Fire From The Sky
Tom Sowell, a Senior Fellow over at the Shame of Stanford, gets paid to sit on the crapper and dream up solutions to the pressing problems of the day. Normally Sowell’s scholarly excretions are simply inane, but recently the potty philospher applied himself to high speed car chases and came up with a solution that is both moronic and scary.
Naturally Sowell is peeved at the liberals who tell the cops that they can’t go tearing through suburban school zones at 105 mph in pursuit of some nitwit whose car is missing a taillight.
The police have some tough choices to make when deciding when to chase and when to let the driver continue on his high-speed way. Innocent people can get killed either way. … We have no way of knowing whether reckless speeders will slow down if the cops don’t follow them when they try to get away.
But we do know that the reckless speeders sure as shit won’t slow down if the cop continues the pursuit and then we then have not one but two idiots careening through the city streets. But not so fast, Sowell is one step ahead of us:
No doubt there is much to be said for bringing high-speed chases to an end quicker [sic] …
(Are there no standards at the Hoover Institution? Doesn’t a Senior Fellow have to know the difference between an adjective and an adverb? But I digress.)
… and especially before the speeder can get off the highway and go speeding through city streets, endangering both other motorists and pedestrians.
Okay, Tom, yes, there is much to be said for that. So what do you propose? Brace yourself, kids, because Tom thinks that helicopter snipers are the solution.
When there is a police helicopter overhead, a shot straight down would have little chance of hitting some innocent bystander. Maybe the speeder is just someone out joy-riding but that does not make a reckless driver any less dangerous.
Not only is Sowell a Senior Fellow in economics, but he’s also an expert at shooting speeding cars from moving helicopters and thus can assure us all that there’s little chance of hitting the wrong person. I hope that makes you all feel better.
Now being the painty-waist liberal that I am, I feel constrained to point out that I’m a just a teensy bit troubled by summary execution of traffic offenders. Not so for Mr. Sowell:
The issue is not whether the crime for which the driver is being pursued deserves the death penalty. It is the driver’s choice whether to put his life — and other people’s lives — at risk.
Well, I guess that settles that.
With the driver dead, the car will then come to a complete stop and not barrel through the streets threaten everyone around.
Ummm, I wasn’t aware killing the driver causes a car to come to a complete and utter stop, as opposed to an uncontrolled crash which might, just maybe, involve innocent bystanders.
Brilliant.
C’mon, everybody join in! It’s fun!
I foresee no complications with men in helicopters *shooting bullets straight down* at automobiles weaving at high rates of speed on our great nation’s un-busy streets. I anticipate that, you know, wind and shit, will never cause any interference with such bullet’s perfectly straight downward course of the. Nor to I anticipate that with the driver dead or merely injured, that such action would like, totally cause him or her to possess LESS control of the vehicle swearving through city streets – ’cause as far as I know, individuals who have been shot in an attempt to get away from the police politely pull over in a safe and courteous manner.
Geez. Jinx x4.
Is the right’s answer to everything, “Find a way to kill someone”?
What’s next? Lethal injection for overdue library books?
The is not whether it is just for perpetrators of overdue book-ism to be summarily executed, but whether or not I can get my copy of “Three Men and A Baby” on Beta on a predictable schedule.
When there is a police helicopter overhead, a shot straight down would have little chance of hitting some innocent bystander.
And less chance of hitting the target!
He’s either never ridden in an helicopter or he’s never fired a gun… well, and/or he’s dumber than a sack full of hammers.
why can’t the helicopter, like, land in front of the car, or better yet! on TOP of the fleeing car. THAT would stop it.
Just attaching an anvil to the bottom of the chopper would do it. Those things fall straight down and then WHAM and the criminal would have a squishy accordion-like body for several seconds.
Now, now, I think snipers could solve most any problem.
Say there’s a pothole those fat cat liberals over at the DPW won’t fix: shoot a couple of people and presto! Instant pothole filler. Having a problem with the fact that your neighbor is planting a tree that will someday cause unwanted avacados to fall onto your property? Hello Mr. Sniper! Or say you’ve started a war that has turned the country completely against you — a few well placed snipers could freak the shit out of the opposition (while killing a few leaders) and order will be maintained!
