Wonkette
Anyone who has ever been on an Amtrak train—especially during rush hour or the onset of holiday weekends—knows how much better things would be aboard that train if passengers were allowed to bring guns on it. Any and all conflicts would be basically pre-solved, because whoever wins is just whoever has a gun, see? Anyway, Congress is all for it, and they are willing to withhold $1.5 billion in funding from Amtrak—or shoot Amtrak with a gun concealed in its messenger bag—unless this is allowed by April.
People used to bring guns on these trains all the time—that is, before someone realized that terrorists can take those guns and use them to fly the trains into skyscrapers. For whatever reason, this is no longer anyone’s concern:
The provision [...] was inserted into the $68.8 billion Senate transportation and housing and urban development spending bill as an amendment. All 40 Republicans, 27 Democrats and one independent voted for the amendment, sponsored by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.).
Amtrak and its defenders in Congress have argued that the government-owned train company needs more time and resources before it could allow firearms onto trains.
“We don’t think we’ll be able to do that March 31 deadline, and, of course, finding the funding to make all of that happening,” said Amtrak spokesman Steve Kulm. Failing to meet that deadline and missing out $1.5 billion in appropriated funds, its entire funding request for 2010, would bring a “cessation of train service nationwide,” Amtrak Chairman Thomas Carper wrote to appropriators last month.
Bottom line is: the only way Amtrak trains will be running this spring is if there are secret guns all over them.
[The Hill]
Just Googled “Amtrack Mississippi” and got an error message, which proves beyond argument that there are no Amtrak stops in Mississipp, and that Senator Roger Wicker is just fucking with all the rest of us, because he can. Thanks, Rog! Don’t forget to bring your 9mm!
Colin Ferguson is especially excited about this.
Looking at the accompanying picture… isn’t this how cabooses are made?
What about the rights of unborn cabooses? Will they be protected under this bill?
Also, all Amtrak trains will have to be called the 3:10 to Yuma.
I think this is what the pilots on the “balloon-boy” flight past Minneapolis Saint Paul were discussing.
Yay! This’ll certainly help next time on a train with trashy families who just let their kids run wild throughout the vehicle. You’re gonna sit down quietly now, little brat.
Well, at least with guns we could better enforce the Quiet Car rules.
Wicker just wants to make sure that the rest of country sucks as much as his home state and that there are plenty of firearms to go around to enjoy in the general suckyness.
Idiot has no lowest level.
Can we shoot buffalo ??
It’ll be mandatory to pack heat before you can enter the bar car, right?
Fucking hell. Just when you think NY Penn couldn’t get any more repulsive, it goes and gets more dangerous on you…
And Travis Childers said nothing.
That’s Senator Roger “I-only-got-this-gig-because-Chip-Pickering-was-too-busy-sticking-it-in-some-lady” Wicker to you.
So can we start bringing them in our carry-on luggage on the air-planes again?
The administration cannot even appear to be opposed to any firearm restrictions (or so they think) for political reasons. And the wingtards in Congress
know this. These amendments are going to get bizarier and bizarier until all Americans are just cold given a standard issue howitzer, for fun, every time they go to the PO to buy stamps.
I’m all about the gun rights. I have a concealed handgun permit myself (from my delivering-divorce-papers-to-unsuspecting-spouses days), but I sure wish there could be some reason applied in these cases.
You all know that these guns are going into the locked baggage cars, right?
This doesn’t apply to carry on luggage, and that whole NE corridor that most people ride will be completely unaffected by this change.
That was firearms allowed in checked luggage, right?
How is this different than allowing firearms to be transported in the trunk of cars?
Of course we already had we already had two fellows like that in the DC Metro area shooting people from the trunk of their car, so I guess I see the point. After all, who wants to see Amtrak passengers shooting back at the Baltimore residents who shoot at the Amtrak trains for sport.
If the guns are checked into baggage, what good would they be to passengers? Is there a machine broadcasting senility rays in the Senate? A Thurmondion or something?
On the bright side, we’ll have to worry less about whether the cow-catcher can get MC Steele off the tracks.
This is f’ing insane.
Yes, crowd people into metal tubes for extended periods of time and give them guns.
Suds McKenzie: Buffalo are protected under the endangered species act.You’re only going to be allowed to shoot runaway coolies, and the Irish, of course.
Why the hell does Congress feel its necessary to have guns in parks and trains but not in the Capitol Building? I am starting a campaign to require angry wingnut teabaggers to bring guns to the Capitol Building whenever they are in town ‘cuz shooting up the Capitol Building feeds the tree of liberty.
This is just the shot in the arm the tourism industry needs: visit America; ride a train; guns, yeah!
meg9: You must be fun to hang out with at parties.
Also, this Texan asks: what’s a train?
And also, take those guns and use them to fly the trains into skyscrapers. Don’t ever say Wonkett doesn’t give value for money.
