Oh, Right, I’d Forgotten About Anthrax
posted on August 6th, 2008 by Lawrence Miller
I’m not going to suggest that I have any reason to suspect that Bruce Ivins, the scientist who was the victim of an apparent suicide last week as the FBI closed in, was innocent. Nor am I going to suggest that he was guilty. Nor, finally, do I wish to in any way be disrespectful to the memories or families of the 5 people killed in the 2001 anthrax attacks. But suicide is not an admission of guilt. The rant continues…
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One Obvious Problem with an Armed Populace
posted on March 27th, 2008 by Lawrence Miller
As you may have heard, an armed airline pilot discharged his pistol inside the cockpit while the plane was in the air on Saturday. He was apparently attempting to stow it when it discharged. As a gun owner, I recognize that it would take countless hours of training and ongoing practice to be able to use my gun effectively in any sort of self-defense scenario. I’m not willing to put in that much effort, so my Walther P-22 stays locked up when I’m not actually target shooting. I’m also nervous about airline pilots carrying guns; it’s very difficult to prevent a determined team of attackers from disarming a single target, so I typically follow the “never carry a weapon that I wouldn’t want an attacker to take away from me” rule. These concerns are only slightly mitigated by the reality that most airline pilots are former military pilots; when they were in the military, perhaps they practiced with their sidearms frequently, and perhaps even practiced the tactical skills necessary to use a gun effectively in a stressful situation. But have they been getting that kind of practice in lately?
Peter Biddle, putting it much more simply than I ever could, notes that “trust is not transitive”. The best part:
We can assume that a trained pilot, when facing piloty thingies, will act like a trained pilot. WE CANNOT ASSUME THAT A TRAINED PILOT WILL ACT LIKE A TRAINED LION-TAMER WHEN FACING A WILD LION.
If I were to walk around with a loaded gun, even one I’d fired 10,000 rounds through, I’d be an accident waiting to happen. What steps are being followed to make sure airline pilots are not?
