Posted on 11/27/2002 5:58:23 PM PST by webber
APSA NOVEMBER 2002 VICTORY UPDATE: WE WON!
THAT'S "WE", AS IN ALL AMERICANS.
This month, the Senate finally passed a bill with armed pilots legislation in it. The President Bush signed that bill into law. We are elated and you should be, too.
Highlights of the bill include a mandatory program for training and arming any FAR 121 passenger airline pilot who volunteers and passes screening and training. Individual airline may NOT opt out of the program. The TSA must establish a program and APSA and other pilot groups, joined together as a team, are already in talks with the TSA regarding this "implementation." We are optimistic that the TSA will proceed according to the will of the Congress and develop a program agreeable to airline pilots; a program that will encourage, not discourage, participation.
Understand: this is a HUGE victory that cannot be exaggerated, one that practically no one thought possible when APSA began pressing this issue just fourteen months ago. We have been on a year-long rollercoaster of encouraging victories and significant defeats. But as Vince Lombardi said, it is not how many times you fall, but how many times you get up. APSA always got up. And we will continue to do so. We beat one of the wealthiest lobbies in the business, the Air Transport Association. We even blasted through the opposition of a wildly popular president. But we didn't do it alone, and that is the thrust of this Update.
We want to thank those who made this victory possible. A cast of literally thousands made this happen so we can't thank you all by name. For those we can list, here are their names and where they serve:
In the US House of Representatives: Congressmen John Hostettler, Joe Wilson, Peter DeFazio, John Thune, Bob Barr, Joe Barton, and Roscoe Bartlett.
Each of these Congressmen rose to meet challenges and helped us clear obstacles at critical times. The leadership of House Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young and House Aviation Subcommittee Chairman John Mica was also crucial to our success, and APSA thanks them for seeing this through.
In the media, our new Best Friend, G. Gordon Liddy, who has linked his website to ours, put our issue on his home page, and been our tireless ally. He and his politically active listeners were instrumental in helping us shape the House bill, which became the foundation for the bill the president just signed.
Our pilot allies: First and foremost, our good friends at the Allied Pilots' Association (APA) and their Committee for Armed Defense of the Cockpit. Their commitment, selflessness, teamwork and friendship made them indispensable in this fight.
The Independent Pilots' Association (IPA) and, Coalition of Airline Pilots' Associations (CAPA) worked many hours with us and APA, walking the halls of Congress. We thank the Southwest Airlines Pilots' Association (SWAPA) for helping us to get our message out and supporting our cause.
These four groups banded with APSA and together we formed a unified group when dealing with Congress. We are working with them now during implementation, advocating a single program to the TSA.
Our Second Amendment friends: the National Rifle Association, Gun Owners of America, and Armed Females of America. Also, all groups attending the Gun Rights Policy Conference who unanimously passed a resolution supporting the arming of pilots:
Front Sight firearms training school & Dr. Ignatius Piazza, who has offered to train pilots gratis once we are allowed to be armed. SIGARMS Academy, who hosted a training course for pilots.
FederalObserver.com and World Net Daily (WorldNetDaily.com) are two on-line publications that took a common-sense view of arming pilots and continuously ran stories that helped to keep our issue alive. We offer our sincerest thanks and appreciation.
The many current and former Law Enforcement Officers (some pilots, some non-pilots) who lent us their expertise but were prohibited from doing so publicly. We learned a lot from you and your support encouraged us and validated what we were trying to do. At your request, we can't name you, but you know who you are and we thank you.
Citizens for Aviation Safety, an ally who supports arming pilots as a common-sense means to make a real improvement in airline security.
We on the APSA board of directors want to thank all APSA Team Leaders and Team Members, including Liaisons, who did, and continue to do, the work that made this victory possible. We say to these fine men and women, "Thank you so much. Take a well-deserved break and be ready to start work on implementation. Work begins first thing tomorrow morning!"
