Tuesday, October 22, 2013

The wheels on the bus go...

How do you defend against this in an open society?


I don't know that you can. You can't absolutely prevent events like this outside of some Orwellian panopticon; a human zoo that would be no fit place for free men and women.

A certain level of danger is implicit in a free society and, while you could certainly take away the freedom, it wouldn't completely eliminate the danger.

27 comments:

staghounds said...

Is that a bomb on the bus, a mine outside the bus, or the bus hitting something?

Tam said...

Somebody in steerage Allahu Akhbared his- or (more likely) herself.

Chris said...

I agree that (given your surmise) incidents like this are not preventable in a free society. But I'm not worried about being hit by lightning, either. With very-low-possibility dangers, the best you can do is avoid obvious things like walking through a thunderstorm holding up a big piece of metal (whether it's a one-iron or not).

staghounds said...

Incidents like this aren't preventable in unfree societies either- German occupied France, English occupied Northern Ireland, or U.S. occupied Iraq and Afghanistan come to mind.

RandyGC said...

One way is to ignore it as much as possible (i.e. report it Joe Friday style with no video or pictures) and take away the rewards the perpetrators are looking for (publicity, fear, and an over reaction crack down by .gov security forces).

While hunting down the support infrastructure, verifying their identity through strictly fair and scrupulous trials, then terminating them with extreme prejudice. Publicly.

Which takes a realistic view of human nature, and the willingness to suck it up and work the long game. Not likely.

RustyGunner said...

There's always somebody happy to sell the old safety snake-oil.

TJIC said...

You can't defend against it in a slave society either.

The murder rate in jails - where guns and knives is forbidden - is higher than in the worst neighborhoods.




Tam said...

I thought everybody knew that.

Oleg Volk said...

The bomb was carried onto the bus by a woman with a bag. So far, 10 dead and about 20 wounded.

Tam said...

Oleg,

I had that feeling, probably because I just finished reading The Widow's Strike, which sent me off to learn up on shahidkas.

Goober said...

This discussion is why I always tell folks that we've lost the war on terror, and it that we were defeated by our own government.

Terrorism, defined, is merely the use of fear to coerce social change.

The terrorists hate us for a myriad of reasons, and want to destroy us by taking away what freedoms we have, and destroying the American way of life.

PATRIOT Act. TSA. NSA surveillance. Unending war. Travel being treated as a priveledge rather than a right...

Need I go on?

They've won. We were our greatest foe in this war, and we beat ourselves soundly. They played us like marionettes.

And yet we speak of them as backwoods, ignorant neaderthals.

Goober said...

Oh, and one more thing - we've done this to ourselves to "protect" from the most miniscule risk that you could possibly imagine...

Tam said...

Goober,

"This discussion is why I always tell folks that we've lost the war on terror, and it that we were defeated by our own government."

No kidding.

I wouldn't blame a faceless "government", though; they're only doing what our friends, neighbors, and family are asking.

Cincinnatus said...

Police states are very safe, for the police.

Goober said...

I wouldn't blame a faceless "government", though; they're only doing what our friends, neighbors, and family are asking

Are they, though? I've yet to meet anyone other than anonymous internet commenters who support the TSA (and they could very well be sock-puppets).

Tam said...

Flown lately?

Better yet, did you watch any "man on the street" interviews on the network news shows when the TSA floated the idea of letting passengers carry non-locking 1.5" blades aboard planes again?

People grumble about the inconvenience, but a majority of the population consistently polls in favor of security measures that could be defeated by a halfwit.

Nathan A said...

After undergoing a couple dozen patdowns or so (I've yet to go through an airport scanner of any type and plan on keeping it that way as long as humanly possible), I'm not convinced you'd need even half a wit to defeat some of these "security measures."

KM said...

And routinely are defeated by halfwits!

The ones with the blue gloves on.

Kristophr said...

Find out who taught that women that suicide bombing a bus was a good idea.

Crucify that person. Literally.

James said...

"Police states are very safe, for the police."

No they aren't. And it won't be any different here. In fact, probably much worse.

Brad K. said...

I think that a well-armed society would be less likely to suffer this kind of thing.

For one, an armed citizen is often more alert to hazards and bad situations, and may be more likely to intervene -- alert the authorities, alert bystanders, challenge questionable actions, or, possibly, intervene if they can.

Second, if the community is know to be armed, then to be successful, the perp has to take into account the heightened state of alertness, must be more skilled to avoid letting a bystander possibly catch onto what is going down -- and maybe successfully intervening.

So I think that responsible armed citizens and an alert society would likely be less at risk.

KM said...

Not speaking russian or whatever that was, who shot the video??
I wouldn't think that someone just driving down the street would do it.
Cop car cam?

Kristophr said...

KM:

Russian insurance companies won't pay insurance claims unless you have a dash cam in your car to prove fault and lack of fraud.

There are a lot of strange traffic videos coming from Russia as a result. Including one of that meteor fall earlier this year.

Dann in Ohio said...

Israel effectively neutered the threat of terrorists armed with machine guns with the IDF and by arming it's citizens who could quickly eliminate the threat... which gave birth to the commonality of the terrorist bomber which could not be effectively defended against with guns as it was an attack that was over in a split second... we will likely see more of that type of attack in this country...

Dann in Ohio

Kristophr said...

Dann:

Mosques and the Imams in them can't run and hide like suicide bombers ... just sayin' ...

Someone keeps pimping this plan, and keeps collecting money to fund it.

If they want a war, give it to them, until they get a bellyful and sick on it.

Will said...

The big money and direction seems to come from Saudi Arabia. Personally, I wouldn't be too bothered if oil from that area twinkled in the dark. Plus, glass doesn't blow around in high winds. That might be a worthwhile improvement to the environment.

Kristophr said...

BTW, It looks like the mosque the woman attended was burnt to the ground.

Not sure if it was done by the government or their neighbors.

Not sure if I care, either.