I just got back from New York City, travelled to and from via Amtrak and Penn Station. I go to the city every month or so for business and I always enjoy going there.

Today I noticed a not so subtle change that I have expected would come but have hoped wouldn't: M16 toting police officers patrolling Penn Station. I had to look twice, but yup, it was a fully loaded assault weapon carried by a cammo and flak jacket wearing police officer walking around the station. I don't know when this started and maybe it's nothing new to native New Yorkers but it's the first time I've seen it. I was stunned.

I suppose it was inevitable that we become just like every other nation with visibly heavily armed security posted on the streets, airports and train stations but I had always held the hope that we wouldn't; that we would never let ourselves become that scared that we needed to sink to that level. Not here. This is America, damn it! Not having to display naked force is a marker that set us above everyone else.

But, obviously, we have become that scared. Score one more for the bad guys. :(

I just got back from New York City, travelled to and from via Amtrak and Penn Station. I go to the city every month or so for business and I always enjoy going there.

Today I noticed a not so subtle change that I have expected would come but have hoped wouldn't: M16 toting police officers patrolling Penn Station. I had to look twice, but yup, it was a fully loaded assault weapon carried by a cammo and flak jacket wearing police officer walking around the station. I don't know when this started and maybe it's nothing new to native New Yorkers but it's the first time I've seen it. I was stunned.

I suppose it was inevitable that we become just like every other nation with visibly heavily armed security posted on the streets, airports and train stations but I had always held the hope that we wouldn't; that we would never let ourselves become that scared that we needed to sink to that level. Not here. This is America, damn it! Not having to display naked force is a marker that set us above everyone else.

But, obviously, we have become that scared. Score one more for the bad guys. :(

I think that this came up post London bombing didn't it? Stinks though...

on the San Juan River. no one allowed too close to the damn in fear of a terrorist attack.
what, someone gonna blow it and flood Farmington? Wow Big target on Al Q's get list.

yes, sad how scared we've become. when I was in DC I could feel it. same for NYC, but I wonder why folks feel it in the middle of strategic nowhere. look at the distribution of H.S> funds, equal by state, silly. yeah fargo north dakota is as much a target as DC, NYC, Chicago, SF, LA. Hell I'm in San Diego, military prescence and right on the leaky border and I'm not that fearful.

I know we are always look upon as 'the bad guys' and I know you didn't mean that here, but as you acknowledged, most other countries have similarly armed patrols watching over their mass transit systems and airports. Europe has had that for decades. Most of 'liberal' Europe is more jackbooted than we. Britain is ready to pass new laws outlawing hate speech, open support of terrorism and radical Islam. France outlawed religious headdress in schools and other public places of employment. The list of these types of restrictions in other parts of the World are long, yet we, the US have always been considered regressive and living in the Dark Ages. I am not sure where that sentiment comes from other than, ironically, the left in this country, who generally like to side with European liberal elitists. Go figya!

I have lived here in NYC all of my life. I have witnessed many changes. There are surveillance cameras on many intersections - something that you probably didn't notice. These are monitored from a center of command somewhere underground. Yes 'Big Brotha' is watching. In the beginning I was kind of leery of this. Now I have mixed feelings. People have a desire to want to feel safe. Whether or not they are in actuality is another issue. We can look at these issues as giving the 'bad guys' a victory, or we can look at them as taking one away from them. I know people in the heartland and other suburban places feel no need to lock their doors at night, but that has not been the case in NYC for many decades. We are used to seeing roll-down gates, security cameras, police dogs and just about anything else of this sort. We are also, for the most part, used to dealing with tragedy. I doubt any New Yorker ever gave those M16s a second thought.

Hey you should have let me known you were going to be in town. We could have gotten together for a beer. We could have drank them or tossed them on each other :D

The reason for the stupid distribution of funds is that each Washington bureaucrat wants his electorate to see that they are fighting for equal distribution. 'Can't give them New Yorkers more than we git'!

on the San Juan River. no one allowed too close to the damn in fear of a terrorist attack.
what, someone gonna blow it and flood Farmington? Wow Big target on Al Q's get list.

yes, sad how scared we've become. when I was in DC I could feel it. same for NYC, but I wonder why folks feel it in the middle of strategic nowhere. look at the distribution of H.S> funds, equal by state, silly. yeah fargo north dakota is as much a target as DC, NYC, Chicago, SF, LA. Hell I'm in San Diego, military prescence and right on the leaky border and I'm not that fearful.

I would be a little sad if they did, I grew up in Farmington. My stepdad worked on that dam construction.

I love that area and I have heaps of connections in and on the Rez's out there. A favorire river to fish as well and a great view from atop the dam looking downstream. but terr'ist target? methinks not, energy could be better spentelsewhere. Imagine a guy named Mohammed checking into Abe's Motel with plastic explosives tucked into his waders.

I love that area and I have heaps of connections in and on the Rez's out there. A favorire river to fish as well and a great view from atop the dam looking downstream. but terr'ist target? methinks not, energy could be better spentelsewhere. Imagine a guy named Mohammed checking into Abe's Motel with plastic explosives tucked into his waders.

