Actually, Goldman Sachs Bankers NOT Armed

[NYCGirl]

This story got a lot of play and recs here last week. Well, turns out it's not true…

http://gothamist.com/2009/12/10/actually_goldman_sachs_bankers_not.php

It appears that last week's story about senior bankers at Goldman Sachs arming themselves with handguns to fend off a "populist uprising" was just that: a story. Reporting for Bloomberg News, Alice Schroeder wrote, "New York Police Department has told me that ‘as a preliminary matter’ it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits." But now NYPD spokesman Paul J. Browne tells the Wall Street Journal that only four Goldman employees have applied for gun permits in recent years — and the last application, submitted by the firm’s head of security, was made in 2003. Basically, they're sitting ducks over there!

Schroeder's been laying low since her anecdotal report first captured the zeitgeist. Browne maintains, "We haven’t seen a surge of applications of any kind for Goldman Sachs employees," and a spokesman for the bank says, "The story to us seemed to be the product of a very fertile imagination." So, to be clear, the senior banksters at Goldman Sachs—that infamous "vampire squid sucking the face of humanity"—are most likely not capable of opening fire on a bloodthirsty mob, should such a mob ever get its shit together.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. No guns.

Preferred weapon: Bludgeon

[DBoon]

5. they don't need to own guns

when they own Blackwater

Why expect them to dirty themselves doing the real work of shooting down angry mobs when their contracted security will eagerly do it for them?

[RaleighNCDUer]

7. Beat me to it -

Contract security BEGAN with the banksters - the Pinkertons in the 19th century - and have been relied on ever since.

The whole purpose of bodyguards is to have someone else do the shooting while they run for cover.

[Brickbat]

2. Some will rob you with a six-gun, and some with a fountain pen.

[Caliman73]

3. Perhaps the bankers themselves might not be, but I would imagine they have security

When you are very rich you don't have to pull the trigger yourself. You can pay someone else to shoot for you, be it the military, contractors, or hired bodyguards. I seriously doubt that they do not have fairly serious firepower there.

[notadmblnd]

4. I do.

Why? Because we all know how cheap most rich people are. Do you really think that their plethora of seven dollar an hour security guards are armed and that they'll seriously defend their exploiters? The company I worked for used to have their own armed security guards, they fired all those people, hung up some cameras that don't work and contracted to a security company that pays guards a whole 7 dollar an hour to work unarmed. If anything were to happen, they'd be the first ones down on the floor and it'd be left to someone else to call 911.

[NYCGirl]

6. Kick

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. So, they're just sitting around defenseless?

Gentlemen...