Never underestimate the flexibility of a sniper solution.
I’m not snipering anyone who purports to provide me with free avacados from his tree. I’ll tell you that right now.
Next week: Shooting the kids on your lawn. Shotgun or flamethrower?
Setting aside for a moment the car will crash into nearby vehicles and/or buildings, causing tremendous death and property damage, there’s a built in fallacy to the premise.
Said helicopter borne sniper will have to use a round that will reliably penetrate the roof of the car. This eliminates intermediate light/fast rounds like 5.56, and will require a more effective penetrator, most likely .308. Shooting with any kind of precision from a helicopter is impossible, so a miss is quite likely. The .308 round will hold together after impact, and thus, if it does not penetrate, will be a lethal ricochet for anywhere up to a thousand meters in ANY (utterly uncontrollable) direction.
Then there is also the problem that the shooter will have no way of knowing where in the car the bad guy is. Is it a carjacking? Can he make certain he doesn’t kill the victim instead of the perpetrator? Is it a kidnapping, where the driver is the victim? He’d have no way of knowing.
But fortunately, this level of stupid is nothing but the yammering the purveyor of stupid does when he’s trying to keep most of the drool in his mouth. You see, law enforcement firearms training stresses a number of things, one of which is “BE CERTAIN OF YOUR BACKGROUND”, something that would be impossible in this scenario, so it would be a “Bad Shooting” every time and the cop would lose his job, his pension and the respect of his peers. So he wouldn’t do it…
Oh, by the way, thanks for posting something kind of interesting and amusing….
mikey
How many of the 500 or so innocent victims of high speed chases were killed by the actions of the pursuing law enforcement and not the vehicle being pursued? ‘Cause if that number is as high as I think it is, then finding a way to encourage high speed chases with more accurate kill rates is not going to end up saving any lives. I’m just saying, that is a statistical analysis that an economist should be able to figure out as part of his own premise even if he can just assume all the complicated engineering stuff without explanation.
Another illustration that cars and TV are the main points of justification for fascism in 21st century USA. (TV? You KNOW he got these ideas watching “reality” cop shows.)
This is hardly an original comment, but jeez, this guy gets PAID for writing crap like this? Where can I get a job like that?
“When there is a police helicopter overhead, a shot straight down…”
A shot? With a bullet? A penetrating round?
Bah – bullet, shmullet. When it comes to shooting/dropping shit from the sky, I have just two words for you.
Two words. Are you listening?
Liquid. Nitrogen.
Nothing stops speeders faster.
You’re welcome.
This is hardly an original comment, but jeez, this guy gets PAID for writing crap like this? Where can I get a job like that?
The Atlantic Monthly.
Or for that matter, the Israelis have done some extensive research in effecting routine traffic stops with Hellfire™ missiles. Perhaps they could help LAPD out a little?
mikey
Incontentia in a 360-reverse backboard-shattering slam dunk ftw. SMACK!
For a long time, I’ve thought that helicopters equipped with big electromagnets on cables (like at auto wrecking yards) would be very helpful in getting rid of asshole drivers. The copter would swoop down, grab the car by the roof with its magnet, and then carry it off. If the driver is foolish enough to open the door and jump out, well, that’s that.
Is the right’s answer to everything, “Find a way to kill someone”?
snark aside, it IS kind of revealing that occasionally, the underlying assumption that anyone not of their class is disposable slips through the rhetoric.
yes, they do think killing and shooting is a solution, because they are adequately protected and will not be subjected to any of the bloodshed, other than seeing it on Fox News during the daily kill-counts.
i like the anvil and liquid nitrogen solutions. Or maybe a can of paint, to cover the windshield, so the driver can’t see? And don’t forget gernades!
Yeah, who said anything about just shooting the speeding car with mere bullets?
Traffic cops should clearly be able to call in to the death copters to target a fleeing vehicle for a fire-and-forget missile which will destroy the target vehicle and all miscreant beings inside.
Then after a while they could replace those expensive helicopters with cheaper unmanned aerial vehicles patrolling the skies at all times, and using the deterrence properties of law enforcement, soon there will be no fleeing, speeding vehicles because any vehicle reported or which is measured to exceed the posted recommended limit will instantly be targeted by unmanned fixed wing or rotor wing craft which will then destroy it.