AggieDemocrat: Well, at least with guns we could better enforce the Quiet Car rules.
But only if you remember to pack your silencer with your heat. Etiquette!
_____
To paraphrase Homer Simpson: “Guns - the solution to, and the cause of, most of life’s little problems.”
meg9: Meaghan McCain?
Last time I rode Amtrak was for pure fun. My wife and I took the Minneapolis to Wisconsin Dells train and we packed a picnic basket with good food and wine to enjoy along the way. However, the trip was nearly ruined by a very stubborn wine cork. If I had a gun with me I could have just shot the top of the bottle off and saved minutes of frustration.
AggieDemocrat: Well since the woman next to me in the quiet car insisted she had to use her cellphone because of a sick parent- I wish I had had a gun - then there would be a sick parent with a dead adult child.
Kewl! The trains will surely run on time now that there’ll will be armed wingnuts just dying for any excuse to go on a shooting spree.
dijetlo: As long as I can still shoot Methodist’s.
Terry:
The gun nuts would have them on airplanes, too, to stop terrorism except for other passengers, those pesky bullet holes and explosive decompression at 30,000 feet thing.
“A sister’s love [Blam!! Blam!!] is stronger than death!!! [budda-budda-budda, WHAM!!]“
Seems to be about the right to transport guns to your destination, not to have them available during the trip. Harmless, or hare-brained?
memzilla: Today we are all unborn cabooses.
I smell a Law and Order episode.
Well! Here’s my solution for the moran who blabs on ceaselessly on his cell phone in the quiet car.
The Making of Bedlam One Two Three
Ooops, maybe I should read the thread first. But at least we all think alike: blast the shit out of the annoying people! Hooray!
mookworthjwilson: Oh, you meant the mass murderer, not the star of the SiFy series Eureka. Thank Dog for Wikipedia.
meg9: So why have them on the trains at all? Just to carry them around the country, for whatever?
I don’t get it.
They must extend it to all public transportation. Those cell phone yackers and boom box idiots have it coming.
Suds McKenzie:
How can you shoot defenseless women and children from a speeding train?
Aim a little behind ‘em.
You know who ELSE was obsessed with guns and trains?!
magic titty: Hunting trips. Seriously, folks transport rifles in the baggage compartment of airlines all the time for hunting purposes.
Boo! This provision only allows guns in checked luggage. What’s the point of bringing guns on Amtrak if I can’t shoot people with them?
Get on it, NRA!
magic titty: In this post 9/11 world (sorry, I just wanted to see what it was like to type that) .. it is important to know that we can carry fire arms on mass transit vehicles.
I suppose the whole “in the baggage car” thing makes this pretty innocuous; you can carry firearms on in baggage on planes, after all, if you have paperwork for it. I’m actually sort of surprised this wasn’t already allowed.
This seems like such an incredible non-issue that the only reason I can imagine it coming up in Congress at all is to serve as bait to conservative voters worried about dem librulz taking away their weapons. How many people travel Amtrak with checked baggage? As far as I know, the vast majority of passengers travel short distances and have carry-ons only, as Amtrak has never been successful as a long-haul rail service.
memzilla:
I thought this was how cabooses have, how you say in English, the sexy. (And are they the not only ones!)
Please extend this to all trains serving the New York metro area. I’d really look forward then to traveling home with a bunch of armed, celebrating/pissed-off Mets/Yankees fans.
ChernobylSoup v2: That’s just lovely.
dijetlo: Neilist will love this, … if he was a good neilist this weekend.
user-of-owls: Patrick Duffy ?
Mad Brahms: I have trouble understanding why Amtrack needs more “time and money” before they can let people put guns in their checked luggage.
ChernobylSoup v2: The bill only allows handguns to be checked. So what do you hunt with a 9mm Ruger?
Also, it’s typical of Republican legislation to impose not a deadline, but an ultimatum — allow guns or else we shoot your funding. Healthcare? No, we have to think about that some more — but allowing guns on trains — why, that’s so urgent a priority that we should threaten an entire transportation system over it.
mookworthjwilson: No, today is Hillary Clinton’s birthday so Hillary has been drinking Budweisers for about an hour and now she’ll be logging on everywhere pretending to be Meghan. Hillary really wants to post a picture of herself holding up her breasts and Andy Warhol but logging in places with Meghan-sounding names is as wild as she allows herself to get, even after the beers.
magic titty: I think the reasoning behind this is that people who are traveling to hunt will now be able to take their gun with them. Otherwise, they would need to drive to their hunting location, I guess. I’m liberal, and against hunting, and supportive of strict gun control laws, but this really doesn’t bother me. Baggage cars are completely NOT accessible during the trip. This isn’t like carrying on a gun.
Dey took aur guuuuuuuuuuns!
