comment: >
  
  My point is, those outraged by the dollar amount of this never bay an eye about the cost of human life.
  Penny wise, life foolish.
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  Remember, /r/Showerthoughts is for showerthoughts, not "thoughts had in the shower!"
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  The cheaper spears and arrows they tried didn't reach 40,000 feet. >
  
  Even the daisy pointed pellets I heard missed it. And the good kind too! >
  
  Are we sure they were using a brand new CO2 cartridge? Or was it the pump action kind? >
  
  You'll put your eye out! >
  
  I could have popped it for cheaper. All you do is pull on the string to bring the balloon to the ground, and then you stab it with a kitchen knife. Easy. >
  
  And then give it to dad so he can talk like a chipmunk. >
  
  It costs five hundred thousand dollars to fire this weapon...for twelve seconds. >
  
  Oh my God, who touched Sascha? Alright...WHO TOUCHED MY GUN!? >
  
  That's a pretty big oversimplification doncha think? 
  "this baseball team just spent 15 million dollars for someone to throw a ball 60 feet" >
  
  Also, the balloon was at 60,000 ft. That's nearly double what many commercial airliners fly at. They couldn't just like... shoot at from the ground. They'd of had to send a pilot up in a jet that can go that high and has fighter capabilities (which we do have) or use a guided rocket to hit it.
  There's no cheap and easy way to get up at that elevation and attack something. Most of our aircraft that go that high are surveillance or bombers, not fighter jets. We do have fighter jets but those are also crazy expensive. Like 85k per hour of flight time in an F22. The closest ones are in Langley and Tyndall, though.
  They shot it down off the coast into the Atlantic. Had to get there. >
  
  Not to mention there's no telling what was actually on the thing.   Say you shoot it down over an unoccupied forest.  Perhaps the next one they send is filled with Gypsy Moths that will devastate the forest below. 
  Waiting until it was over the ocean was the right call.  Also with the airspace closed and two navy ships in the area to receive it, it was much more than a balloon popping, rather a well-planned national security response.  
  FIN. >
  
  With a gdp of 23 trillion and military spendings of 800 billion I think they can take it >
  
  Problem is they said that a few too many times lol >
  
  So? I’d rather they spend money like that then send  7000 of our troops to their deaths for oil money over 20 years. >
  
  You think they're not gonna do both? With their budget they could shoot down a thousand balloons and still send soldiers to die pointlessly