1) No threat, no matter how great, justifies the compromise of any part of the bill of rights.
Asinine. So we should not imprison people and deprive them of their rights if they are a criminal.
No part of the bill of rights prevents duly convicted criminals from being incarcerated, so your objection has no bearing whatsoever.
2) This particular threat, while real, is much smaller than people are painting it.
Asinine. You do not have all the facts. Only something you read in the paper...
True; there might be something we don't know yet. They might be much better equipped, trained or planned than the current reports indicate. However, you can't blame me for using the available information. You know neither more nor less than I do, so the playing field is level here. The currently-available information supports my position rather than yours.
Skipping your non-answers,
5) Almost all threats, and in particular this one, are best countered by arming the populace. Measures such as the MCA are much less likely to prove effective.
Asinine. Really? When your only tool is a hammer everything looks like a nail.
You didn't do what I asked, which is to explain the error. Instead you resorted to mockery by quoting an old saw about hammers and nails. Can you point to cases where an armed populace would be less effective than Homeland-Security efforts using MCA powers?
This plot, and 9/11 itself, are both cases in which armed citizens would be much more effective than government measures.
Everyone on this thread agrees that the primary risk to the denizens of Fort Dix lies in the fact that they're almost all unarmed. If citizens were armed, in particular the citizens at Dix would be armed, and able to respond immediately to the threat posed by the "Dix Six."
Similarly, the 9/11 hijackers were able to take over four airplanes using box-cutters because nobody on board was armed. If at least the flight crew were armed, the likelihood of success would have been significantly reduced. On one of the planes,
unarmed passengers thwarted the terrorists' plans.
The reason I say "almost all," is that the armed citizens have a serious advantage over Homeland Security: they are actually present at the time of the attack. Homeland Security can only be present if they know about the attack, and their MCA powers are limited by manpower and other resources. They can't spy on everybody--certainly not on one billion Muslims. Some will always slip through the cracks. But whenever someone attempts an attack, armed citizens will be right there.
In addition, and armed populace means a populace all at condition yellow. 300 million people at condition yellow is a far more effective force than 10,000 at condition orange.
And that's not to mention the deterrent factor. High-roaders generally believe that an armed society is a polite society, do they not?
--Len.