This does suggest that then there would need to be a coordinated response with the emergency fire, paramedics, and blockage removal teams to tend to the aftermaths of each destruction, but this is a small price to pay in order to achieve awesome blowing up of stuff.
Wonder if that would make for good FOX TV??
This is an excellent example, though, of a brand new area of wingnut discourse.
It’s the argument that is made, not on ideological grounds or even good old fashioned greed, but solely because it will piss liberals off. Doesn’t matter to any great extent what the subject is.
With the Iraq war, they found that they really enjoyed doing this, especially if it was done in an illogical way, because that leaves moderate liberals agog and speechless. The more gobsmacking and irrelevant the argument the better.
It makes their little lizard brains feel like they won an argument.
I always thought that running from the cops was a right like in The Vanishing Point or Smokey and the Bandit, but now I understanding it is only a priviledge.
After reading Sowell’s article I think his suggestion of shooting traffic violators on sight might solve the problem of organleggers, providing they checked off on the organ donor part of their license.
Isn’t the government putting some kind of tungsten rod launcher in space? Wouldn’t that be more effective than a chopper and some big ass elephant gun?
Not nearly as fun, though.
Perhaps they could use some sort of phaser that would disintegrate the speeding car. A smaller, helicopter mounted version of the phasers we’ve deployed in space to shoot down nuclear missiles.
What? But we spent billions on it! What do you mean, we don’t have the space missile phasers? Where did those billions go, then? Hell, back to square one, then. I like the giant magnet idea.
Aw, Scaramouche took mine. I was going to say that the surgically-accurate helicopter-sniper idea would also have the advantage of leaving the speeder’s organs intact, so the cops could harvest them in order to provide restitution for the miscreant’s many victims.
It would be totally like Transformers where the Autobots and Decepticons fought throughout the city and totally wrecked the joint and each other, leaving other motorists, pedestrians, and possible Islamonazis hiding in office buildings completely harmless!
God, that movie sucked.
Wait! It’s even simpler than this. Build ALL new roads to include built in mines. Satellite command detonators. Some donut eating sergeant back at headquarters with a bunch of monitors just designates a particular car, and the next mine it rolls over – BANG.
This would have the added advantage of stimulating new infrastructure construction…
mikey
Build ALL new roads to include built in mines.
Ha. You people are still thinking inside the box. Build all new cars to blow up when they exceed the local speed limit.
Call them Ford Pintos.
Look, we all should have this chip installed inside of us with a satellite transceiver and a
smalllarge amount of plastic explosive. Anyone the government suspects of treason, the president (or a flunky) flips a switch. Bang. One dead traitor.That would solve all of societies woes.
This isn’t even an original idea!
Bet that sweaty-browed wanker didn’t give even the tiniest nod to Blue Thunder, did he?
“Okay, okay, I see your points. Let me offer a counterproposal: an armored attack helicopter with ELINT capability, stealth characteristics and a turret-mounted minigun. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you…Blue Thunder.”
Alas, Snowwy, I barely missed thee.
God, I love right-wing authority-fellators.
I especially love the ones who are in love with armed police – and with the concept of gun-toting authority in general – and yet are completely unacquainted with what they do.
If this gentleman knew the first thing about the guns he wants fired at miscreants/terrorists/black Democrats, he would know that long-ranged sharpshooters, unless they happen to be firing lasers, have to compensate for gravity. That gets thrown way the hell out of whack by even the smoothest-hovering helicopter (and try pissing in a straight line in a helicopter, let alone shooting, and get back to me), because of the absurd difference in altitude and angles from the usual.
Sharpshooters, especially good ones, get very used to firing at a target at an angle to them between 90 and 45 degrees. Height stops being an advantage and starts being a liability long, long before the ridiculous angles – between -70 and straight down – that an airborne shooter would face.
If he had ever fired a gun in his life, besides firing wildly into clay pidgeons/silhouettes of Arabs, he would know all of this. But he does not.
Meanwhile, those of us with a passing familiarity with weapons who want them controlled are the pansies. Gotta love overcompensation.
Alec,
Zeno could take the shot.
