Because airplanes
House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) said this week that he opposes gun control in response to mass shootings because the country did not ban airplanes after they were used in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The country didn’t ban them but it sure as hell did put a lot of new restrictions and checks in place, which, funnily enough, is what gun control means. It means control, not elimination.
Also: guns have one purpose, which is to shove metal slugs into living flesh at high speed. That’s not the purpose of commercial airplanes. The purpose of commercial airplanes is to move people and goods around. The people who flew them into buildings were not using them for their designed purpose. The people who use AR-15s to shoot a lot of people in a short time are using them for their designed purpose.
I hope that clarifies.
Has anybody told him that squirrels are not hammers? Judging from his novel use of logic here, he sounds like someone for whom this would be new and useful information.
Ophelia, that clarifies beautifully. Exactamundo.
Ophelia has expressed this perfectly. Thank you!
You’d think Scalise would be able to do it for himself, given the fact that he’s been the victim of a crazed shooter.
But military bombers are REAL airplanes, so REAL airplanes are military bombers.
And now for something completely different….
After the post Sept 11 2001 groundings were over we took our daughter (between 4 and 5 at the time) and parked out on Marine Drive in Portland and watched planes take off and land from PDX with a picnic. We didn’t want her to associate planes with the horrific images that were everywhere. At the end we were driving away while an airliner was starting its take off run. I told her that we were racing it. Just as it caught up to us, it rotated and flew away. She howled with delight.
A couple of weeks ago I watched from that same spot as another airliner rotated and flew away. My daughter was the pilot.
Pliny, that was the nicest story I’ve read in a while. Thank you for sharing it.
I can’t say it any better than Sackbut just said, thanks for sharing.
<5 (because 2 better than <3 or something)
Oh, my, that is an excellent story. Goosebumps.
@6 lovely story, thank you for sharing.
I knew someone who purposely scheduled a flight for September 11, 2002. He was making his annual September trip across the pond (to London or to the continent, I forgot which). He said he did it as a “fuck you!” to the terrorists. Side benefit, he got a good deal on the price.