Costly Air Marshal Service a Waste of Money

Scripps Howard News Service ^ | June 29, 2009 | Michael Collins

[JRandomFreeper]

Passengers wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell if trained terrorists took over control of an aircraft.

You are correct. They would probably die. So would the terrorists. 'Let's Roll' still rings loud and clear.

Good men died to kill bad men that wanted to kill more. Some days, that's all you get.

/ohnny

[DBrow]

Thanks, Iron, I wish I had said that when I was searching for equivalents.

We have armed guards in most other critical points.

[DBrow]

As I said above, a ruse can make the pilot open the armored door to respond to a threat.

Then, the CS grenade gets chucked and the plot thickens (assuming that the “wasteful” scanners and stuff at check-in are also taken out).

I mention CS because I found out that TSA takes a dim view of gas masks in carry on. Geiger counters too, though I could not figure out why.

[DBrow]

I agree. Society is safer if criminals don’t know who’s armed.

Plus I think something like Glasers is safer than the Sig .357 the marshals carry.

[DBrow]

I'm not sure what the problem is. There is more and more pressure on the program from the left, and this moonbat is part of it.

Maybe it's just people with guns?

Maybe someone is pumping money into the concept of rolling back all the airline safety stuff (much of which was put in by Algor, a solid leftie).

[Cicero]

Well, you may be right, although I’d like to see more pilots armed as well, at least those who choose to take the training.

How about we save money by abolishing the Department of Education instead?

(We wish.)

[pnh102]

What a fool. Kids who get vaccinations almost certainly never get the diseases for which they are vaccinated... let's stop that too!

Hmmm... cholera and dysentery aren't major problems in the USA either, we should stop garbage collection and sewer service too!

[Jeff Gordon]

Obviously, enough time has passed since 9/11 that we can now forget about it. Time heals all wounds but it also exposes all heels.

Congressman Duncan, you are an ass.

[Syntyr]

“Air marshals are easy to spot and any serious terrorist would take them out first.”

I don’t fly a lot, probably 5 or 6 times a year. In the past couple of years i have spotted hree of them on seperate flights. One was so lazy he made no attempt to conceal his weapon. He sat in the seat to the back of the plan just in front of the bathrooms. He was paying less attention to the passengers and more in his book he was reading. All it would have taken was a can of soda or my laptop power supply and bonk on the head as I was coming out of the rest room and viola I would have been armed!

[Boiling Pots]

Air Marshals haven’t stopped a thing, in fact, they’ve been accused of more crimes than they’ve stopped. It costs almost a billion dollars for this program. The Congressman is right, but since this program employs so many union members, its probably never going anywhere.

[DBrow]

The Omamabots won’t bring up 9/11 that’s for sure.

Time to move on. I wonder when the left will take down the Threat Warning color charts they insisted Bush put up all over.

It would be nice to fly without taking off my shoes, but I noticed that planes stopped dropping out of the sky after Oct 2001 (I think) when the Shoe Bomber got busted and they started checking everyone’s shoes. Nowhere near as many “accidents” after that.

[DBrow]

I think the mere presence of them stops some things.

And it costs nowhere near a billion dollars, look it up.

[doc1019]

I wish I could give you a qualified answer. I can’t. The only thing I can think of is the attempted universal reach of Islam. If you can clear the planes, trains and other forms of transportation of any deterrent … and crap happens!

But, to postulate this idea reeks of conspiracy … and I’m not a conspiracy nut.

The only thing I’m willing to personally consider along these lines is Obama’s Islamic heritage.

Other than that, who knows?

;-)

[Boiling Pots]

$820 million. Passengers would not allow it, and if they let the pilots arm themselves, then it’d even be a greater waste of money

[DBrow]

It could be just the common thought of liberals, that if you defend against something you get more of it, force is futile.

[mgstarr]

I’m sure no Congressman haven’t gotten brides/contributions from the recipients of those huge airport boondoggle equipment contracts.

[mgstarr]

I just hope the Air Marshals are of a better quality than the DMV-types who work for TSA.

[adopt4Christ]

But if there has been little, if any, terroristic activity on airplanes since the marshals have been implemented, doesn’t logic and common sense tell us that they are doing their job (despite a few bad apples, like any industry)????

Just a thought....I’m in favor of letting them stay.

[Milton Miteybad]

The congressman, however, said arrest records show that air marshals do very little. Since 2001, the entire agency has averaged slightly over four arrests per year. That comes to about one a year per 1,000 employees and means the government is spending about $200 million per arrest, Duncan said.


While the air marshal program may not make many arrests, I would submit that this is because they act as an effective deterrent. The question everybody was asking on September 12, 2001 was, "Where were the air marshals? Why weren't there any air marshals on these flights?"


How very soon we forget.


This Duncan guy appears to be using raw sewage for brains. Somebody should send him a memo telling him that it's just not working for him.

[aviator]

If there is a ruckus in the cabin, the armed pilot will stay in the cabin and defend the cabin from attack.

In Miami, a Federal Air Marshall prevented a terrorist from setting off a bomb in the terminal. One shot in the jetway stopped the guy. The program is worth it!