[geeks] Dos and similar games

[Brian Dunbar]

Mike Hebel wrote:

> 2) Airplanes:  Issue pepper spray to _every_ adult on the plane then lock
> the cockpit. What's the worst that could happen?  You end up with a bunch
> of people with pepper in their eyes and a plane landed early.  If the
> hijacker manages to smuggle and detonate a bomb then a gun wouldn't have
> helped you anyway.

I think you're over-estimating the effectivness of pepper spray.  I will
allow that have never taken a face shot of the stuff, but I did go at
least yearly (some years twice) to the CS chamber in the Marines.

Now, I'm a big fat sissy and I hated the experience - but willingly
played the games to make sure I really knew how to put on my mask.
Nothing like a snoot full of CS _in_ the mask to drive home the point
that the steps for donning and clearing are in the correct order and
doing them wrong can be fatal.

But that wasn't my point.  There were always individuals - and there
were a lot of them in the grunts, but fewer after I became a data
processor - who would go back in to the chamber many many times.  Then
they'd run around inside the chamber, masks off.

My point is that, while I don't _know_ pepper spray I do know from
experience it's possible to function with clouds of CS in your face.
And in your lungs.  It _hurts_ but you can function.

Non-lethal agents are great but to some degree the targets have to
cooperate.  Lethal force is all a one-way street in that regard.

-- 
Brian Dunbar
System Administrator
Liftport - The Space Elevator Company

brian.dunbar at liftport.com
aim: bdunbar1967

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