Last but not least, all APSA members deserve a lot of credit for making this happen. Pilots and others from all walks of life—grandmas in Grand Rapids and businessmen in Boston—picked up their phones when needed. To each and every one of you, Thank You. This was grassroots activism at its finest. The Good Guys really won and it seems that doesn't happen enough anymore.
NOW WE CAN RELAX, RIGHT?
Not quite. You see, in last-minute deal-making of which APSA was NOT a part, cargo pilots (UPS, FedEx, etc.) were excluded from this bill.
Question:
Would you rather be killed by the impact of a passenger jet or cargo jet plummeting onto you from the sky?
Stupid question, but some in our government think there is a difference. It's even sillier when you consider that most of the illusory arguments against arming us revolve around imagined risks to passengers—of which cargo airplanes have none, of course. Cargo pilots were a politically easy target because some in our government cynically think that American citizens are so short-sighted that they can't see why cargo airliners pose the same risk to national security as passenger airliners.
APSA considers this exclusion a serious threat to national security, the lives of cargo pilots and Americans on the ground, and our economy.
This ill-considered scheme creates two levels of security and specifically makes cargo carriers more appealing terrorist targets. It is the epitome of short-term thinking.
Cargo pilots are APSA members, too, and APSA is already back in the fight to repair this inequity. Remember what we said about how many times we get up.
THE FUTURE OF APSA…THE FUTURE IS APSA
Originally, we <>APSA volunteers hoped to pack up our tent and go home once we got to where we are today. Nice thought, but too much remains to be done, and too few are doing it. Such issues as…:
ARMED PILOTS—there will always be those trying to disarm us. They will say that the absence of hijackings for some period is a reason to disarm us, when that safety will in fact have been due to armed pilots. APSA will be there, guarding our rights to be armed and the rights of Americans to travel in safety.
OTHER ARMED INDIVIDUALS—Ideas have been put forward in some quarters that would increase the number of armed on- and off-duty Law Enforcement Officers on our airplanes. APSA will be involved with this issue.
EXPLOSIVE DETECTION—More needs to be done. Better, more reliable means need to be implemented. We need to have assurance that every checked and carried bag and every person is free from explosives, some of which are now hard to detect.
INFORMING CREWS—Today, there is ample evidence that terrorists are plotting against our airliners. But that information is, strangely enough, largely not available to flight crews whose lives are on the line and who are tasked with forming a layer of security. That information needs to be collected and disseminated to all flight crews in a timely manner.
MONITORING SECURITY—APSA is becoming the industry watchdog. We will watch, inform, and prod where needed.
We don't see the need for APSA diminishing anytime soon. In fact, one industry observer told us:
"You have life-time work now." If only it paid; remember, all APSA work is done by volunteers and NOBODY draws a salary or any form of compensation. We are not even reimbursed for routine expenses like parking, hotels, business cards and meals.
Which brings us to YOUR part. We want—we need—you to stay with us. We'll do the hard part; you just read the occasional email and now and then check our website. Most importantly, help us grow.
In Washington, numbers count (pun intended). The bigger we are, the more we can do for you and the faster we can do it. And you can help us in a big way with just a couple of mouse clicks, right now! CUT, COPY, AND PASTE THIS EMAIL TO YOUR EMAL AND SEND IT TO EVERYONE IN YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS BOOK. Add a sentence or two encouraging your friends and family to join APSA—it's FREE. There's zero downside, and as you see, a lot of upside. All they have to do is visit our website and SIGN UP.
That's it. Then they'll get our emails. We keep our email traffic to a minimum and now that this legislation has passed, you will be hearing less from us. But important work remains. If you fly, even once a year, APSA is working for you—while a lot of powerful people do not have your safety in mind.
You need an advocate, and APSA is it. If everyone who reads this takes just 1 minute or less to do this, APSA will be the largest airline safety advocacy group in the nation.
Finally, we continue to incur the expenses associated with running any advocacy group. Please keep us in mind on payday and send what you can. See our webpage for more information on how you can donate.
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