Hooray for the free marketplace!
Zeno could take the shot.
In order to aim his gun down, he’d first have to point it halfway down. After that, he’d have to point it another half of the distance to down, and so on.
c’mon guys, it worked for Airwolf.
i’m told that the russians have tested a bomb so fucking big they are calling it the daddy of all bombs. i say go pre-emptive–we profile which streets in which cities have the highest rate of high speed chases where innocent bystanders die. we extrapolate let’s say…50 years ahead, take all the potential I.B. deaths, and if that number is greater than the number of people who will die when we drop the daddy bomb, by all means we just drop the motherfucker right smack in the middle of said street at some random time.
no more high speed chases there, i promise you. and what are a few deaths in pursuit of the possibility that others might hurt us? it’s a small sacrifice, as some might say.
Know what would be funny? If police departments followed Sowell’s advice … and he got himself shot and killed in the exact manner he proposes. The police wouldn’t know why he’s going so fast, so it’s best to just kill him from the air and get it over with for the children … oh and hope his now driverless car doesn’t careen into a school bus at 100+ mph.
Jay B says, wisely,
“Never underestimate the flexibility of a sniper solution.”
True enough. Call me a pussy pacifist, but I’m reminded of a line Tom Stoppard wrote in (I think) Jumpers:
“No problem is insoluble, given a large enough plastic bag.”
Different strokes, etc.
(And am I the only one worried about the sniper hitting the gas tank? By “worried about” I mean, “can’t wait to see.”)
Without reading the other comments, I just want to say this is the Authoritarian mindset in full bloom. It seems as if Sowell at al would be comfortable in 5th century Legalist China, where the only punishment was death. The severity of the infraction dictated how many members of your family would be executed along with you.
And may I just say that this has been one of the best S,N! threads in living memory?
And may I just say that this idea of Sowell’s is a kissin’ cousin of teh (sic) prior wingnut arguments in favor of ARMING EVERYBODY in the Virginia Tech library? As though a thoroughly hellacious firefight of twenty (terrified, panicky) amateurs with guns, shooting at the killer and, just in case, at each other, would have been a preferable alternative?
I think I just may.
(I know, I can’t get enough of this one.)
Sowell writes:
“Life’s choices are seldom as easy as they may seem to people writing in the safety and comfort of an editorial office.”
And who would know better than he?
The fact of the matter is, hipppy liberals will turn ANYTHING into a partisan “argument” about gun control. I guess you hippies would be happier if the Islamospeeders and other enemies of freedoms took over everything.
Idiots.
I know it seems obvious, but the photo that you’ve put with the piece points in the right direction: a helicopter with a loose-bowelled police officer aboard, with an appropriately-sized opening in the floor of the aircraft. A large dump is then taken, and the matter drops atop the sppeding car, causing such disgust and shame on the part of the driver that s/he will immediately abandon the vehicle and attempt to flee on foot, at which point they can be dealt with in proper Rodney King fashion.
Hey, it makes as much sense as anything else Thomas Sowell has ever written.
Issue each police force with an AC-130. (As this an even dumber idea than Tom Sowell’s, can I have a job at the Hoover Building?)
Can’t we just end this senseless lust for lethal violence? If police helicopters were equipped with gigantic arms and immense, sopping wet bath towels, miscreants could safely and easily be dough-popped into submission.
Or we could train helicopter monkeys to fling crap at high-speed fugitives. Who’d want to drive around in a car covered with ape-shit?
and/or he’s dumber than a sack full of hammers.
I choose ‘C’.
Did I win? Do I get a prize? A dream date with Meagan McArdle?
When I first saw that headline, the thought running through my head was that old Journey song, “Wheel in the sky”…
After reading, I see that I was right. Shit, now I’m going to have that song running through my head all day now. Oh the wheel in the sky keeps on turning. Don’t know where I’ll be tomorrow..
Wow – two posters come up with a shit-from-above solution virtually simultaneously. Such is the power of the hive-mind.
Shit like that just writes itself.