ChernobylSoup v2: And then it’s just a brisk 45-mile hike from the airport to the nearest hunting range. Makes sense.
mookworthjwilson: Nope, a very liberal democrat named meg.
SayItWithWookies: Oh. Well. That doesn’t make any sense at all. Unless you are part of the 0.0000023% of the population in the competetive handgun target shooting circuit.
In their defense, the NRA-ers found it most uncomfortable to hide guns in the orifice normally used for contraband.
Mad Brahms: How many people travel on Amtrak, maybe is a better question.
meg9: It doesn’t seem fitting that hunters should take the Amtrak to go kill some animal. I think they should drive - I mean, if they kill an elk during their trip, are they going to stash it - along with their rifle(s) - in the baggage compartment on the way back?
When they mandate spittoons on every traincar, SkoalRebel’s victory will be complete.
user-of-owls: This was underappreciated. I say “ha ha,” most heartily. You are like the flower that blooms unseen in a country churchyard, yes, and stuff like that.
It does seem to be about checking HANDGUNS, so it’s not about hunting. It’s about guns. Guns have one purpose; to shoot things. What would folks need to shoot at close range in a crowded train station? I just don’t get the basic premise - that people really really need guns everywhere all the time. I guess I missed the part of the sermon on the mount where Jesus said, “Locked and loaded.”
According to the article, the cost problem is securing check-in and baggage handling, which seems sort of logical. Interesting that the Reptards want to force Amtrak to spend what will undoubtedly be an enormous pile of money for an almost meaningless sop to saps.
These gun a-holes are going to wreck the economy and insure the cancellation of the second amendment. In the coming decades (1) people are going to boycott any institution, business, etc. where people are allowed to carry, and (2) when caught-in-crossfire deaths & injuries approach the number of auto casualties and thousands of businesses have been sued out of existence, the public outcry will be such that both congress and the supremes will have to react. Doesn’t the NRA the know the principle of Enough Rope? Doesn’t the public know that the surest way to lose their second-amendment rights is to push them too far? Whole thing sounds like a communist plot to me.
What would folks need to shoot at close range in a crowded train station?
James Garfield, for starters.
Three guesses what independent.
Hell, not even three; you have one.
“From my cold, dead caboose!”
In related news, Amtrak announces new route to Yellowstone.
meg9: …who had her sarcasm center of her “brain” removed.
BlueStateLibtard: Mets fans are never celebrating.
Suds McKenzie: Not enough of them left. You’ll have to shoot cows instead.
mookworthjwilson: Hey now, let’s not all pile on meg for noticing that this wasn’t a huge a deal as the headline may have led us to believe. I opened this thread thinking “holy shit they’re going to allow concealed carry in train cars”, since our Wonkette failed to mention the whole baggage compartment thing. Sure, this amendment is a stupid sop to paultards, but it’s a tempest in a teapot as far as actually safety goes. It’s still pretty hard not to laugh at the “flying trains into skyscrapers” bit, though!
AnnieGetYourFun: I used to take it from Milwaukee to Chicago all the time, but at $40 round trip with a travel time *longer than driving* I ended up giving up on it. Amtrak: we waste your time and money so you don’t have to!
mookworthjwilson: Nowhere near so as Deputy Lupo.
proudgrampa: What is that, conceal carry dildos?
Suds McKenzie: Why comment on this? The original post either deliberately misrepresented, or completely misunderstood, the legislation, e.g., it is about transporting firearms as checked baggage, not having weapons in passenger compartments.
The mis-description then “triggered” — if you will pardon the pun — a slew of uninformed, illogical, and typically stupid “Anti-Gun Nutz” comments from Wonkette.com posters who (1) probably have never fired a gun in their lives; (2) are terrified of firearms (particularly those owned by non-white minority groups); and (3) probably would soil themselves if they ever had to use a firearm in self-defense, etc.
In other words, it was a typical Wonkette.com Anti-Gun Nutz piece. Why bother to comment?
Anyway, I was busy. I bought a radio controlled airplane over the weekend, and was trying to figure out where to place the chunk of Semtex I am planning to fly into the nearest office of some California Anti-Gun Nutz group.
You know, “When Model Airplanes Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Model Airplanes!”?
[Given the "quality" of the original post, I probably should note that the last was an attempt at irony . . . not that many of in here are capable of understanding the same.]
SayItWithWookies: I don’t get why they can’t just be ignored.
They hate Amtrak and have ruined it and they hate the city people who can’t have crazy children packing guns in the second grade just because of the limitless rights conferred by their beloved Second Amendment.
Makes perfect sense to me, to put my Gold Cup in the hands of baggage handlers who will hilariously put me on the train to NYC and my pistol on the train to nowhere. Lost baggage claims will skyrocket, and Amtrack will have to be sold to the highest bidder. Capitalism=freedom!!1!
