[aricbcool]

Originally Posted by CoLawman

You just contradicted your initial premise.........a plane full of well armed angry citizens. You have conceded the point!

"Not many" doesn't mean "not any". I do not concede!
Whether every passenger on the plane has a weapon or not, to a terrorist, every passenger would have to be considered armed as there would be no telling who was and who wasn't.

Originally Posted by CoLawman

Stay out of the way?........they didn't even call the police! And in this case that is why it did not work!

Conceded. However, calling the police is not and cannot be the end all/be all of safety in our society. (At the risk of bringing the local legal experts into this discussion...) Check out this link: http://home.pacbell.net/dragon13/policeprot.html

Whether required to or not, I believe that every good LEO believes in the "serve and protect" ideal and wants to make sure his/her community is a safe place. However, believing and doing are two different things. Cops can't be everywhere at once, and can't stop all bad things from happening.

Originally Posted by CoLawman

I never said I had zero faith in your generation.

Sorry for mischaracterizing your view. I misunderstood.

Originally Posted by CoLawman

Exactly what I was talking about! These are the individuals that have placed service to country above all else. The exception not the rule.

It's not about service to country. It's about having the ability to defend yourself in the case of a terrorist attack.

Originally Posted by CoLawman

Thank you for again conceding a point. The military experience produces the type of vigilant citizen you seek or believe is anxiously waiting for that challenging moment to prove they are not afflicted with the "Bystander Syndrome" studied extensively since the Genovese Case.

Yes, the military does produce that type of people. However, I believe they don't have the corner on the market.

Originally Posted by CoLawman

The Bystander Syndrome is a recognized phenomenon as is the Stockholm syndrome. Read up on both of these.....it might give you a different perspective on what the significance of the Genovese case is all about. Has nothing to do with newsworthy!

I will read up on Bystander Syndrome. I argued "newsworthy" because you came up with a very famous example of why private citizens can't be relied upon to protect their own. My point was that I think there are many other cases where they can and have been relied upon due to absence of police protection. I would argue that most of these instances don't get reported. A famous example however, is flight 93 on 9/11.

Originally Posted by CoLawman

........through public schools and government programs...
You mean like military service or attending a military academy! You do not need to reinvent the wheel. That which you seek is already there. The only thing lacking is the people walking up to the door.

No, you don't have to reinvent the wheel. I think if we were to allow weapons on board airplanes or buses or subways or in public places in general, it would discourage crime, and discourage terrorism.

However, in order for this to be a realistic proposal, we would need to reinvent the wheel. With our current society, this idea would never get past anything more formal than this forum. No government official would go near it with a ten foot pole for fear of annoying the petrified populous. No, today's strategy to keep terrorism out is to lock down the populous through knee-jerk security measures that only make people feel safer and don't necessarily make sense.

If we reengineered the process by which our citizens are raised however, I think that this idea would "fly" so to speak and our society would come out the better for it.

Regards,
Aric