enemy is, it turns into a bloodbath. Innocent kids would have shot each other, and we'd all still be sitting here trying to figure out what the hell went wrong.