Ron Paul may have soured his antiwar appeal among progressives with a speech Saturday at the Iowa straw poll. Paul referred to Roe v. Wade as “that horrible ruling,” called for the abolition of the Departments of Energy and Education and the IRS, and attacked welfare and immigrants. But the most bizarre moment came when he suggested airline passengers should be allowed to carry guns, saying: “I think 9/11, quite frankly, could have been prevented if we had had a lot more respect for the Second Amendment.”Exactly when would it have been a good idea to be exchanging gunfire on a pressurized airplane? Just curious.*
Paul, like McCain before him, is just pandering to that same old right-wing base.
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* The gun debate is also ahistorical in that every previously hijacked airliner had been diverted to another airport and landed safely. No one on the planes would have assumed that they were going to be crashed intentionally until it was too late. If guns were to have been fired, the armed pilot would have assumed that he could retake the plane after landing.
