We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Samizdata quote of the day Guests can no longer carry guns and/or ammunition on flights to or from Indonesia.
– One of the terms and conditions found in the fine print when booking a flight on the splendid Air Asia. This is, of course, an outrage.
By the way, when did “customers” or “passengers” turn into “guests”? Surely “clients” was bad enough?
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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“No longer”? I sort of assumed that changed around 1970 or so.
Does this include in the hold? I remember my dad taking his shotgun to Portugal on a family holiday about 20 years ago so he could do some clay pigeon shooting there. On arrival he was supposed to hand over some form to an official but managed to walk right out of the airport carrying his shotgun in a case without being questioned by anyone. I have no idea if this sort of thing is possible today.
You can blame Disney for the whole “guest” thing. The first thing that employees – oops, I mean “cast members” – at Disneyland and Walt Disney World are taught is to refer to their customers as “Guests” (with a capital “G”). Over the years this has spread to other sectors of the hospitality industry, to where you even hear fast-food joints use the term.
At least guest has some relevant meaning in the context of the ‘entertainment industry’.
The only time I will ever find ‘stakeholder’ relevant is in the ‘mob marching on Westminster to get the vampires off our necks’ sense.
You can travel with firearms as checked luggage. You cannot carry-on even boxed and locked firearms. When travelling to shoot/hunt elsewhere, you’ll need to bring either a registration or bill of sale or some other proof of ownership prior to departure, so you don’t have to deal with customs twats trying to claim you are importing weapons when you return home. There are also special forms you need to fill out when checking the guns in, and you’ll need to go to the luggage office to pick them up at your destination, as they are handled specially along with other hazardous cargo.
From Indonesia, I’ve flown on Garuda Airlines several times (admittedly not Air Asia) and they never asked about guns. A lovely airline, much to be commended, that continues to call passengers “passengers” and not “guests”, “friends” or “strangers in the night”. (Or “strangers on the flight”).
Surely, it’s not guns on airlines that are the problem … the cockpit is protected … but bombs secreted in shoes or underpants. (I wonder if the panty bomber on his way to Dearborne rues the day ….)
Does he still stand up to pee or does “he” have to sit down like a girly while he awaits his terrorism trial? I mean, how much was blown off in the bomb he had intelligently secreted in his underpants to explode a whole flight? Can’t we see some exrays of his nether regions under the Freedom of Information Act? Just for laughs?
Funny how we hear nothing of him, nor of the muslim Fort Hood assassin who appears to have an “issues” gig that may see him out comfortably.
Is the QOTD an aviation rule only, or is it because the Indonesian government doesn’t want any guns brought into the country that it doesn’t control?
Mike Lorrey-
I’ve flown with firearms between Denver and Chicago, Kansas City, Phoenix, Seattle, Tampa, and Atlanta. I’ve never filled out a special form or had to collect my luggage from a hazmat office. All I’ve ever done was: show the baggage clerk that the gun was unloaded, lock it up, walk with my bag to the Thieves Standing Around x-ray, where THEY x-ray it to make sure it’s unloaded, and then collect the bag just like any other piece of checked luggage when I arrive and load up before leaving the airport[1].
[2] In the USA it’s illegal to mark luggage on commercial flights so that someone can see that it contains a firearm. The FAA, in a rare attack of clear thinking, realized that this tells luggage thieves which bags are worth more than others. Some airline baggage clerks may try to stick a cute little orange tag on the outside of your bag. If they do, demand his supervisor RFN,
(And don’t fly United through Denver. Or anywhere else. Like Chevrolet, they survive only by shambling through the fields and feeding on the brains of anyone lacking the sense to run away, and that shows in their baggage handling as well.)