• We are now running on a new, and hopefully much-improved, server. In addition we are also on new forum software. Any move entails a lot of technical details and I suspect we will encounter a few issues as the new server goes live. Please be patient with us. It will be worth it! :) Please help by posting all issues here.
  • The forum will be down for about an hour this weekend for maintenance. I apologize for the inconvenience.
  • If you are having trouble seeing the forum then you may need to clear your browser's DNS cache. Click here for instructions on how to do that
  • Please review the Forum Rules frequently as we are constantly trying to improve the forum for our members and visitors.

AmTrak underfire from US Senate

Task Force 16

Campaign Veteran
Joined
Jul 20, 2008
Messages
2,615
Location
Lobelville, Tennessee, USA
imported post

This is a rather biased anti-gun editorial concerning the Senates cutting of subsidies to Amtrak if the rail service doesn't start letting passengers transport fireams in checked luggage, like the air carriers do.

27 Democrats, 1 Independant voted with all 40 Republicans in favor of the measure, against 30 Dems that opposed it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/opinion/18fri3.html?_r=1

Are we gaining ground or what?
 

old dog

Regular Member
Joined
Feb 5, 2009
Messages
396
Location
, ,
imported post

Like most liberal rags the NYT is well on its way to irrelevance.
 

usaf0906

New member
Joined
Nov 29, 2008
Messages
301
Location
, ,
imported post

TFred wrote:
"Why should gun owners be treated as privileged travelers?"

Wow you really just have to chuckle at the warped thinking these folks come up with sometimes.

TFred
WOW indeed. These people need to be taken out for a session of electric shock therapy, and then maybe a lesson on the founding fathers.
 

Superlite27

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 12, 2007
Messages
1,277
Location
God's Country, Missouri
imported post

Why, oh why, do you people post these things?

I can't help but read them, then I regret doing so because it makes me mad enough to puke!

AHHHHHH!

"priveleged travellers".

I'm gonna hurl.
 
Joined
Aug 15, 2008
Messages
346
Location
, ,
imported post

yea... they are complaining about privileged travelers? but they are all about protecting dacing queers in PRIVATE businesses. or shemales helping young children pick out socks.
 

SlackwareRobert

Regular Member
Joined
Jun 10, 2008
Messages
1,338
Location
Alabama, ,
imported post

Not one mention of if they will extend the law to negate the violation of local laws
just because amtrak uses the station also at times. Would this effect the
'high speed rail' from vegas to kommifornia? I have never heard if they want
to build it for amtrak, or have a brand new government agency run it. :banghead:

Wonder if Pelosi knows about this vote? :lol:
 

IDAHO COWBOY

Regular Member
Joined
Apr 30, 2009
Messages
298
Location
, ,
imported post


U.S. SENATE TO AMTRAK TO SUPPORT THE SECOND AMENDMENT -- OR -- JUST A BACKDOOR TO EXPAND FEDERAL GOVT "TSA" & OTHERS INTO PASSENGER RAIL SERVICE

The Wicker Amendment passed by the U.S. Senate is about 50/50 correct and leaves too many loose ends, Congress should just pass a law allowingpassengers to carry of rifles, shotguns, and handguns (concealed or open carry) along with ammo and accessories on AMTRAK by anyone from any State with a hunter safety completion card or hunting license or conceal carry permitor FID then at the passenger choice have "an option" of checking rifles, shotguns, and handguns along with ammo and accessories in the baggage car. Of course the most secure option is for the passenger to "carry" not "check" the rifles, shotguns, and handguns along with ammo and accessories. Either way, at no time no one should be allowed to examine or even touch the rifles, shotguns, or handguns along with ammo and accessories except for the "owner" passenger.

Of course the best way, is as our Fore Fathers wrote: The Second Amendment - the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Shall Not Be Infringed - period. So abolish all guns laws, somwhere around 20,000 Nation wide and just follow the Second Amendment.

We do not need another federal government TSA organization at train depots or riding the trains like TSA airport baggage handlers and TSA Federal Air Marshalls do; costing Billions of Dollars per year and accomplishing nothing.

Next after railroads the federal government will want to do the same with Buses, again costing Billions of Dollars !

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.lewrockwell.com/maloney/maloney15.1.html



"I now live in a New York that, among other things, sees you walk disarmed by a small knot of machine gun toting police, all standing at the subway entrance. You hope that they won’t pick you for a random search because you don’t want to miss the train, but knowing that if picked you’ll submit has its doleful effect – even if you hurry past them unhorsed, now humiliated, you’ve lost.

When my ancestors first came here from across the ocean, they would have shot a man, uniformed or not, who tried such a thing as rooting through their person and things on a whim. Later, having been disarmed by the Sullivan Act, my grandfather would still have punched him across the face. My father would have engaged him in a rigorous, ineffective debate, while I just turn, walk out, and use another subway entrance."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.nraila.org/Legislation/Federal/Read.aspx?id=5142





NRA-Backed Wicker Amendment Adopted By Senate



Friday, September 18, 2009




Duringconsideration ofH.R. 3288 (FY 2010 Transportation--Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill), Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) offered NRA-backed Amendment 2366 to reform policies regarding the transportation of firearms on Amtrak trains. Currently, passengers who choose to travel by passenger rail in the United States cannot transport a firearm in checked baggage as they can on airlines.

