The brainiacs in the TSA strike again. This "safety" rule is beyond stupid. It is criminal negligence and an accident waiting to happen.
TSA never wanted to arm the pilots in the first place. Now they'll want to disarm them again in the interest of "safety". It's for the children, you know!
Hah! I KNEW it!
Two words... grip safety.
You've got to be kidding me. Now, these are the devices liberals insist we all use to make our guns MORE safe?? Still holding at the same batting average for effective ideas, I see.
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/1272864/
Pilots: Weapon rules are too strict: Lawmaker may hold hearing in response to gunshot aboard US Airways flight to Charlotte
Saturday, March 29, 2008; Posted: 04:53 AM
Mar 29, 2008 (The Charlotte Observer - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) — UAIRQ | news | PowerRating | PR Charts — The head of a congressional homeland security panel said Friday that a program to arm pilots should get more scrutiny after a US Airways captain’s gun discharged last weekend during a flight to Charlotte.
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee’s transportation security subcommittee, said she plans to get more facts on the incident in a briefing as early as next week and may call for a congressional hearing on the program.
“The tragedy of a one-time accident is it could have been a one-time catastrophe and loss of life,” Jackson Lee told the Observer. “This is a wake-up call. Even if it’s one incident, oversight, procedures and protocols need to be strengthened.”
The shooting also has pilots and others renewing criticism of a federal law that requires a pilot to remove his gun and holster, place a lock on the trigger and secure them in a bag before leaving the cockpit. The US Airways captain, James Langenhahn, was stowing his gun when it discharged last Saturday morning, firing a bullet through the cockpit wall and fuselage, according to a Charlotte airport police report.
Since its creation in 2002, the Federal Flight Deck Officer program’s restrictions on carrying guns and rules for stowing them have been challenged multiple times:
—In May 2005, two members of the U.S. House of Representatives unsuccessfully proposed a test program allowing pilots to carry concealed weapons on their person outside the cockpit, similar to other federal officers. Backers said it would have cut the risk of accidents from taking the gun and holster off and locking it each time a pilot leaves the cockpit.
—In December 2006, an audit by the Office of the Inspector General in the Department of Homeland Security determined that the limits on carrying guns was one reason why pilots didn’t want to join the program, which is run by the Transportation Security Administration.
—Last July, the Air Line Pilots Association — the union for more than 60,000 pilots — said in a report that TSA procedures on transporting guns “create the potential for significant safety and security risks.” Instead, ALPA wrote, flight deck officers shouldn’t be separated from their weapons at any point during the work day, including while commuting or flying as a passenger to catch another flight.
The TSA has said the shooting last Saturday was the first in the program’s history. The flight from Denver, which had 124 passengers and five crew members, landed safely. Langenhahn, TSA and US Airways have declined to discuss the incident, citing a TSA investigation.
Under the current law, a pilot may put on and take off the gun and holster — and secure or remove the lock — anywhere from a few times a day to several times, depending on how often he leaves the cockpit during or between flights.
In addition, critics say, the trigger lock poses its own problems: The .40-caliber Heckler & Koch pistol carried by pilots has a lock that is intended to pass through a hole in the holster and behind the gun’s trigger. If the gun isn’t securely in the holster — perhaps loosened while being transferred — the lock can end up in front of the trigger, pilots and gun experts say.
Richard Bloom, a professor who teaches aviation security at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, said the TSA program has “very detailed procedures for what you do and when.”
Although the pilot may have been at fault in Saturday’s incident, Bloom said that removing some of the handling requirements and minimizing the number of times a pilot has to transfer a gun could limit accidents.
“The program,” he said, “is more conservative than it needs to be.”
Strict training, security
Pilots pushed hard after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks for the right to carry guns on flights. In the TSA program, pilots take a written test, undergo psychological screening and background checks, and spend a week in Artesia, N.M., for weapons training.The TSA declined to say how many pilots are allowed to carry guns, saying only that it is “thousands.” The Airline Pilots Security Alliance, an advisory group on aviation security issues, estimated that 12,000 pilots, or about 15 percent of all airline pilots, are in the program.
Flight deck officers are barred from discussing the program for security reasons. One US Airways pilot who has been an officer for about four years declined to describe the procedures for handling the gun and holster but said he wasn’t surprised that a gun discharged on a flight.
“I suspect he was securing his weapon and had a little accident,” the pilot said. “It’s going to happen again.”
Other pilots, including union leaders, say that requiring that a flight deck officer carry a weapon in a bag while outside the cockpit also raises the risk that a gun will be lost or stolen.
Nelson Minerly of TSA declined to say how often a pilot’s gun has been stolen, lost or misplaced. There have been very few incidents, he said, and all were “quickly resolved with the help of local law enforcement.”
Program spurs debate
Not everyone is comfortable with pilots wearing guns. Kate Hanni, executive director for the Coalition for an Airline Passenger Bill of Rights, said she opposes having a gun in the cockpit. If there must be one, she said, it shouldn’t be on the pilot’s body during flight, but rather within reach in case of a threat.
“The pilots have so much to focus on to keep the plane in the air,” she said.
But David Mackett, president of the Airline Pilots Security Alliance, said other federal officers are allowed to simply strap on a holster at the start of their work day and remove it at the end. Requiring a flight deck officer to constantly remove his gun, he said, is “just a bad system all around.”
“The standard in law enforcement is you train the officer and trust the officer with the gun,” said Mackett, who is a pilot but not a flight deck officer.
When Congress approved the program, he said, about 85 percent of the nation’s roughly 85,000 pilots were interested in joining. But after seeing the TSA’s rules for carrying guns, he said, “a lot of them just threw up their hands.”
As for whether the pilot in last Saturday’s shooting was acting irresponsibly, Mackett said that’s unlikely because the plane was flying at only 8,000 feet and eight miles from the Charlotte airport. “It’s not an environment where anybody is going to play with a gun,” he said. “You’re flat busy.”
Minerly, the TSA spokesman, said the agency wouldn’t speculate on how the shooting will affect procedures for pilots carrying gun. “As with any incident,” he said, “we will look for lessons learned.”
But Rep. Jackson Lee said she questioned the wisdom of the program from its inception, and expects to be briefed about the US Airways incident from the Department of Homeland Security next week. Afterward, she’ll decide whether to call for a congressional hearing.
“I believe we should have continued oversight over this program,” Jackson Lee said, “and determine from that unfortunate accident whether the equation of safety and security is better with pilots being armed or with preventing arms generally speaking.”
Despite the cockpit shooting, pilots don’t want to be disarmed. The US Airways pilot who joined the program four years ago said he considers himself and other officers as “one more line of defense to keep the skies safe” from hijackers or terrorists.
“They may get me,” he said, “but I’m going to go down fighting.” — staff Researcher Maria Wygand contributed
— Jefferson George: 704-358-5071