[Skibane]

Arming the pilot/copliot seems like a marginal solution to me. First, they're both normally sitting with their backs to the passenger compartment door. It would still be pretty easy for a group of terrorists to kick the door down and kill or injure them before they could even draw their guns. Next, there's only two of them, which makes them easier to overwhelm. Finally, everyone on the plane knows who the only people with guns are.

Putting "incognito" armed marshalls on high-risk flights is another possibility. However, it's expensive, there would probably not be more than one or two of them on any given flight, and it's quite possible that they wouldn't be on the actualy flight being hijacked. In short, it's a "feel good" solution for benefit of public window-dressing, but of little practical value.

"Flight-qualified" CCW sounds like the best solution to me. If the airlines want to encourage pilots and flight attendents to also qualify to carry aboard airlines, so much the better.

[RightOnline]

Thanks for the dead-on summary and supportive words.