And after 9/11, congress did hold immediate hearings, then preceded to pass the "Patriot Act" (99-1 in the senate, I believe); which, of course was later decried as a huge infringement of civil liberties. So, Friedmann didn't intend to, but he actually makes the argument to not hold hearings and pass legislation immediately following a national tragedy.I wouldn't say Friedman at the NYT is my favorite writer but he has a point.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/if-only-stephen-paddock-were-a-muslim/ar-AAsRwk3?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=DELLDHP
Quote:
"If only Stephen Paddock had been a Muslim … If only he had shouted “Allahu akbar” before he opened fire on all those concertgoers in Las Vegas … If only he had been a member of ISIS … If only we had a picture of him posing with a Quran in one hand and his semiautomatic rifle in another …
If all of that had happened, no one would be telling us not to dishonor the victims and “politicize” Paddock’s mass murder by talking about preventive remedies.
No, no, no. Then we know what we’d be doing. We’d be scheduling immediate hearings in Congress about the worst domestic terrorism event since 9/11. Then Donald Trump would be tweeting every hour “I told you so,” as he does minutes after every terror attack in Europe, precisely to immediately politicize them. Then there would be immediate calls for a commission of inquiry to see what new laws we need to put in place to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Then we’d be “weighing all options” against the country of origin.
But what happens when the country of origin is us?"
Is "get small" the 21st century version of "duck and cover"?
This reminds me of the nuclear bomb drills we used to do when in grade school in the 70s cold war. They would tell us to get under our desks.
WTF??? Like this flimsy little desk is going to save me from a nuclear bomb? I had that part figured out in second grade.
Just the sheer number of rounds he sent towards the crowd meant he'd hit several targets. He didn't need to be that accurate. When you're firing a full-auto weapon from an elevated position sometimes it's all about tracking your path of rounds and walking them towards your target.How’d a 64 year old man get that many guns/ammo smuggled into that hotel/casino? How’d he manage to fire from that far away that many times and hit that many people?
I haven’t seen anything on him being a trained gunman. He had to be extremely “lucky” (I feel like) to be that accurate.
How’d a 64 year old man get that many guns/ammo smuggled into that hotel/casino?
With all of the trade shows/conventions in Las Vegas, I'm sure people check into hotels with large suitcases/trunks all of the time. Probably wouldn't even raise and eyebrow.How’d a 64 year old man get that many guns/ammo smuggled into that hotel/casino? How’d he manage to fire from that far away that many times and hit that many people?
I haven’t seen anything on him being a trained gunman. He had to be extremely “lucky” (I feel like) to be that accurate.
Yep, very fortunate that even with all of our differences, the vast majority of people still want to remain living in a civilized society.Maybe this is morbid of me, but I honestly can't believe that stuff like this doesn't happen more often. Like, I've always thought how easy it would be for me to cause insane amounts of destruction and death if I really wanted to, and I guess thank God that there are a very, very, very small number of people who are twisted enough to actually decide to do that? It just doesn't seem like it'd be that hard.
Maybe this is morbid of me, but I honestly can't believe that stuff like this doesn't happen more often. Like, I've always thought how easy it would be for me to cause insane amounts of destruction and death if I really wanted to, and I guess thank God that there are a very, very, very small number of people who are twisted enough to actually decide to do that? It just doesn't seem like it'd be that hard.