SNIPER ON THE LOOSE; MAN WITH HIGH POWERED RIFLE IN DOWNTOWN PITTSBURGH
Well, those were the headlines coming across the wire. Turns out, just some guy with a BB gun shooting flying rats.
Update: Quick to scrub the record. Not a single story with a hysterical headline is on the Google News page now.
March 22nd, 2006 at 5:45 pm
This is frightening. The media have been hyping up the gun fear for decades now, so some victim of such hype sees a guy with a pellet gun and, just like Pavlov’s dogs slavering at the sound of a bell, he automatically calls the cops to report an eeevil sniper on the roof. The police in turn and in similar Pavlovian fashion, assume the very, very worst, panic (such courage and level headedness) overreact, and shut down the neighborhood. It a wonder they didn’t just bring in a police sniper kill him outright, thereby fullfilling their own delusions of doom.
Now it will be interesting to see if they end up blaming the innocent pellet gunner for the effects of all their stupidity. And no one even considered contacting anyone in the building and asking if they knew what was going on.
And I used to walk down our neighborhood street carrying a .22 rifle in my youth. No one ever even questioned me, and I was 8 to 10 years old at the time…
March 22nd, 2006 at 6:55 pm
You need to learn to take snapshots. Online sources may not leave traces around like “Dewey Defeats Truman”.
March 22nd, 2006 at 9:42 pm
Ten one-man teams in the ten biggest airports in the country could shut down air travel for a day by running through security checkpoints, up the down escalators, or into the womens bathroom instead of the mens. It might take a week to get the airline schedule un-fukadoed.
This has gotten ridiculous.
Imagine if we were at war with an enemy who who sent ten muhammed and malvo sniper car teams into the ten biggest of our cities and shut them down? (but of course, where would the Muslims ever find twenty suicidal nuts and raise the 200,000.00 bucks it might take to finance an effort like that?) The police and government would be lining up people and shooting them.
Good thing we are in clash of civilization with idiots….but too often our people ARE the idiots.
March 22nd, 2006 at 10:59 pm
OT: Kansas Senate votes 30-10 to override Sebelius’s veto, House vote tomorrow. Thanks, Uncle.