Nitpick: Unless you have been doing some sloppy home renovations recently, Clif, I believe the insult in your next-to-last paragraph should be panty-waist…
This is an excellent example, though, of a brand new area of wingnut discourse. It’s the argument that is made, not on ideological grounds or even good old fashioned greed, but solely because it will piss liberals off… especially if it was done in an illogical way, because that leaves moderate liberals agog and speechless. The more gobsmacking and irrelevant the argument the better.
It makes their little lizard brains feel like they won an argument.
Mr. Pilgrim, that’s a beautiful thought, and I just wish I had your optimistic nature. From what I’ve read of Sowell’s work, though, I think he really considers “helicopter snipers” a practical, foolproof solution. He’s a great believer in pre-emptive incarceration, for example, especially of not-white young males, and the fact that he himself was once in that class did not deter him from arguing strenuously in its favor.
Thomas Sowell is one of those fine examples of a person who, when he actually makes an argument I agree with, nevertheless comes up with a mindless, ignorant solution, bringing even more shame to the already-embarrassing Hoover Foundation.
stop beating on the Hoover Institution. all of you keep seeming to assume that its mission is one of scholarship and moral rectitude, forgetting that it is named for and partially founded by The Worst President Before 43. he shit many a bed, that hoover, and the institute’s secret charter declares a constant diarreahic bed-shitting be declared the answer to almost any problem. thomas sowell is merely doing what he is paid to do.
gary ruppert imitator: excellent volley, well played with the “islamospeeders”, a plus stuff. but check the spelling of the name–you threw me out of believability with that.
1) the british solution to car chases is to have a computer chip added to the computer in the car’s fuel-mixing programme, that the police enter the license number, the VIN is called up, and the programme is sent a radio signal that turns off the fuel feed, car rolls slowly to a stop. it would cost a few bucks to add it, to every car, but the nationwide cost of lawsuit payouts for crashed police vehicles easily outstrips it.
2) Thomas Sowell = a republican’s concept of diversity hiring
Hmmmm … I’m seeing a Fox TV series World’s Funniest Summary Executions: When HELICOPTER SNIPERS Attack!!!.
What’s next? Lethal injection for overdue library books?
Can we please hold off on that legislation until Saturday? I have an overdue DVD at the local library and while I’m more than willing to pay the $6 in late fees, I’m not so willing to be strapped to a gurney and have the cocktail of death injected in to me because I haven’t had the time to watch it. Thanks!
I live in a part of Los Angeles that gets car chases all the time, as I’m near two major freeway interchanges (110 > 101, 110 > 10). What’s pathetic is the Pavlovian response of the local news channels, who have to somehow justify the expense of their helicopters and will then cover the thing for an hour, with breathless commentary. The nadir of this was a few years ago when a guy stopped after a long chase, got out and blew his brains out, which was shown. The stations didn’t apologize for wasting all the effort on a non-story, but because they didn’t cut away quick enough from the guy offing himself.
I do not understand why you keep insulting scholars associated with a Hoover Institution.
This is one of the most useful inventions ever, and I am tired of people insulting the device and its partisans.
live in a part of Los Angeles that gets car chases all the time, as I’m near two major freeway interchanges (110 > 101, 110 > 10). What’s pathetic is the Pavlovian response of the local news channels, who have to somehow justify the expense of their helicopters and will then cover the thing for an hour, with breathless commentary.
Yes, and the following morning there’s absolutely nothing about it in the news.
Sadly Nosians, I am chagrinned to see what fun I missed while I was at work. How come I have to work while you guys get to play?
Good Grief! Snipers?
Hand Grenades in mason jars is the obvious answer.
Hey, Henry Holland–
I’m in LA, too, and we were having dinner at friends’ house at La Cienega and Something…and we watched the miscreant, and the cops, all parade past! It was gala. On tv and everything. Then, like a half hour later, we saw the footage of him blowing his b. out in the car. Good times… I felt I was a part of History.
Now, of course, I don’t need such tragedies to give me that feeling. I get it from being on Sadly, No!
A large dump is then taken, and the matter drops atop the sppeding car, causing such disgust and shame on the part of the driver that s/he will immediately abandon the vehicle and attempt to flee on foot.
Unless it’s Mitt Romney.
Capital Punishment for jaywalking will straighten out these lawless libruls!
