We probably all agree on the worthlessness of the New York Times. For starters, it publishes propaganda it barely bothers to disguise as news, relentlessly pushing its various agendas from a totalitarian State to sodomy as “marriage.” Its style and conventions are hidebound and stodgy. And despite the worldwide failure of the Big Government it has promoted for decades as well as its own slide into irrelevance and bankruptcy, it remains disgustingly enamored with itself.
So when one of its columnists titles his vaporing, “Knuckleheads and Worse, Bringing Guns in Carry-ons,” we merely roll our eyes as we marvel at the economy: in little more than 900 words, the Slimes not only endorses the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) as passengers’ protectors rather than predators, it also attacks for the umpteenth time our inalienable right to arm ourselves.
The inspiration for this drivel came from John Pistole, Czar at the TSA, and a statistic he recently expelled: “Every day, screening officers [sic for ‘deviants and busybodies’] find four to five guns in carry-on bags at American airports…” he alleged. And all without even the thought of a warrant, though of course the Slimes doesn’t consider that little factoid worthy of mention.
Pistole’s stat is likely wrong but naturally, the Slimes swallows everything he says: its editors lack even rudimentary skepticism of an “expert” the State employs. Should a politician or bureaucrat observe that the sky is green with pink polka-dots, the Slimes would duly print it without so much as a glance upward. Such exalted critters as Leviathan’s lackeys never lie nor mistake their facts.
And yet CNN reported on November 2, “More than 900 guns have been recovered” — telling choice of verb, don’t you think? What, does the government own our pistols so that it merely “recovers” its property when it steals them? — “at checkpoints this year, the TSA says.” That yields an average of 3.1, not “4 or 5,” for each of the 306 days prior to Nov. 2, even if we generously interpret “more than 900 guns” to mean 950.
Someone’s lying, but that’s old news when it comes to Pistole and his agency: both deceive us about everything, all the time. What infuriates is the media’s gullibility — and it’s just as jaw-dropping at CNN as it is at the Slimes. Not only does CNN’s article include the TSA’s claim of finding 900 guns this year, it leads with Pistole’s figure of 4 or 5 — and even blares it in the headline. At least the Slimes’ writer doesn’t seem aware of the TSA’s conflicting estimate — which is malpractice of another kind: shouldn’t he be? His column is titled “On the Road,” and while it covers travel in general, he often writes about the TSA — need I add almost always favorably?
Whatever number the agency “recovers” each day, this is only the latest volley in its jihad against weapons, particularly guns: its website has long presented “TSA Week at a Glance,” announcing among other things how many “firearms” were “found at checkpoints.” Obviously, this implies that “firearms” are horrifying and scary and that but for the TSA, gun-crazed terrorists would crash planes into buildings.
The presupposition that defenseless passengers are safe passengers has a lengthy, dishonorable and self-serving history — though not a shred of evidence to substantiate it. Stripping citizens of weapons so that they cannot rebel against tyrants is every government’s dream; most of them succeed in realizing it.
But not in the United States. Its history of pioneers and frontiers, its tradition of self-reliance and autonomy, and its constitutional guarantee that we may “keep and bear” made disarming us exceedingly difficult. Only within the last century have governments at the national and local levels partially triumphed in this despotic quest. (At least among white men. The disarming of black Americans is another, shameful matter — and it ought to definitively silence the pro-gun-owners-control crowd.)
The FAA’s introduction of checkpoints in airports during the early 1970s — and the spread of those checkpoints beyond airports under the TSA — helps achieve that goal. Absolutely no research proves that the only or even the best way to secure aviation is to search every passenger boarding a flight; in fact, nothing but the Supreme Court says protecting airlines is even a federal responsibility. No matter: Congress arrogated to itself power over aviation that the Constitution never gave it; in another equally unconstitutional move, it “delegated” that power to the FAA and, later, the TSA (Article 1, Section 8 specifies that only Congress shall “make all Laws” — even if we rename them “regulations” –— “…necessary and proper for carrying into Execution…all other Powers vested by this Constitution…in any Department…”). Gowned clowns agreed, inventing an “interest” for the Feds in “safe aviation.”
They further decreed that buying a ticket means we consent to anything our guards do to us and that “reasonable” people rejoice at generalized searches because they realize that without them, planes would fall from the skies.
But all of this merely legalizes the Feds’ unconstitutional control of aviation’s security; it does nothing to make that control practical or effective. Predictably, it’s neither: politicians and bureaucrats without the slightest knowledge of how to protect passengers but with an outsized lust to disarm them banned guns on planes.
That tyranny killed 3,000 innocents one September morning. Imagine how differently things might have turned out if passengers packed heat! Had terrorists known that Americans aloft still arm themselves, would they ever even have contemplated trying to commandeer one plane, let alone four?
Nonetheless, the myth that weapons on planes equals danger rather than defense only became more entrenched with the TSA — to the point that when the agency tallies how many guns it grabs each week, everyone understands the implied doom from which it saves us.
The lunacy becomes even more staggering when we recall that the TSA counts us — the disarmed, suspected-for-terrorists-and-abused-accordingly serfs -— as one of its barriers against bad guys. A graph on its website entitled “Layers of US Security” lists “Passengers” along with “Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response” [VIPR] teams and “Checkpoint/Transportation Security Officers.” I don’t know about you, but I hardly deserve such excoriation: I haven’t fondled even one little kid nor swiped anybody’s shampoo. Regardless, the agency “considers…able-bodied passengers to be an important layer of aviation security” because they will “engage in self-defense actions should an incident occur onboard commercial aircraft.”
Really? How? Oh, right: those “able bodies.” Let’s hope said bodies boast strong teeth and fingernails since the TSA’s assailants have robbed them of all other weapons. Or perhaps the agency imagines actual terrorists scare easily and the “important layer” can send them fleeing by hollering “BOO!”
Back at the Slimes, our columnist quotes “a spokeswoman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence,” which is “just pleased that the T.S.A. is being aggressive about searching for guns…”
Indeed. That’s whole point.