PrairiePossum: Yes, that would be just fine with me. In court too and jail why not? And stop giving a harsher punishment for crimes commited with guns that is not fair.
Neilist: Or models will have outlaw airlplanes…
Neilist: Have you ever been on a train in your life? There generally is no “checked” luggage on a train, doofus. Thats why Amtrak is saying that they can’t do it by March, in order to allow the guns in checked luggage, they have to start “checking” luggage.
Gee, Neilist. You sure need to get reading glasses. The legislation is titled: Taking Guns on Amtrak to Shoot Passengers With Because Wingnuts Love Shooting People on Trains with Guns. What more do you want?
Jim89048: Nice gun. I wouldn’t even let anyone TOUCH my Gold
Cup.
Neilist: Oh, Neilist I’m headed for Grand Central in about a half an hour. I don’t want to get shoved around by gun toters waiting to check their baggage. And while I don’t care what you do out where ever you are it’s tiresome to have a bullet go through your apartment window or have a bus shelter shot apart while you walk down a busy street which used to happen around this where ever. Get real for a minute. And yes I can still shoot I just got tired of trying to swim at the municipal pool with it and it takes up a lot of room in my handbag when I get my hair done or I go to yoga class. Time to take the train.
mookworthjwilson: Oh, you are a sweetheart mookworthjwilson. I just never understood when Wonkette rolls with a story that is completely inaccurate. Find the grain of truth in a story and joke about that. Taking misinformation and rolling with it just gets ridiculous.
natoslug: Thank you, fellow nerd.
Prommie: I have been on Amtrak trains: Cross country, commuter and NW corridor. Many of the commuter and NW corridor trains do not have checked luggage today. The cross country lines all do. Your comment is valid for the commuter and NW corridor lines. The Amtrak rep said that extending check luggage for the other lines is a funding and timing problem. Amtrak knows how to check luggage. They are just not equipped or funded to do it on every line and at every station within 6 months.
Why does Amtrak hate our freedom?
Finally, a defense against Indian attacks AND a way to ensure the engineer stays sober!
So this legislation would force Amtrak to add more baggage cars/services? Even now, the long distance trains don’t offer checked baggage service to every station. (Tough shit, Erie PA. For example.)
x111e7thst: To make sure they are actually putting those guns into the checked luggage instead of carrying on the train with them.
Once I smuggled a bunny on the Autotrain in a carry on bag. It was pretty easy. Here is the photo.
http://www.fluffythebunny.com/Links_to_Animal_Resource.html
Neilist: Was the irony part of your post the fact you were bitching about gun nuts being portrayed as psychopaths while making a joke about murdering people or the fact you were claiming to be hatching a murder plot while being unable to even write coherent posts here?
Neilist:
Why do you even post here? Go away.
glamourdammerung: Yes. (Whatever your questions were.) Yes! Yes! YES!, to quote Molly Bloom on the can. YES![re=443398]
And would you mind opening your bedroom window just a tad more? (I think I’ve got the Semtex right about at the center of gravity, but the controls on this little bugger are a bit twitchy. And it WILL be the biggest BANG that’s ever ocurred in your bedroom. “Glamor.”)
CycloneArmageddon: Sorry. My eyes aren’t what they used to be. That’s why I usually use a shotgun nowadays. Or call in an airstrike.
AKAM80TheWolf: Because you people are so much FUN. (Albeit, not quite in the way you intend.)
Well, got to go. There are so many ant hills out there, and so few sticks.
this is so fucking stupid, I have no snark for it.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t want the only people who have guns and know how to use them to be wingnut Republicans. I’m a frickin’ gay liberal pinko public-option pro-choice wine-sipping arugula-buying Obama supporter, and guess how I spent my weekend? Up at dawn and on the cold ground putting little holes in paper plates from far away. Guns are fuckin’ sweet, guys. Some of you apparently don’t know what you’re missing.
For once, I am commentless, if that in fact is a word. Time to move to place with reasonable gun control laws, say, Russia.
This is such a good idea–let’s try it with planes–and the congressional viewing gallery too.
greggvl: A Yank friend of mine in associated with a Gays-Guns-(Gawd?) group called “Pink Pistols” http://www.pinkpistols.org/
Are you part of that?
mookworthjwilson: Win. GOP is recruiting Ferguson to run against Carolyn McCarthy.
Everyone seems to miss the obvious in this photo. Amtrak = Republican Congressman, Freight Train = reluctant male page. Discuss.
This is violating our Second Amendment right! We should be able to carry on the trian and in classrooms, stadiums, bathrooms, churches, weddings….everywhere and always and forever!
No, but seriously, I love nothing more than for good ole #2 to be interpreted as meaning only being able to bare handguns within one’s home, and restricting rifles and such to hunting.
Neilist: gotcha
God, I thought he was banned. Maybe, I should just keep bringing up his most nasty post until something happens…