There is, of course, a subtle difference between Sowell’s argument and the argument that all the professors/students at Virginia Tech should have been armed: Sowell is in favor of giving such power to the police, as opposed to the NRA types who are suspicious of government agents with guns and prefer that “law-abiding citizens” be armed.
If you remember, in the mid-90s following Ruby Ridge, Waco and Oklahoma City, G. Gordon Liddy caused a stir by suggesting on his radio show that the best way to kill an ATF agent who came into your house after your guns was to shoot at the crotch. He really said that.
People who think that way are terrified of government power and would never be in favor of armed police (black) helicopters shooting at cars on the roadway. Sowell is just a garden-variety authoritarian who wants Daddy Gubmint to tuck him in at night and make the bad men go away. Liddy and his ilk, likely, would want to take the bad men out themselves, with a large-caliber slug to the crotch.
Unless Sowell is kidding. Who can tell, these days?
Uh, the official name of the Shame of Stanford™ is the Giant Dildo.
What is it with Sowell? Helicopters are SO last century! Drones are the way to go, baby! Merely program one of GA’s newest to drop a grenade on any auto going over 80 mph, and speeding of any kind will cease to be a problem. Think of the savings in police manpower, gas, and wear and tear on police vehicles. Of course we may lose quite a few Porsche and Beemer-driving lawyers at the outset, but this may have the unintended effect of obviating the need for still more of this Administrations’ pinheaded appointments to the bench!
I’ve been quite amused at this thread, but I have just now clicked over to Sowle’s actual column, and what Ive discovereed is that the fucking idiot thinks that all these high speed chases are initiated because cops see someone speeding, and then start to chase them.
Uh, Sadly, no.
What happens mostly, in LA, anyway, is that cops see someone violating the law, and try to pull them over, and after the cops do that the suspect refuse to pull over and initiate the chase. Which sometimes is high speed, but other times is not.
So – his logic that suspects are speeding therefore it would be bad to allow them to keep speeding, endangering human beings – is totally fucking wrong. They aren’t speeding until they come to the attention of the cops.
What’s happening instead is that cops are observing violators, trying to pull them over, and the suspects are fleeing the pull-over.
Now, tha’r probably a bad thing. And what are cops to do about it? I dunno. But Sowell’s entre discourse has absolutely nothing the fuck to do with the problem at all!!
Fucking idiot.
Guys, the only solution is to put sharks in the helicopters — sharks with laser beams.
Jesus wept. In 1974, this man wrote “Classical Economics Reconsidered”. In 2007, helicopter snipers for traffic control. What the hell happened?
the british solution to car chases is to have a computer chip added to the computer in the car’s fuel-mixing programme, that the police enter the license number, the VIN is called up, and the programme is sent a radio signal that turns off the fuel feed, car rolls slowly to a stop.
Here in America, many men (and a few women, probably including McCardle) think of their automobiles as extensions of their penises. Many of these penis-extension-wagons sport bumper stickers that say things like “You can have my gun when you pry it from my cold dead fingers” and “Protected by Smith & Wesson”… often right next to the special-fee state license plate that says CHOOSE LIFE and the sticker that coos “God Is My Co-Pilot”. Neither the slogans nor the juxtapositions are intended ironically. Telling these driver that the Guvmint wanted the right to control their cars would be like telling them that Hillary Clinton wanted to give Michael Moore the right to decide how they had sex: it would be entertaining to watch, but you know it would end badly.
For a long time, I’ve thought that helicopters equipped with big electromagnets on cables (like at auto wrecking yards) would be very helpful in getting rid of asshole drivers. The copter would swoop down, grab the car by the roof with its magnet, and then carry it off. If the driver is foolish enough to open the door and jump out, well, that’s that.
Prior art: Tiger Tanaka in You Only Live Twice.
I especially love how it doesn’t even occur to him what the consequences are of shooting someone through the head WHILE THEY:”RE ZOOMING DOWN THE ROAD.
(As though the car they’re driving wouldn’t continue careening out of control for at least a few hundred yards, taking out everything in its path.)
“God Is My Co-Pilot”
…and Jesus Is My Bombardier.
I swear, do you have to fail an intelligence test or two to get hired by a conservative think tank?
For the love of god, they get paid for this!