Knee jerk idiots.

[Serpent]

Here's another story from today's news that p!ssed me off. I should stop reading the paper.

Sleepy 'hijacker' is freed from jail
January 16 2003

A British tourist jailed after threatening to hijack a plane walked free yesterday amid concerns his imprisonment was a knee-jerk response to post-September 11 paranoia.

A Corrective Services Department spokesman said Thomas James Lilico, 22, a university tutor, was released from the Lotus Glen prison on the Atherton Tableland, in Queensland.

He was the first person jailed in Australia for making threatening comments aboard an aircraft since the terrorist attacks in the United States.

The president of the Australian Council for Civil Liberties, Terry O'Gorman, said: "I do have a concern that post-September 11 there is the risk of a knee-jerk response to something that would otherwise be seen as silly, annoying, but ... not harmful drunken behaviour."

Cairns Magistrate Ken Lynn this month jailed Lilico for three months, to be suspended after a month, after Lilico pleaded guilty to making threatening comments aboard an aircraft.

Mr Lynn was told a Qantas flight attendant heard a drunken Lilico say he was going to pull out a knife and hijack the plane.

Evidence was given Lilico had pulled a blue roll-on deodorant tube from a small bag but had been asleep by the time protective services officers came to remove him from the plane.

Mr O'Gorman said discretion could have been used in the Lilico case. "I think airlines have got to act with a little balance. I think it's a different situation if that sort of a comment was made inflight.

"I think there's got to be a significant difference between the silly comments of a drunk compared with ... someone who makes a comment and there is evidence found that that comment had some seriousness behind it."

Lilico walked free after the Queensland Court of Appeal ordered his release.

Appeal court Justice Glen Williams said the custodial sentence was called for but Lilico should be freed considering his youth, character and background.

[SevenStar]

Here's one that ticked me off:

http://www.theindychannel.com/news/1881284/detail.html

luckily, they've caught two of the suspects and have a third in custody also.

[Stranger]

I think the guy on the airplane should have been prosecuted. His need to share his wit, does not outweigh the airlines' need to treat him seriously regardless of how the threat was delivered. This was the law in the US for many years and has nothing to do with 9/11, although there have been more high-profile cases of the law being enforced since then (as no plane being returned to the gate goes unnoticed by the media now days).

I don't know how the airlines of other nations treated such threats before 9/11.

[Internal Boxer]

The best cure for rapists is a bullet in the head.

[dwid]

Some of the family members of the DC sniper victims are suing the store in which the firearm used in the slayings was purchased as well as the firearm's manufacturer.

Now, apparently the store was into some shady stuff and had been in trouble for many cases of not keeping proper records of sales, doing background checks, etc... So, suing the store is a bit of a stretch, but it may be justified.

However, suing the manufacturer who sold the firearm in good faith to a licensed dealer... It's totally rididulous. The lawyer who filed the suit is claiming that gun manufacturers need to be more actively involved in checking up on the dealers to whom they sell weapons. This makes no sense. If the dealers are licensed by a federal agency, it is that agency's responsibility to make sure that the license be contingent on following its rules. As long as the dealer has not had its license revoked, I can't conceive of how it is possible for a manufacturer to be responsible to investigate every dealer with which they do business.

Sorry for the long rant, but this bs came on the Today show this morning as I was having my morning coffee and it just really got under my skin.

Any thoughts?

[Stranger]

Some of the family members of the DC sniper victims are suing

Yeah, because there is no point in letting all of this suffering go to waste without tryng to turn a personal profit on others' misery with a misdirected lawsuit.

[dwid]

As the lawyer was justifying why this suit was basically directing blame away from the perps, his justification seemed so contrived. I could almost hear him saying... "Well, basically Katie (Couric), we're suing the manufacturer and dealer because they have money, and the snipers simply don't..."

That would have been the honest reason.

[red5angel]

Odd how we forget history so quickly......Of course I bet if the guy were middle eastern it would have been a whole different case.

[dezhen2001]

dawood

Originally posted by Stranger


Yeah, because there is no point in letting all of this suffering go to waste without tryng to turn a personal profit on others' misery with a misdirected lawsuit.

Wow, dude have some compassion. We all know about reckless litigation but not about dealing with the meaningless death of an immediate family, especially murder.

If you had ever had a family member murdered, you would know of the horrible, empty and helpless feeling that comes with it after the anger fades.

Anyone, I mean EVERYONE would cry out, lash out and then reach out for anything that they thought might bring some sense and reason back into their lives.

Compassion, not just a good idea, a way of life.

[dwid]

But I guarantee the lawyers involved in this case are not involved out of compassion. They are the ones that are exploiting the pain of those involved.

And I'm sorry, but looking at the facts of what is going on requires one to be a bit dispassionate. Letting compassion rule the day over logic is what allows cases like this to eat away at constitutional rights.

[Stranger]

Anyone, I mean EVERYONE would cry out, lash out and then reach out for anything that they thought might bring some sense and reason back into their lives.

Like a big ol'wad of cash?

Maybe it's a lawyer pushing it and exploiting their grief? Somebody's got dollar signs in their eyes and as mentioned in an earlier post on this thread the gun manufacturers have the fullest coffers.

The day of justice will be when the two snipers are convicted, not when the gunmakers are thrown over a barrel and financially raped- that is not justice IMHO.

This reminds me of the lawsuits after 9/11 filed by some of the families of the victims against the companies the victims worked for in the World Trade Center. Like it was their fault?!?!?!?! Nobody wanted to say booh to the families involved in the case because of their grief, but in my opinion either the families or the lawyers smelled blood and went for a profitable kill/case.

[red5angel]

I think I have to go with monkeyboy here but I can compromise by saying that suing has become the norm in america and so this may be the only real response to this thing these people can take. It's out of their hands what happens to the criminals involved in this case so what do they do? I couldn't imagine the helplessnes I would feel, especially if say these two didn't get the death penalty but were going to be 'rehabilitated' through jail time, even consecutive life sentences. Call me an a$$ but I think if you murder someone through malicious intent, your life is forfeit. You took a life and so you gave up your right to your own. I have thought about this sort of thing a little, because my sister killed herself under questionable circumstances. IF someone I loved were murdered outright, I would hire a private detective or something to try to track down who did it. If I caught them before the law did, I would take things into my own hands.

[SevenStar]

Originally posted by Internal Boxer
The best cure for rapists is a bullet in the head.

Agreed.

[rogue]

Here's two more happy stories, at least these guys were dumb enough to get themselves caught.

http://www.austin360.com/statesman/e...ay/news_1.html

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-rape11.html

"Mr Lynn was told a Qantas flight attendant heard a drunken Lilico say he was going to pull out a knife and hijack the plane."
Better not say that on a place loaded with passengers from the US. We're a bit sensitive in that area.