I was there for about a day and a half last year and that was my first time back since '66. The area and especially Farmington, are very different. Most of the old buildings downtown are still there but town has moved toward Aztec. It was a great place to be a boy through the 50's and 60's. Lots of fruit orchards in the 50's and two rivers and the bluff to hang out on and explore. Lots of changes now.

I thought about you as I was heading into town. I stopped for lunch at the Chelsea Grill -- their Blue Burger is one of the reasons I come to NYC. I would have loved to toss back a few with you.

By bad guys, I definitely mean the bad guys -- OBL and his ilk. They got us to change, even just a little bit, and to be afraid. That is a victory for them.

It's not seeing the gun per se, it's what seeing the gun signifies. I'm all for increasing security. I loved having the bomb-sniffiing dawg on the train -- even though the poor guy looked bored to death. I'm all for seeing lots of cops on the streets and in the train stations, etc. The M16 however, carried openly, just smacks of fear to me while doing nothing to increase security. I wish I could articulate it better but every time I see heavily armed foreign police on the news I think "Sucks to be them." and "Not in America" and "Third World." It's just not something we do here.

Semantics, I know. It's not about the increased security or even some of the new restrictions. I'm in favor of most of them. It's about perception. The same cop visibly patrolling the station in his regular uniform has the same effect in terms of security as he would in cammo with his M16. Give him an UZI or something and keep it concealed and he'll be even more effective in that the bad guys won't know whether or not he's packing heavy.

I wish I could articulate it better instead of rambling like this.

I understand but I don't think it's a new concept for the US. As you pointed out, it isn't for the rest of the World. We lived under threat from different sources for decades at a time. The last was the threat of Communism, which was really BS. It was a threat from another power that wanted to be like us, though they wanted the World to believe differently.

The threat we live under today, in many ways, is far from similar for some and quite the same for others. I think the people at the bottom of their 'struggle' are the real religious fanatics and are willing to die for their cause and the people leading it are in it for power and money. Nothing in the World is new. Not the threats and not the idea that the threatened want to feel defended from that threat. There are no winners and losers. There is just a cycle of inescapable truths! Someone will always have something someone else wants at any cost. That was for OES ;)

No really, I think the US, in it's relative short history, has always lived under threat of outside influence. We had the Brits, French and Spanish for most of our existance as a country.

I know everyone likes to say we are the threat and we influence the others (mostly in a negative way), but I think the others in their own way, try to exploit this country and the opportunities it provides. Not nations, but people who claim to represent a nation, either through tyrany and opression or through a facade of acceddence. I am not saying we don't see that 'truth' and, in turn use it to our advantage, but no one is innocent. Certainly not any nation, religion or form of rule.

As I said, the stuff you are seeing today in NYC is far less overt than what we had here a few years ago. We have continually become accustomed to more presence of security in most of Manhattan and every publically accessed building or venue.

Awe you should have PM'd me. I woulda' loved one of them tasty burgers and a coldy! :D

I wonder why it took this long. I've lived and traveled in Europe and it's been like this for a long time. It just doesn't seem like a big deal to me. I think you have it all wrong anyway. The good guys win when the bad guys can't do their thing. Bad would be if we had to deal with actual inconveniences such as passing thru checkpoints all the time and carrying papers. Guys with big guns don't mean a thing.

I wonder why it took this long. I've lived and traveled in Europe and it's been like this for a long time. It just doesn't seem like a big deal to me. I think you have it all wrong anyway. The good guys win when the bad guys can't do their thing. Bad would be if we had to deal with actual inconveniences such as passing thru checkpoints all the time and carrying papers. Guys with big guns don't mean a thing.
You're probably right and I'm making more of it than what it is and that this is less ominous than it really is.

Regarding the bad guys though, isn't the 'job' of a terrorist to terrorize? My point about them 'winning' is that they did force a change through fear. They don't have to successfully blow things up every single time, only enough to keep us afraid so in that they have been successful. I look at the terror alerts in the same way. Every time the threat level goes up the bad guys get points, not as many as they would if they were successful, but points nonetheless.

Should we do nothing, of course not. My opinion is that we should do everything that we are doing and more only far less visibly. As with CCW laws, it's not the guns the bad guys can see that are the deterrent, it's the guns they can't see. Think of all of the security around the White House. You can't see them until you cross a line then they come out of the woodwork.

I think the bad guys scored several times back in 2001, and we're trying to keep them from scoring again. Sad to see, but I don't think you can blame America/Americans on this one.

I think the bad guys scored several times back in 2001, and we're trying to keep them from scoring again. Sad to see, but I don't think you can blame America/Americans on this one.
I hope my post didn't come across as trying to attribute blame to America or Americans as that isn't what it was about in any way. It's about what we, as Americans, are willing to tolerate and/or sacrifice in the name of security. I think we've crossed the Rubicon in a sense.

I hope my post didn't come across as trying to attribute blame to America or Americans as that isn't what it was about in any way. It's about what we, as Americans, are willing to tolerate and/or sacrifice in the name of security. I think we've crossed the Rubicon in a sense.

Ken, we've crossed this Rubicon before and survived it. Security got pretty tight during WW2 and we sacrificed a lot of freedoms for the duration but we returned to who we really are as a people. What you describe is the fact that we really are at war even though it isn't widely accepted as such. Personally, I feel we are in more physical danger here now than our population was during that long ago war.