Known as the Wicker Amendment, this measure was adopted by the Senate on Wednesday, September 16, by a vote of 68-30, and would allow law-abiding Amtrak passengers the ability to securely transport firearms in their checked baggage while traveling by Amtrak train.

Wicker offered a similar amendment to a budget resolution on April 2. That NRA-supported amendment was adopted by the Senateby a 63-35 vote. Unfortunately, the amendment did not survive the conference committee and was not included in the final budget resolution.



“Americans should not have their Second Amendment rights restricted for any reason, particularly if they choose to travel on America's federally subsidized rail line,” said Wicker.

Wicker’sappropriations amendment would cut more than $1.5 billion in taxpayer funding to Amtrak if the railroad does not change its policy to allow passengers to securely transport firearms in checked baggage. The policy change would also broaden gun owners’ choices in choosing how to travel, and benefit Amtrak by encouraging more business from shooters and hunters.

“Sportsmen who would like to use an Amtrak train for hunting trips cannot do so because they are not allowed to bring a firearm in checked luggage, something that is done every day at airports across our country,” Wicker said during floor debate.



++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/18/opinion/18fri3.html?_r=2

The Senate Brandishes a Gun at Amtrak



Published: September 17, 2009

In a shocking genuflection to the gun lobby, the Senate has voted to deny Amtrak its indispensable $1.6 billion federal subsidy unless it allows passengers to transport handguns in their checked luggage. The budget support would be stripped in six months unless Amtrak scraps the gun ban that it wisely adopted five years ago after the terrorist railroad atrocities in Madrid.

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/g/gun_control/index.htmlThe majority vote was bipartisan and not even close, with 27 Democrats and one independent (the ultraliberal Bernie Sanders from gun-friendly Vermont) joining all 40 Republicans versus 30 opponents. The hope is that the House or President Obama will ultimately reject the Amtrak measure, but security-wary citizens cannot count on that as the gun lobby choreographs political cravenness.

The budget cudgel was approved despite pleas from Amtrak that it lacks the manpower, equipment and extra financing to effectively meet the deadline and that it faces a shutdown if federal funds are lost. Among other changes, baggage cars would have to be securely retrofitted and manpower increased. The warning cut no ice with the majority as the chief sponsor, Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican of Mississippi, intoned a lock-step mantra: “Americans should not have their Second Amendment rights restricted for any reason.”

Proponents said the change was needed to put Amtrak back to its pre-9/11 gun policy and equate it with airline security measures that allow unloaded, locked handguns in checked baggage. This is lunatic reasoning for a nation supposedly sensitized by the 9/11 attacks. Why should gun owners be treated as privileged travelers?

Amtrak has none of the hermetic procedures where airport passengers are screened shoeless at detectors while their checked baggage is separately secured. Trains stop at stations and passengers come and go. Amtrak presently has a system of checking passengers and screening baggage at random, much the way New York police monitor mass transit.

If the Senate wants to pass a bill on Amtrak, it should provide the money to hire more security guards and create a real passenger rail system. Generally, it should just stop its demeaning homage to the gun lobby.
 

chewy352

Regular Member
Joined
Sep 11, 2009
Messages
769
Location
Harrah, Oklahoma
imported post

Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican of Mississippi, intoned a lock-step mantra: “Americans should not have their Second Amendment rights restricted for any reason.”

I would like to respectfully ask Senator Roger Wicker to run for Governor of California :dude:

Michael
 

Xader

Regular Member
Joined
Jul 30, 2009
Messages
70
Location
, Oregon, USA
imported post

I fired off an email thanking Jeff Merkley for voting "yea".

I'll try to construct a scathing one to Ron Wyden for doing the opposite.
 

Sonora Rebel

Regular Member
Joined
Aug 6, 2008
Messages
3,956
Location
Gone
imported post

This is the type of flaming anti opinion you can expect out of the socialist swamps where these types of writers live. They reflect their own rather ignorant,myopic views.

"Why should gun owners be treated as privileged travelers?"Perhaps more to the point... why should gun owners be discriminated against in interstate travel? The guns are in 'baggage'. I suppose institutionalized hoplophobia knows no bounds.
 

suntzu

Regular Member
Joined
Jun 22, 2008
Messages
1,230
Location
The south land
imported post

that "EDITORIAL"--if that is what you can call it is nothing short of a big pile of horse****

that writer really needs to step into reality and live for a while instead of hiding in the "nice, everyone is friendly to you, police are always out for your best interests, criminals always get caught and successfully prosecuted and the state knows what is best for you" world created by the brady bunch....

that writer would have done well in Soviet Russia as a loyal party member...
 

suntzu

Regular Member
Joined
Jun 22, 2008
Messages
1,230
Location
The south land
imported post

chewy352 wrote:
Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican of Mississippi, intoned a lock-step mantra: “Americans should not have their Second Amendment rights restricted for any reason.”

I would like to respectfully ask Senator Roger Wicker to run for Governor of California :dude:

Michael
maybe he should run for President--he could work for complete incorporation of the 2nd Amendment, as well as every other Amendment not currently incorporated to the states...
 
Top