Posted on 09/11/2001 8:16:26 PM PDT by RightOnline
In light of today's horrific events, wherein a group of highly-trained, highly-motivated terrorists apparently armed with knives and/or box cutters hijacked no fewer than four civilian airliners, I'd like to offer a proposal for your consideration.
Is it time, in light of the state of our world today, for a new category of "concealed carry" licensing? Let's call it, for lack of better phraseology for the time being, CCW-ATQ (ATQ = "Air Travel Qualified").
What I envision is a category of armed citizens who are a subset of those with "CCW" licenses. They would undergo much additional training, akin to the training given to the "Air Marshals" whom we've all read about. They would undergo background checks, etc., much like individuals seeking higher security clearances.
Once certified, a citizen possessing a CCW-ATQ license would be approved to carry a weapon aboard a civilian airliner. The aircraft crew would be notified whether or not they had any CCW-ATQ certified passengers, but would NOT be given names or seating assignments (terrorists would know if such was provided to aircrews, thereby making such passengers easy targets..........nullifying much of their effectiveness).
I don't offer this suggestion lightly or flippantly, but as a proposal for protection of air travellers in American airspace. I cannot help but think that if such was allowed today, the hijackings just might not have been so successful.
I am always a sucker for self-defense empowerment.
Except the flight out of Boston that wound up crashing in PA. Apparently, as we're now beginning to find out, the passengers were TOLD that theirs was a "suicide flight", and they then decided to rush their attackers........knowing full-well that this would probably mean their deaths, but would deny the terrorists their intended target (White House??).
God in His Heaven, what heroes...........
for dixie,sw
for dixie,sw
The effect is same on human tissue but the compressed powder slugs will turn to dust if they hit any thing other than soft tissue. Closest thing available to civies I believe is Glaser Safety Slugs.
I'll reserve comment on the CHL allowed as any "good sleeper tango" could aquire said documents to carry the same as we would. An assigned Air Marshal(s) such as El Al uses with a side arm and a ballistic vest on every flight , a ballistic panel seperating cockpit from passengers and secured before any non-crew boards the AC is tanamount.
Granted one or two tangos pop up with firearms carried legally then ya have 4 or 5 more good guys react.....good ?, bad ?, I don't know.........I know I've flown my last commercial AC in this or any other country until "I" Know the Air Marshal program is back or each individual carrier contracts "real" security versus the rent a cop for minimum wage.
Now I'm not saying the Burns /Wells fargo type rent a cop were the failure here. They are good folks who try and do in most cases a great job. What I'm saying is educate, test, and give incentive through benefits of wage and training the desire to be above board and 100% alert 100% of the time through a program of time "on" and "off" eyeballing the x-ray or public to short periods that demand peak attention which cannot be usefully maintained by "anyone" for a 8 hour shift. watch and detect for an hour, walk and observe for an hour sort of plan.
I apologize for ideas of quick fixes but just have a need as most do to vent during this horrific time in our lives.
Just my opinions.........Right or wrong , mine Stay Safe.
I can see that.
At a minimum the cockpit crew should have ballistic protection from passengers and arms. Terrorists do not function well in armed society.
I certainly agree that it is potentially a good initial suggestion for a response. See my post #52 here
Stay well - Yorktown
/1/ Don't say "CCW", libs hate it.
/2/ Only permit former military specops and MPs and former or active LEOs to do it. Libs have blind faith in the "trained expert" category, while they think that conservatives with CCWs are insane yokels. Just don't tell them that 50% of CCW holders will qualify as "trained experts".
/3/ Mandate attending a special one week training course. Libs also have blind trust in this, so they will "buy" it.
If we do these things, no problemo. Also, let all pilots get a CCW in their home state and carry. The pilot can already kill everyone on board, why not let him protect himself and thereby the rest of the pax? If you can't trust the pilots with a pistol, we need to chop up all the planes for scrap.
perhaps such volunteers should be listed/cleared/ sworn-in(???) by the USMS.
a 38spl/44spl w/glasers is about right for indoor shooting!
for dixie,sw
Deal me in.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic!)
In some regards, from this day on, the rules have changed. All hijacked passengers now know that not only may they be headed for a gruesome, terrifying death, but that their complacency in accepting it may result in the deaths of other innocent people on the ground. In this new era using of hijacked planes as cruise missiles, we need to get our priorities straight. Worrying about whether a Glasser will put a bullet hole in the plane is pretty stupid when youre trying to prevent hundreds or thousands of innocent people from dying.
Again, putting Air Marshalls on planes is mostly a useless gesture. The planes in these incidents had just 50 to 60 passengers on them, tops. You think the authorities are going to bother with routinely putting EVEN ONE cop on planes that small? Worse yet, just about ANY size plane could be hijacked for this purpose. We cant put marshalls on all of them, let alone in sufficient numbers to do much good.
Again, instituting an Air Travel CCW program is the solution that stands the best chance of actually being effective.
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